Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country pop singer-songwriter and actress.

In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", then her self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released her second album, Fearless. Fearless and Taylor Swift finished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. Fearless has topped the Billboard 200 in 11 non-consecutive weeks; no album has spent more time at No. 1 since 2000. Swift was named Artist of the Year by Billboard Magazine in 2009.Fearless won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2010.

In 2008, her albums sold a combined four million copies, making her the best-selling musician of the year in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Forbes ranked Swift 2009's 69th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $18 million. In January 2010 Nielsen SoundScan lists Swift as the top-selling digital artist in music history with over 24.3 million digital tracks sold.To date, she has sold over ten million albums worldwide

Early life

Swift was born and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania as the first child and only daughter of Andrea, a homemaker, and Scott Swift, a stockbroker. She has a younger brother, Austin.She was raised as a Baptist. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem entitled "Monster In My Closet".

At the age of ten, Swift began writing songs and singing them at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. When she was 12 years old, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair. In 2008, she earned her high school diploma through homeschooling at the age of 18.

Songwriting interest

Swift began learning to play guitar from a computer repairman who showed her how to play three chords. After learning those three chords, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You". She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. Other kids would react badly to her so she wrote songs about them.

Early work

Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain.Her other influences include LeAnn Rimes, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, and Swift's grandmother. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer, Taylor's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger years, she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton.She also credits the Dixie Chicks for demonstrating the impact you can make by "stretching boundaries".

At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town, but was rejected.

After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where her rendition of the national anthem received much attention.Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was 12. Swift began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local songwriters. By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.

When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist development deal. After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big Machine Records. At age 14, she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.

Music career

2006–2008: Taylor Swift

Swift performing at a café with a koa wood guitar in June 2006. Swift still performs with custom-made Taylor guitars to this day.

Swift released her debut single, "Tim McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching #6 on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Songs chart. Her self-titled debut album was later released on October 24, 2006.[32] Debuting high on the Billboard 200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 on the Billboard 200.Her debut album spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks.The only other country artists this decade to achieve the number-one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood.

The music video for "Tim McGraw" won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006.On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well.

The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops on My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. In mid-2007, the song peaked at #2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released with a pop remix that brought "Teardrops on My Guitar" to #13 on the Hot 100 and #11 on the Pop 100. In October 2007, Swift was awarded Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Assn. Intl., making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.

Her third song off her debut album, "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts, peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and rose to #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Swift recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, which was released exclusively at Target in late 2007. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn", was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted and soon peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country chart in spring 2008.

Swift performing at Yahoo HQ in 2007.

"Should've Said No" became Swift's second #1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift released Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.In its first week of release, the album sold 45,000 copies, debuting at #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and #9 on the Billboard 200. With her self-titled debut album sitting at #2 during the same week, Swift became the first artist since 1997 to hold the Top 2 positions of the Top Country Albums chart.

2008–2009: Fearless

Swift's latest studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008.[44] The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,304 were the highest debut of any country artist in 2008. This is also the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall behind Lil Wayne, AC/DC and Coldplay.[45] Its lead single "Love Story" became a hit on both the country and pop charts. During the first week of release, more than 129,000 of Swift's sales were sold digitally. This gives Swift the best online start for any country album in history.[46] It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004. Through its eighth week of release, Fearless has sold more than 338,467 paid downloads, making it the bestselling country album in digital history. In second place is Swift's debut Taylor Swift with sales of 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009.

Swift performing live in 2007.

In its debut week, seven songs in total on Fearless were charted on Billboard Hot 100, tying Swift with Miley Cyrus for the most by a female artist in a single week. With "White Horse" charted at #13, this gave Swift her sixth top 20 debut of 2008, a calendar year record for any artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Of the 13 tracks on Fearless, 11 have already spent time on the Hot 100. "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Olympics.

The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released on September 12, 2008. The Fearless album includes the "Love Story" music video which is based on Romeo and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Because of its popularity, it is considered Taylor Swift's signature song. Fifteen weeks after being added to pop radio, "Love Story" also became the first country crossover recording to hit number one on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart in the 16-year-history of the list, as well as number one on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart.

The second single from Fearless, "White Horse", was released on December 8, 2008. The music video for the song premiered on CMT on February 7, 2009. Though it missed the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot Country Songs as of the week April 11, 2009, "White Horse" claimed the #1 spot atop the USA Today/Country Aircheck chart (powered by Mediabase) in that week. "Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on Swift's relationship with singer Joe Jonas.

She was the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart.It also was the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at #1 on The Billboard 200. In mid-January 2009, Swift became the first country artist to top the 2 million mark in paid downloads with three different songs.

Swift is Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008. Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling artists across all genres in 2008. Fearless and Taylor Swift took the #1 and #2 slots on 2008 Year-End Canadian Country Albums Chart. Swift sang the Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia on October 25, 2008.

In January 2009, Swift announced her North American Fearless Tour planned for 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months. The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville, Indiana. In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. On February 8, 2009, Swift performed her song "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus at the 51st Grammy Awards.

As of the week ending February 8, 2009, Swift's single "Love Story" became the country song with the most paid downloads in history. Since the release of Swift's second album, Fearless, she has released one new song "Crazier" for the soundtrack of the feature film Hannah Montana: The Movie. At the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, Swift picked up Album of the Year honors as a performer and producer for Fearless.

Swift performing during her Fearless tour in August, 2009.

Swift is the youngest artist in history to win the ACM Album of the Year award. The Academy lauded her for career achievements including selling more albums in 2008 than any other artist in any genre of music, the breakthrough success of her debut album, and the worldwide crossover success of her #1 single "Love Story". The Academy also cited Swift's contribution to helping country music attract a younger audience.As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads, as well as three Gold Mobile Ringtones.

(source:wikipedia)