Taylor Swift
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Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her songwriting, artistry, and entrepreneurship have majorly influenced the music industry and popular culture, and her life is a subject of widespread media coverage.
Swift began writing songs professionally at age 14 and signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country singer. She released six studio albums under the label, four of them to country radio, starting with Taylor Swift (2006). Her next, Fearless (2008), explored country pop, and its singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" catapulted her to mainstream fame. Speak Now (2010) infused rock influences, while Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift's first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". She departed from her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by the chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". Media scrutiny inspired the hip-hop-influenced Reputation (2017) and its number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do".
After signing with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released the eclectic pop album Lover (2019) and the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020). She explored indie folk styles on the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, electropop and synth-pop on Midnights (2022), and re-recorded four albums subtitled Taylor's Version after a dispute with Big Machine. These albums spawned the number-one songs "Cruel Summer", "Cardigan", "Willow", "Anti-Hero", "All Too Well", and "Is It Over Now?". Her Eras Tour (2023–2024) and its accompanying concert film became the highest-grossing tour and concert film of all time, respectively. Swift has directed music videos and films such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
One of the world's best-selling musicians with 200 million records sold, Swift has been honored as the Global Recording Artist of the Year three times by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. She is the highest-grossing female touring act, the most-streamed woman on Spotify and Apple Music, and the first billionaire with music as the main source of income. The 2023 Time Person of the Year, Swift has appeared on lists such as Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard
Early life
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989,[1] in West Reading, Pennsylvania.[2] She is named after singer-songwriter James Taylor.[3] Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch[4] and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.[5] Taylor has a younger brother, actor Austin Swift,[6] and is of Scottish,[7] German, and Italian descent.[8][9] Their maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer.[10]
Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father had purchased from one of his clients.[11][12] She is a Christian.[13] She attended preschool and kindergarten at Alvernia Montessori School, run by Bernadine Franciscan sisters,[14] before transferring to the Wyndcroft School.[15] The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,[16] where Swift attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.[17] She spent summers in Stone Harbor, New Jersey until she was 14 years old, performing in a local coffee shop.[18][19]
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions.[20] She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons.[21] Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything".[22] She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events.[23][24] After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music.[25] She traveled there with her mother at age eleven to visit record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers.[26] She was rejected, however, because "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."[27]
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. Cremer helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You".[28] In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York–based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and met with major record labels.[29] After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.[30][31][32] To help Swift break into the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee.[11][33] Swift attended Hendersonville High School[34] before transferring to Aaron Academy after two years, which better accommodated her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.[35][36]
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers[37][38] and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.[39] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.[40] Rose called the sessions "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 became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house,[41] but left then BMG-owned RCA Records (later bought by Sony Music) at the age of 14 due to the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people's stuff". She was also concerned that development deals can shelve artists[32][24] and 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."[42]
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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 an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004.[44] She was one of Big Machine's first signings,[32] and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000.[45][46] She began working on her eponymous debut album with producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry".[24] Swift wrote three of the album's songs alone and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia.[47] Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006.[48] Country Weekly critic Chris Neal deemed Swift better than previous aspiring teenage country singers because of her "honesty, intelligence and idealism".[49] The album peaked at number five on the US Billboard 200, on which it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the US in the 2000s decade.[50] Swift became the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a US platinum-certified debut album.[51]
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw", which Swift and her mother helped promote by packaging and sending copies of the CD single to country radio stations. As there was not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so.[52] She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour and television appearances; she opened for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour,[53] as a replacement for Eric Church.[54] Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music.[52][11]
Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboard's Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart.[55] "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the US Billboard Hot 100.[56] Swift also released two EPs, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008.[57][58] She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours in 2006 and 2007, including those by George Strait,[59] Brad Paisley,[60] and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.[61]
Swift won multiple accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title.[62] She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist,[63] the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist,[64] and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor.[65] She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.[66] In 2008, she opened for Rascal Flatts again,[67] and dated singer Joe Jonas briefly.[68][69]
2008–2010: Fearless
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America,[72] and in March 2009 in other markets.[73] Critics lauded Swift's honest and vulnerable songwriting in contrast to other teenage singers.[74] Five singles were released in 2008–2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". The first single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia.[56][75] It was the first country song to top Billboard's Pop Songs chart.[76] "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two,[77] and was the first country song to top Billboard's all-genre Radio Songs chart.[78] All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" topping the chart.[79] Fearless became her first number-one album on the Billboard 200 and 2009's top-selling album in the US.[80] The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million.[81] Journey to Fearless, a documentary miniseries, aired on television and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray.[82] Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.[83]
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.[84] Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West,[85] an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention and Internet memes.[86] That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album.[87] Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year.[88] She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story".[89] At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year.[note 1] At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.[92]
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' "Two Is Better Than One", the latter of which she co-wrote.[93][94] She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler,[95] and wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier".[71] She contributed two songs to the
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