Taylor Swift is one of those great artists that can be enjoyed by listeners of any age group. She is also an honest to goodness good kid who has never smoked a cigarette, done drugs or drank alcohol. She also happens to have the most Top 40 hits of any female artist in any genre this decade. She writes all her own songs, is in charge of all aspects of her career and she's only nineteen years old.
Taylor Swift was born on December 13,1989 in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. When she was twelve years old, she started writing songs and playing a twelve string guitar. She went to Nashville, handing out a demo disc to every record label in town. They thought she was cute but they didn't take her seriously. At fourteen, her family relocated to Nashville to help her follow her dream of breaking into the country music business. It was then that she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. When she was 15 years old, Taylor rejected a developmental deal with RCA Records, they wanted to watch her for another year and see how she did. That wasn't ok with her, though. Not long after, she was performing at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville and caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who had just left Universal Records and hadn't even named his new label yet. He decided on Big Machine Records and signed Taylor Swift to the label.
Taylor Swift's self-titled debut album was released in October of 2006; it's since gone platinum three times. Taylor wrote or co-wrote all the songs on the album and it peaked at #1 on Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 on the Billboard 200. The album remained at the top of the Top Country Album charts for 24 weeks. The only other country artists this decade to acheive the number one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. The first single from the album, Tim McGraw reached #6 on the Billboard's Hot Country Songs Chart. The video set a record by appearing for thirty consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted Top 20 Countdown and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video for Tim McGraw won Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. The second single off the album, Teardrops on My Guitar went to # 2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. In October of 2007, Taylor Swift won the Nashville Songwriters Association Inernational's Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award. She was the youngest artist to ever win the award. She also won the CMA's Horizon Award in 2007.
Our Song, the third single became her first #1 song, spending six weeks at #1 on Country charts. The song also went to #16 on Billboard's Hot 100 and to #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Her fourth single, Picture to Burn, climbed to #3 on Billboard Country Chart. The fifth single, Should've Said No also went to #1. She then released an EP available exclusively at Wal Mart, titled Beautiful Eyes. It debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums Chart and #9 on the Billboard 200. Her self-titled debut album was at #2 the same week and she became the first artist since LeAnn Rimes in 1997 to hold the top two positions of the Top Country Albums Chart. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best New Artist but lost to Amy Winehouse.
Fearless
Swift's second album, Fearless, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and sold 592,304 copies in the first week. It was the highest debut of any country artist in 2008 and also the largest US opening sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music. In it's debut week, seven songs from Fearless were charted on Billboard Hot 100, tying her with Hannah Montana for the most by a female artist in a single week. White Horse at #13 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 thirteen tracks on Fearless, eleven of them have already spent time on the Hot 100. Love Story climbed to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first country crossover recording to hit #1 on the Nielsen BDS/Top 40 chart in the sixteen year history of the list, as well as as hitting #1 on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart. Taylor Swift is the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart. Fearless became the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. Love Story became the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart and then You Belong With Me did the same.
Taylor Swift was country music's best-selling artist of 2008. She also won the Billboard Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008 Awards. At the 2009, Academy of Country Music Awards she won the award for Top Female Vocalist. Love Story won Video of the Year and Fearless took home Album of the Year. She also won the Crystal Milestone Award for Outstanding Achievement in Country Music in 2009. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when You Belong With Me took home the Best Female Video Award. At the 2009 CMA Awards, she won the Album of the Year honors for Fearless. Love Story won Music Video of the Year and Taylor Swift won the Entertainer of the Year Award.
Taylor Swift was born on December 13,1989 in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. When she was twelve years old, she started writing songs and playing a twelve string guitar. She went to Nashville, handing out a demo disc to every record label in town. They thought she was cute but they didn't take her seriously. At fourteen, her family relocated to Nashville to help her follow her dream of breaking into the country music business. It was then that she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. When she was 15 years old, Taylor rejected a developmental deal with RCA Records, they wanted to watch her for another year and see how she did. That wasn't ok with her, though. Not long after, she was performing at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville and caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who had just left Universal Records and hadn't even named his new label yet. He decided on Big Machine Records and signed Taylor Swift to the label.
