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 US. The album won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Swift's third album, 2010's Speak Now, sold over one million copies in its first week of US release. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards. In 2012, Swift released her fourth album, Red. Red's opening US sales of 1.2 million were the highest recorded in a decade, with Swift becoming the only female artist to have two million-plus opening weeks. The singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" were worldwide hits.
Swift is known for narrative songs about her personal experiences. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Swift's other achievements include seven Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, eleven Country Music Association Awards and six Academy of Country Music Awards. To date, she has sold over 26 million albums and 75 million digital single downloads, making her one of the best-selling artists of all time. Forbes estimates that she is worth over $220 million. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the ensemble comedy Valentine's Day (2010) and the animated film The Lorax (2012). As a philanthropist, Swift supports arts education, children's literacy, natural disaster relief, LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, and charities for sick children.
Early life
Swift's family owned several Quarter horses and a Shetland pony and her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother first put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and she later competed in horse shows. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theatre. She performed in many Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions and traveled regularly to Broadway for vocal and acting lessons. Swift then turned her attention to country music; Shania Twain's songs made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs, Boy Scout meetings and sporting events. At the age of eleven, after many failed attempts, Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes's "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. This growing ambition began to isolate Swift from her middle school peers.
After watching a Behind the Music episode about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to Nashville for spring break to leave a demo of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realized that "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different." At the age of twelve, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem titled "Monster in My Closet" but now began to focus on songwriting. 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 in a Maybelline compilation CD and took meetings with major record labels. 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.
When Swift was fourteen, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. "My parents took all the pressure off by saying, ‘We’re just moving because we love the area, so don’t worry.’ They knew nothing about the industry and had no involvement in entertainment, but I was obsessed with it and so they did their research and read up about it to help me in every way they could. They’re amazing people." In Tennessee, she attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore years. Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services. She earned her high school diploma in 2008, having completed her final two years of course work in twelve months.
Music career
2004–08: Career beginnings and Taylor Swift
Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen. As part of her artist development deal with RCA Records, she had writing sessions with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally and The Warren Brothers. She eventually formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose has 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." Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman. After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York, Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. Swift left RCA Records when she was fifteen; the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was eighteen to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material. She also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents."'I genuinely felt that I was running out of time," Swift later recalled. "I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through." At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records. She became one of the label's first signings, with her father purchasing a three per cent stake in the fledgling company at an estimated cost of $120,000. As an introduction to the country music business, Borchetta arranged for Swift to intern as an artist escort at the CMA Music Festival.
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 and Eminem. She conducted meet-and-greet sessions with fans before and after her concerts; these lasted for up to four hours. 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. 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" In 2007, she served as the opening act on twenty dates for George Strait's tour, several dates on Kenny Chesney's Flip-Flop Summer Tour, selected dates on Brad Paisley's Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour and several dates for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's joint Soul2Soul II Tour. Swift again opened for Rascal Flatts on their Still Feels Good Tour in 2008. Swift and Alan Jackson were jointly named the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, with Swift becoming the youngest person ever to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards's Top New Female Vocalist award and the American Music Awards's Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse.
2008–10: Fearless, VMA controversy and Grammy backlash
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released in November 2008. Swift wrote seven of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining six with songwriters Liz Rose, John Rich, Colbie Caillat and Hillary Lindsey. She co-produced the album with Nathan Chapman. Musically, it has been said that the record is characterized by "loud, lean guitars and rousing choruses," with the occasional "bit of fiddle and banjo tucked into the mix." The New York Times described Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country's foremost pragmatist and more in touch with her inner life than most adults." The Village Voice felt she displayed "preternatural wisdom and inclusiveness," "masterfully avoiding the typical diarist's pitfalls of trite banality and pseudo-profound bullshit." Rolling Stone described her as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture" whose "squirmingly intimate and true" songs seemed to be "literally ripped from a suburban girl's diary." Music critic Robert Christgau characterized Swift as "an uncommonly-to-impossibly strong and gifted teenage girl." Swift promoted Fearless heavily upon its release. An episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show was dedicated to the album launch and Swift appeared on many other chat shows. She communicated with fans using social media platforms such as Twitter and personal video blogs. The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Four more singles were released throughout 2008 and 2009: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with sales of 592,304 and has since sold over 8.6 million copies worldwide. It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success.
