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Taylor Swift Biography
Who2 Biography:Taylor
Swift, Country Singer
- Born: 13 December 1989
- Birthplace: Reading, Pennsylvania
- Best Known As: Teen singer of the 2009 hit "You Belong With
Me"
Country singer Taylor Swift broke through in 2006 with her hit song
"Tim McGraw," recorded when she was still 16 years old. Raised just
outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift began singing at local events
when she was a kid, and even sang the national anthem at a Philadelphia
76ers basketball game when she was 11. To pursue her career in country
music, Swift and her family moved near Nashville, Tennessee when she was
13. Her beauty-pageant looks and surprisingly seasoned country vocal
style made her a star on Country Music Television, and her video for
"Tim McGraw" -- a wistful ballad of romantic longing ("When you think Tim
McGraw / I hope you think of me") -- was voted a fan favorite. She
released her self-titled debut album in late 2006 and quickly became a
star singer and songwriter, nominated for a Grammy Award and by the
Academy of Country Music as best new female vocalist. Before she was
even 18 Swift was touring nationally with top stars such as Brad
Paisley and Rascal
Flatts. Her 2008 album Fearless produced the hit singles
"Love Story" and "You Belong With Me."
Swift was stunned by Kanye
West at the MTV Music Video Awards on 13 September 2009. Swift was
accepting her video for Best Female Video when Kanye grabbed the
microphone and announced to the crowd, "I'm sorry, but Beyoncé
had one of the best videos of all time!"
Artist:Taylor Swift
- Born: December 13, 1989, Wyomissing, PA
- Active: 2000s
- Genres: Country
- Instrument: Vocals, Guitar
- Representative Albums: "Fearless", "Taylor Swift"
- Representative Songs: "Our Song", "Tim McGraw", "Picture to
Burn"
Taylor Swift became one of country-pop's brightest (and youngest) faces
in 2006, when the 16-year-old vocalist released her first album.
Although new to the American public, Swift
had been performing since her pre-teen years in Wyomissing, PA, where
she first entered the spotlight as part of a children's theater troupe.
Encouraged by the troupe's manager to pursue music instead, Swift
soon found herself performing karaoke songs at a local mall, with open
mic performances following shortly thereafter. She sang "The
Star-Spangled Banner" before a Philadelphia 76ers game at the age of 11;
the following year, she began practicing the guitar several hours each
day, modeling her early songwriting attempts after crossover artists
like Shania
Twain and the Dixie Chicks. Swift's
parents realized their child's dedication and began making regular
visits to Nashville, TN, where Swift
would perform casually and meet with songwriters in the area. The
family then decided to move from their native Pennsylvania to an
outlying Nashville suburb, which accelerated Swift's
career.
While performing at the intimate Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Swift
caught the eye of music industry veteran Scott Borchetta, who signed
her to his newly formed label. Swift
joined the roster at Big Machine Records and released her debut
single, "Tim McGraw," in August 2006. The song drew upon her experience
as a lovelorn high-school student, a theme that Swift
revisited throughout her self-titled debut album. Released in late
2006, Taylor
Swift catapulted the young songwriter to stardom, spawned a handful
of hits (five consecutive Top Ten singles, a new record for a female
solo artist), and earned multi-platinum sales. Swift
also received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, an award she
ultimately lost to Amy
Winehouse. Two subsequent EPs -- Sounds of the Season: The Taylor
Swift Holiday Collection and Beautiful Eyes -- helped maintain Swift's
popularity while whetting public demand for her next release, which
arrived in November 2008.
Swift's
debut album made her a titan in the country world, but 2008's Fearless
positioned her as the year's biggest star of any genre. The
sophomore album went gold during its first week of release; combined
with the sales of its predecessor, it also made Swift
the highest-grossing artist of 2008. The accolades increased in 2009,
when Fearless went multi-platinum and took home two ACM awards, five
American Music Awards, five CMAs, two CMTs, and a controversial trophy
at the MTV Video Music Awards (Kanye
West infamously stormed the stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance
speech to throw his support to Beyonce,
claiming she deserved the award instead). Meanwhile, "You Belong With
Me" became Swift's
highest-charting song on the pop charts, which endeared her music to an
even wider audience. ~ Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide
Country music star Taylor Swift showed all the signs of her future
career as a singer/songwriter when she was still a small girl growing up
in Pennsylvania. Creative from the beginning, Swift was singing for
local audiences by the time she was ten, and won a national poetry
contest in the fourth grade for her poem "Monster in My Closet." By 12,
the young artist was singing, writing songs, playing the 12-string
guitar, and shopping demos around Nashville, hoping to score a record
contract.
Within a few years, Swift's family relocated to the Nashville area so
that the aspiring performer could pursue her career full-time. She was
eventually offered a development deal with RCA, but rejected it
when it didn't allow for her to record her own songs. Swift would be
rewarded for her stalwartness, however, when she was signed by Big
Machine Records a short time later. She was also hired in as the
youngest staff songwriter ever to work for Sony/ATV Tree publishing.