Taylor Swift's self-titled debut album was released in October of 2006; it's since gone platinum three times. Taylor wrote or co-wrote all the songs on the album and it peaked at #1 on Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 on the Billboard 200. The album remained at the top of the Top Country Album charts for 24 weeks. The only other country artists this decade to acheive the number one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. The first single from the album, Tim McGraw reached #6 on the Billboard's Hot Country Songs Chart. The video set a record by appearing for thirty consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted Top 20 Countdown and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video for Tim McGraw won Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. The second single off the album, Teardrops on My Guitar went to # 2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. In October of 2007, Taylor Swift won the Nashville Songwriters Association Inernational's Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award. She was the youngest artist to ever win the award. She also won the CMA's Horizon Award in 2007.
Our Song, the third single became her first #1 song, spending six weeks at #1 on Country charts. The song also went to #16 on Billboard's Hot 100 and to #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Her fourth single, Picture to Burn, climbed to #3 on Billboard Country Chart. The fifth single, Should've Said No also went to #1. She then released an EP available exclusively at Wal Mart, titled Beautiful Eyes. It debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums Chart and #9 on the Billboard 200. Her self-titled debut album was at #2 the same week and she became the first artist since LeAnn Rimes in 1997 to hold the top two positions of the Top Country Albums Chart. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best New Artist but lost to Amy Winehouse.
Fearless
Swift's second album, Fearless, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and sold 592,304 copies in the first week. It was the highest debut of any country artist in 2008 and also the largest US opening sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music. In it's debut week, seven songs from Fearless were charted on Billboard Hot 100, tying her with Hannah Montana for the most by a female artist in a single week. White Horse at #13 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 thirteen tracks on Fearless, eleven of them have already spent time on the Hot 100. Love Story climbed to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first country crossover recording to hit #1 on the Nielsen BDS/Top 40 chart in the sixteen year history of the list, as well as as hitting #1 on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart. Taylor Swift is the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart. Fearless became the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. Love Story became the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart and then You Belong With Me did the same.
Taylor Swift was country music's best-selling artist of 2008. She also won the Billboard Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008 Awards. At the 2009, Academy of Country Music Awards she won the award for Top Female Vocalist. Love Story won Video of the Year and Fearless took home Album of the Year. She also won the Crystal Milestone Award for Outstanding Achievement in Country Music in 2009. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when You Belong With Me took home the Best Female Video Award. At the 2009 CMA Awards, she won the Album of the Year honors for Fearless. Love Story won Music Video of the Year and Taylor Swift won the Entertainer of the Year Award.
Charitable Works
Taylor Swift is well known for her charitable nature. In September of 2007, she teamed up with Tennessee Governor, Phil Bredesen to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. In participation with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police they distributed Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state to try and combat internet sex crimes.
In 2008, Big Machine Records gave Swift a pink Chevy pick-up truck and she donated it to the Victory Junction Gang, a children's charity. She also donated all the proceeds from her merchandise sales at the 2008 Country Music Festival to the Nashville Area Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and the National Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. When winning Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year awards at the 2008 CMT Music Awards, Swift donated $10,000 (funded by CMT One Country) to St. Jude's Research Hospital. In 2009, she won the same two awards and donated $5,000 to American Red Cross. She donated $100,000 to Red Cross in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. She also donated her prom dress to DonateMyDress.org and helped to raise $1,200 for charity.
I decided to write this after reading about the comments that Wynona Judd made previous to Taylor Swift's Entertainer of the Year win the other night. She gave a statement saying basically that Taylor hadn't earned her success the way she and her mother had to in the old days and that it was "too much too soon". Honestly, in my opinion, it came across as sour grapes and I wanted to just showcase all the good this young woman has done with her fame and how much she deserves the success she's achieved. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
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