Swift won four Grammy Awards in 2010, from a total of eight nominations. Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, while "White Horse" was named Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. She was the youngest ever artist to win Album of the Year. During the ceremony, Swift sang "Rhiannon" and "You Belong with Me" with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received negative reviews and sparked a widespread media backlash. Her vocals were described variously as "badly off-key," "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched." While 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," 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." Stevie Nicks, writing in Time, defended the singer: "Taylor reminds me of myself in her determination and her childlike nature. It's an innocence that's so special and so rare. This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John ... The female rock-'n'-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business." Fearless won many other accolades and has become the most awarded album in country music history. Swift became the youngest ever artist and one of only six women to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. Fearless also won the Association's Album of the Year award. Swift was the youngest ever artist to win the Academy of Country Music's Album of the Year honor. The American Music Awards honored Swift with Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album plaudits. She was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. Swift was included in Time's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2010.
2010–12: Speak Now and world tour
Swift released her third studio album, Speak Now, in October 2010. She wrote all fourteen songs alone and co-produced the record with longtime collaborator Nathan Chapman. Musically, it has been said that the album "expands beyond country-pop to border both alternative rock and dirty bubblegum pop." The New York Times described the album as savage, musically diverse and "excellent too, possibly her best." The Village Voice remarked that the album demanded "a true appreciation of Swift's talent, which is not confessional, but dramatic: Like a procession of country songwriters before her, she creates characters and situations—some from life—and finds potent ways to describe them." Music critic Robert Christgau found the album's songs "overlong and overworked" but remarked that "they evince an effort that bears a remarkable resemblance to care—that is, to caring in the best, broadest, and most emotional sense." Rolling Stone described Swift as one of the best songwriters in "pop, rock or country": "Swift might be a clever Nashville pro who knows all the hitmaking tricks, but she's also a high-strung, hyper-romantic gal with a melodramatic streak the size of the Atchafalaya Swamp." Swift carried out an extensive promotional campaign prior to Speak Now's release. She appeared on various talk shows and morning shows, and gave free mini-concerts in unusual locations, including an open-decker bus on Hollywood Boulevard and a departure lounge at JFK airport. She took part in a "guitar pull" alongside Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Lionel Richie at LA's Club Nokia; the musicians shared the stage and took turns introducing and playing acoustic versions of their songs to raise money for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The album's lead single, "Mine", was released in August 2010 and five further singles were released throughout 2010 and 2011: "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly" and "Ours". Speak Now was a major commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Its opening sales of 1,047,000 copies made it the sixteenth album in US history to sell one million copies in a single week. As of February 2012, Speak Now has sold over 5.7 million copies worldwide.
While Swift was completing her fourth album in the summer of 2012, James Taylor invited her to appear as a special guest during his Tanglewood set; they performed "Fire and Rain", "Love Story" and "Ours" together. Taylor, who first met Swift when she was eighteen, has said that, "we just hit it off. I loved her songs, and her presence on stage was so great." During this period, Swift also contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album. "Safe & Sound" was co-written and recorded with The Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett. John Paul White has said working with Swift was "a revelation ... It truly was a collaboration." It was released as the album's lead single and, as of January 2013, has sold over 1.4 million copies in the United States. It won Best Song Written For Visual Media at the 2013 Grammy Awards and was nominated for Best Original Song at the 70th Golden Globe Awards. Swift's second contribution to the album, "Eyes Open", was written solely by the singer and produced by Nathan Chapman. In addition, Swift contributed vocals to "Both of Us", a Dr. Luke-produced single from B.o.B's second album Strange Clouds.
2012–14: Red and tabloid coverage
Swift's fourth studio album, Red, was released in October 2012. She wrote nine of the album's sixteen songs alone. The remaining seven were co-written with Max Martin, Liz Rose, Dan Wilson, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody. Nathan Chapman served as the album's lead producer but Jeff Bhasker, Butch Walker, Jacknife Lee, Dann Huff and Shellback also produced individual tracks. Chapman has said he encouraged Swift "to branch out and to test herself in other situations." Musically, while there is experimentation with heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop, it is "sprinkled among more recognisably Swiftian fare." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times found Red "less detailed and more rushed than her usual fare" but placed it at number two on his end-of-year list, characterizing it as the album on which Swift "stops pretending she’s anything but a pop megastar, one with grown-up concerns, like how two bodies speak to each other and how taste in records can be a stand-in for moral turpitude." The Times praised her "sublime" lyrics, particularly those on the "brooding" "All Too Well". Rolling Stone enjoyed "watching Swift find her pony-footing on Great Songwriter Mountain. She often succeeds in joining the Joni/Carole King tradition of stark-relief emotional mapping ... Her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop."As part of the Red promotional campaign, representatives from 72 worldwide radio stations were flown to Nashville during release week for individual interviews with Swift. She also appeared on many television chat shows and performed at award ceremonies in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Australia. The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", became Swift's first number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Six further singles have been released: "Begin Again" (for country radio), "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time" (all for pop and international radio) and "Red" (for country radio). Red debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies; this marked the highest opening sales in a decade and made Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings. As of May 2013, Red had sold over 6 million copies worldwide. In her career, as of November 2012, she had sold in excess of 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads.
