» » Taylor Swift Hot News

Taylor Swift Hot News

Taylor Swift

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
×
Sign into your Wajam account and discover what your friends have shared
For Swift's 2006 album, see Taylor Swift (album).
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift 043 (18117777270).jpg
Swift performing at Ford Field in Detroit duringThe 1989 World Tour in May 2015
Background information
Birth nameTaylor Alison Swift
BornDecember 13, 1989 (age 25)
Reading, Pennsylvania
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer-songwriter
  • actress
  • record producer
  • philanthropist
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
  • banjo
  • ukulele
  • piano
Years active2004–present
LabelsBig Machine
Websitetaylorswift.com
Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008. Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me," Fearless became the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. The album won four Grammy Awards, making Swift the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Swift's third and fourth albums, 2010's Speak Now and 2012's Red, both sold more than one million copies within the first week of their U.S release. Speak Now's "Mean" won two Grammy Awards, while Red's singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" were worldwide hits. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused1989, was released in 2014 and sold more copies in its opening week than any album in the previous 12 years, making Swift the first and only act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in the opening release week. The singles "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Early life

When Swift was 12 years old, she was taught how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You."[32] She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem titled "Monster in My Closet," but now began to focus on songwriting.[33] In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With Dymtrow's help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels.[34] After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, the eighth-grader was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.[35] To help Swift break into country music her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee.[8]

Career

2004–08: Career beginnings and Taylor Swift

Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was 14 years old,[40] having signed an artist development deal with RCA Records.[41] Swift proceeded to work with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally and The Warren Brothers.[42][43] She eventually formed a lasting working relationship withLiz Rose. Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together.[44] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.[45] Rose said that the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks."[46] Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman.[44]
After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York, in 2004,[43][47] Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.[48] Swift left RCA Records when she was 15—the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material.[27][49] Swift later recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."[50] She also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents. In 2010, a judge nullified six of Dymtrow's legal claims. The remaining unjust enrichment claim was settled out of court.[34][51][51]
Taylor Swift sits and leans over her oak guitar while picking a string
Swift performing at the Maverick Saloon & Grill in Santa Maria, Californiain 2006
Taylor Swift, wearing a white dress and sunglasses, plays an acoustic guitar while standing at a microphone stand
Swift performing at Yahoo!headquarters in Sunnyvale, California in 2007
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy upon the release of the lead single "Tim McGraw" in June 2006, and Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio."[59] She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift in a radio tour and later commented, "Radio tours for most artists last six weeks. Mine lasted six months."[27] Swift baked cookies and painted canvases to gift to radio station programmers who played her music.[60] She made many television appearances, including on the Grand Ole Opry,[61] Good Morning America,[62] and TRL.[63] Swift, a self-described "kid of the internet," used Myspace to build a fanbase.[64] This was, at the time, "revolutionary in country music."[65] Borchetta has said that his decision to sign a 16-year-old singer-songwriter initially raised eyebrows among his record industry peers but Swift tapped into a previously unknown market: teenage girls who listen to country music.[65]
Following "Tim McGraw", four further singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All were highly successful on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" both reaching number one. "Our Song" made Swift the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one country song.[66] "Teardrops on My Guitar" became a minor pop hit; it reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.[67] The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week of release[68] and, as of March 2011, had sold over 5.5 million copies worldwide.[69] Swift also released a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, in October 2007, and an EP, Beautiful Eyes, in July 2008.[70][71]
Swift toured extensively in support of Taylor Swift. In addition to her own material, Swift played covers of songs by Beyoncé, Rihanna, John Waite, Lynyrd Skynyrd andEminem.[72][73][74] She conducted meet-and-greet sessions with fans before and after her concerts—these lasted for up to four hours.[75] As well as festival and theater dates, Swift performed as an opening act for several country artists' concert tours. In late 2006, she opened for Rascal Flatts on the final nine dates of their Me & My Gang Tour, after the previous supporting act Eric Church was fired.[62] Swift later sent Church her first gold record with a note: "Thanks for playing 'too long' and 'too loud' on the Flatts tour. I sincerely appreciate it. Taylor."[76] In 2007, she served as the opening act on twenty dates for George Strait's tour,[77] several dates on Kenny Chesney's Flip-Flop Summer Tour,[78]selected dates on Brad Paisley's Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour[79] and several dates for Tim McGraw and Hill's joint Soul2Soul II Tour.[80] Swift again opened for Rascal Flatts on their Still Feels Good Tour in 2008.[81]

2008–10: Fearless


Swift performing in thePrudential Center in New Jersey during the Fearless Tour in 2010
Swift also recorded a number of side-projects. She released a cover of Tom Petty's "American Girl" through Rhapsody in 2009,[106] and made her stage entrance to Petty's recording of the song until 2013.[107] She contributed backing vocals to Mayer's "Half of My Heart", a single featured on his fourth album.[108] She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler[109] and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier"—with Martin Johnson and Robert Ellis Orrall, respectively.[110]Swift also provided vocals for Boys Like Girls's "Two Is Better Than One", written by Martin Johnson.[111] She contributed two songs—including "Today Was a Fairytale"—to the Valentine's Day soundtrack,[112] and recorded a cover of Better Than Ezra's "Breathless" for the Hope for Haiti Now album.[113]

Swift performing in Los Angeles during the Fearless Tour in 2010
Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video in 2009.[114] Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents.[115] In the event's press room, Swift, a fan of West's music,[116] said that she did not have "any hard feelings" toward him.[117][118] The incident received much media attention and inspired many Internet memes.[119] A few days later, Swift told an interviewer that West offered her a personal apology, which she accepted: "He was very sincere."[114] She refused to discuss the incident in subsequent interviews so as not to make a "bigger deal" of it: "It happened on TV, so everybody saw what happened ... It's not something I feel like we need to keep talking about."[120] It has been said that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity."[121]
During the 2010 Grammy Awards ceremony, Swift sang "You Belong with Me" and "Rhiannon" with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received negative reviews and sparked a widespread media backlash.[121][125] Her vocals were described variously as "badly off-key," "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched."[126][127] While Caramanica of The New York Times found it "refreshing to see someone so gifted make the occasional flub" and described Swift as "the most important new pop star of the past few years,"[124] music analyst Bob Lefsetz predicted that her career would end "overnight." He publicly appealed to Swift's father to hire a "crisis publicity agent" to manage the story because "Taylor's too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made."[128][129] Stevie Nicks, writing in Time, defended the singer:
Fearless won many other accolades and has become the most-awarded album in country music history.[131] Swift became the youngest ever artist and one of only six women to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association.[132] Fearless also won the Association's Album of the Year award.[132] Swift was the youngest ever artist to win the Academy of Country Music's Album of the Year honor.[133] The American Music Awards honored Swift with Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album plaudits.[134] She was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame[135] and was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association.[136] Billboardnamed her 2009's Artist of the Year.[137] Swift was included in Time‍ '​s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2010.[138]

2010–12: Speak Now

0 Response to "Taylor Swift Hot News"

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)