Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country music singer-songwriter. Signed to the independent Big Machine Records label in 2006, Taylor made her debut on the U.S. Billboard country charts with the release of her debut single "Tim McGraw".
Her self-titled debut album was released in late 2006, and has since been certified triple platinum by the RIAA in the United States. As of June 21, 2008 the album has sold 3,021,703 copies in the U.S and it has produced five Top Ten singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs, including the Number One single "Our Song"; all five of her singles have also reached Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album was re-issued in 2008 with a set of bonus tracks.
Taylor Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and lives with her parents, Scott and Andrea, and her brother, Austin,in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift's influences include her grandmother and LeAnn Rimes.Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer,Taylor's tastes always ran more toward country and she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton at an early age.She also credits the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain for demonstrating how much impact can be made by "stretching boundaries".At the age of ten, Swift began to perform around her home town, Wyomissing, singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs, and also started writing songs. Her first exposure to the music business consisted of recording demo tapes at a studio. At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville in hopes of obtaining a record deal by handing out a demo tape she had made of her singing along to karaoke songs. She handed this tape to receptionists at every label on Music Row.After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, when her rendition of the national anthem moved the crowd. Swift signed to a record label when she was 13 years old, but walked away because it "wasn't where she wanted to be."[citation needed]
Swift began to regularly visit Nashville, where, at age 12, she wrote songs with local songwriters. Eventually, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.[6] Taylor Swift performed at Nashville's premier songwriters' café, The Bluebird Café, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records.
Swift plays a Taylor Grand Auditorium acoustic guitar made of koa wood.
Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006 and on October 24, 2006, her self-titled album was released. Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. It later peaked at #1 at Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 at Billboard 200. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts, and has since sold over 3 million copies.Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace. She is currently ranked at 15 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist.
Taylor Swift performing in 2007.Swift's debut single, "Tim McGraw", was released in Summer 2006. "I wrote the song in my freshman year of high school", she says. "I was dating a guy named Brandon Borello, and I was about to move. I knew we were going to break up so I started thinking of all the things that I knew would remind him of me. Surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was that my favorite country artist is Tim McGraw"."Tim McGraw" peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of January 27, 2007. The song's music video set a record by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music countdown show,and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video also 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 the country music channel.
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the first time to him. 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.On August 21, 2007, Swift performed live on the season finale of America's Got Talent.
The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops On My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high school in which she liked a boy named "Drew Hardwick". He only saw Swift as a friend and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted she heard "through the grapevine" that Drew is well aware the song was written about him."Teadrops on My Guitar" originally made its peak positions in Summer 2007, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Country Chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released to the Hot 100 and Pop 100 in late 2007 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's songwriting peers at the Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her with their Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award, making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.
On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our Song", the third single from her album, which would go on to become her first #1 song the week of December 22, 2007, where it leaped up from the #6 spot. This was the biggest jump to Number One since January 1998, when Tim McGraw's "Just to See You Smile", also jumped from #6 to #1."Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts and also peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the Billboard Pop 100.
Swift also recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season, that was released October 16, 2007, exclusively available at Target stores. The album, which was not as successful as her self-titled debut, featured both holiday classics such as "Last Christmas" and original songs written by Swift.
Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's latest single, "Picture to Burn" is the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted early in 2008 and is currently a major hit on the Billboard Country Chart.
Swift was covergirl of Seventeen Magazine in the June 2008 issue. She was also named number 52 on Maxim's sexiest women of '08.
Big Machine Records announced the release of "Should've Said No" on Mon., May 19. The song is the fifth and final single from Swift's debut album. She performed it on 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards.The performance started off with her dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, but soon after a short black halter dress was revealed. In the last minute of the song, she went backstage to perform the final verse under a cascading waterfall. Swift had wanted to do that performance on stage with the water and the change of clothes since she was 10 years old.
Upcoming album
Swift's second studio album is slated for a fall 2008 release. In a repeat of her debut album, Swift is expected to have at least a co-writing credit on every track; John Rich and Colbie Caillat contributed writing to the album's early songs, according to Billboard Magazine.
Charity
On September 21, 2007, Swift launched a campaign to protect children from online predators.Swift has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes.
The year-long campaign, launched in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state.