Red won no Grammy Awards but was nominated in a total of four categories. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" was a Record of the Year nominee at the 2013 Grammy Awards while Red was an Album of the Year nominee at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Similarly, Swift's fourth album won no awards at the Country Music Association's annual ceremony. However, Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award for "unique" levels of success; Garth Brooks is the only other recipient. Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, George Strait and Brad Paisley presented Swift with the award, while Mick Jagger, Carly Simon, Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Ethel Kennedy and Justin Timberlake recorded video messages. The New York Times considered it an attempt to persuade "country music’s cash cow, its creative engine, its ambassador to the wider world" to remain within the genre while The New Yorker wondered whether "it may have been the moment when Swift and the genre that helped steer her toward pop domination said goodbye." Swift won three MTV Europe Music Awards in 2012, including the honors for Best Female and Best Live Act. "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. She was named Best Female Country Artist at the 2012 American Music Awards and was named Artist of the Year at the 2013 ceremony. The Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award went to Swift for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013.
In the Red era, Swift's romantic life became the subject of intense media scrutiny. Gawker remarked that Swift had dated "every man in the universe." The Westboro Baptist Church protested Swift's concerts, labelling her "the whorish face of doomed America," while Abercrombie & Fitch marketed a slogan t-shirt with a "slut-shaming" Swift reference. The New York Times asserted that her "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether Swift was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis." The Village Voice suggested that Swift's embrace of "traditional femininity" was the cause of the backlash: "She's young, she can be contentiously dramatic, she puts herself in the center of her stories, and obviously she's dated a lot of famous people in a relatively short amount of time. But none of that is exceptionally rare." At the Golden Globes award ceremony, comediennes Tina Fey and Amy Poehler poked fun at Swift's serial dating reputation, with Fey warning her to "stay away" from young men in the audience: "She needs some 'me' time to learn about herself." Swift was later asked about the incident in a Vanity Fair profile: “I was just sort of like, Oh well, you know, I can laugh at myself. But what it ended up adding to was this whole kind of everyone jumping on the bandwagon of ‘Taylor dates too much’—which, you know, if you want some big revelation, since 2010 I have dated exactly two people.” Elsewhere in the article, whilst discussing what the journalist describes as "the Golden Globes, and mean girls in general," Swift approvingly quoted Madeline Albright's remark that ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’ Swift and her publicist of seven years parted ways in early 2014.
2014: Upcoming fifth studio album
Swift began writing songs for her fifth studio album in July 2013; it is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2014. In November 2013, the singer told Billboard that, "There are probably seven or eight [songs] that I know I want on the record. It's already evolved into a new sound, and that's all I wanted." She is again working with Max Martin and Johan Shellback, this time writing "a lot more than three songs together." Diane Warren and Ryan Tedder have also worked on the album, with Tedder remarking: "For anyone who doubts it, she writes her own stuff ... She's probably the fastest songwriter I've ever met in my life." Swift has also expressed an interest in collaborating with Sia Furler, Jack Antonoff and Imogen Heap for the album.[207][208] Swift will also contribute music to the soundtrack of Harvey Weinstein's upcoming stage musical Finding Neverland.Awards and nominations
Swift has been the recipient of seven Grammy Awards, fifteen American Music Awards, eleven Country Music Association Awards, six Academy of Country Music Awards, and twelve Billboard Music Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013, she became the second person (and first woman) to receive the Country Music Association's Pinnacle Award. Additionally, she has received two Golden Globe Award nominations.Discography
- Taylor Swift (2006)
- Fearless (2008)
- Speak Now (2010)
- Red (2012)
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