Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is a phenomenally successful young country
music artist who has broken records with her 21st century take on
country music and introduced the genre to an entirely new audience worldwide. A
shy, reserved character, her music is poignantly autobiographical and though
her songs are mostly about the trials of young love and her life experience to
date, she writes with a maturity beyond her years.
Born in Wyomissing Pennsylvania in 1989, she learned to play the guitar and began writing songs when she was just ten years old. Her love of country music came from listening to artists like Shania Twain, Dolly Parton and the Dixie Chicks and her opera singing grandmother encouraged the young Taylor to pursue her passion and write as often as she could. By the time she was eleven years old, she had made her first trip to Nashville and distributed a demo tape of her songs to every record label in town. Though she was unsuccessful the first time round, she continued to visit the city and sing, until her family eventually decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb so she could focus on her career.
Single minded and extremely focused, Swift continued to work hard on her music and came to the attention of Scott Borchetta after performing at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. He signed her to his label Big Machine Records and at the same time she became the youngest songwriter ever to be hired by the Sony ATV/Tree publishing house.
She released her debut single ‘Tim McGraw’ in 2006 and followed this up with her debut album entitled Taylor Swift in October 2006. It sold 39,000 copies in its first week and peaked at number one on Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart. It went on to spend eight consecutive weeks at the number one spot and was to be number one for a total of 24 out of 91 weeks in the chart. This phenomenal achievement broke records for the decade, as the only other country music artists to have had an album at the top for twenty weeks or more were The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. Her record breaking success was to continue when, at eighteen, she became the youngest artist ever to be named Songwriter/Artist of the Year 2007 by the Nashville Songwriters Association International. The following year she released ‘Beautiful Eyes’, an EP that could only be bought at Wal-Mart, which went straight to number one on the Top Country Albums Chart. With her self-titled debut album still at number two, she had the first and second spots in the chart that week.
Her next album, ‘Fearless’ was released in October 2008 and really catapulted Swift onto the international stage. The single ‘Love Story’ was a massive hit in both the UK and the US and the album has become the most (legally) downloaded country album in the history of digital sales. ‘Fearless’ also won Album of the Year at the 44th Academy of Country Music Awards and set yet another record for Swift, as she is the youngest person ever to take home this award.