Swift released a self-titled album in 2006, and it became an immediate
hit, soon setting chart records that put her in league with established
acts like the Dixie Chicks and Carrie
Underwood. The 17-year-old became a household name, appearing on
magazine covers, taking home awards, and joining the ranks of other
young recording artists like Miley
Cyrus and the Jonas
Brothers. Swift eventually dated Jonas
Brothers singer Joe
Jonas, and appeared in the brothers' concert film Jonas Brothers:
The 3-D Concert Experience following the release of her equally
chart-topping sophomore album, Fearless, in 2008. ~ Cammila Albertson,
All Movie Guide
Wikipedia:Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country
pop[1]
singer-songwriter
and actress.
In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim
McGraw", then her self-titled
debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum
by the Recording
Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released
her second album, Fearless.
Fearless and Taylor Swift finished 2008 at number-three
and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million.[5]
Fearless has topped the Billboard
200 in 11 non-consecutive weeks;[6]
no album has spent more time at No. 1 since 2000. Swift was named Artist
of the Year by Billboard
Magazine in 2009.[7]
Fearless won the Grammy
Award for Album of the Year in 2010.
In 2008, her albums sold a combined four million copies, making her
the best-selling musician of the year in the United States, according to
Nielsen
SoundScan. Forbes
ranked Swift 2009's 69th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $18
million.[8]
In January 2010 Nielsen
SoundScan lists Swift as the top-selling digital artist in music
history with over 24.3 million digital tracks sold.[9]
To date, she has sold over 10 million albums worldwide.[10]
Early life
Swift was born and raised in Wyomissing,
Pennsylvania as the first child and only daughter of Andrea, a homemaker,
and Scott Swift, a stockbroker.
She has a younger brother, Austin.[11]
When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a
three-page poem entitled "Monster In My Closet".[12][13]
At the age of 10, Swift began writing songs and singing them at
karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. When she was
12 years old, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel,
which remains unpublished.[14]
Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg
Fair.[15]
In 2008, she earned her high school diploma through homeschooling at
the age of 18.[16]
Songwriting
interest
Swift began learning to play guitar from a computer repairman who
showed her how to play three chords. After learning those three chords,
she wrote her first song, "Lucky You".[17]
She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her
with her pain from not fitting in at school. Other kids would react
badly to her so she wrote songs about them.[18]
Early work
Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania
Twain.[19]
Her other influences include LeAnn
Rimes, Tina
Turner, Dolly
Parton, and Swift's grandmother. Although her grandmother was a
professional opera singer,[20]
Swift's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger
years, she developed a love for Patsy
Cline and Dolly Parton.[21]
She also credits the Dixie
Chicks for demonstrating the impact you can make by "stretching
boundaries".[22]
At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville,
hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her
singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town,[23]
but was rejected.[24]
After Swift returned to Pennsylvania,
she was asked to sing at the U.S.
Open tennis tournament, where her rendition of the national
anthem received much attention.[25]
Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was
12. Swift began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local
songwriters. By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an
outlying Nashville suburb.[26]
When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA
Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist
development deal.[27]
After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The
Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta,[28]
who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big
Machine Records. At age 14, she became the youngest staff
songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV
Tree publishing house.[29].
Music career
2006–2008:
Taylor Swift
Swift performing at a café with a koa
wood guitar in June 2006. Swift still performs with custom-made Taylor
guitars to this day.[30]
Swift released her debut single, "Tim
McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching #6 on Billboard
magazine's Hot
Country Songs chart.[31]
Her self-titled
debut album was later released on October 24, 2006.[32]
Debuting high on the Billboard
200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first week.[33]
It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top
Country Albums and #5 on the Billboard 200.[34]
Her debut album spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top
Country Albums charts[35]
and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks.[36]
The only other country artists this decade to achieve the number-one
sales position for 20 weeks or more are The
Dixie Chicks and Carrie
Underwood.[37]
The music video for "Tim McGraw" won Swift an award for Breakthrough
Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.[38]
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.[39]
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy
of Country Music Awards. 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.[40]
The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops
on My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. In mid-2007, the
song peaked at #2 on Billboard's Hot
Country Songs chart and #33 on the Billboard
Hot 100. The song was re-released 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 was awarded Songwriter/Artist
of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Assn. Intl., making her the
youngest artist ever to win the award.[41]
Her third song off her debut album, "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1
on the Country charts, peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and rose
to #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Swift recorded a holiday album, Sounds
of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, which was
released exclusively at Target
in late 2007. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy
Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy
Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture
to Burn", was the fourth single from her debut album. The song
debuted and soon peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country chart in spring
2008.
Swift performing at Yahoo
HQ in 2007.
"Should've Said No" became Swift's second #1 single. In Summer 2008,
Swift released Beautiful
Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.[42]
In its first week of release, the album sold 45,000 copies, debuting at
#1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and #9 on the Billboard 200.
With her self-titled debut album sitting at #2 during the same week,
Swift became the first artist since 1997 to hold the Top 2 positions of
the Top Country Albums chart.[43]
2008–2009:
Fearless
Swift's latest studio album, Fearless,
was released in the United States on November 11, 2008.[44]
The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of
592,304 were the highest debut of any country artist in 2008. This is
also the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in
all genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall behind Lil
Wayne, AC/DC
and Coldplay.[45]
Its lead single "Love
Story" became a hit on both the country and pop charts. During the
first week of release, more than 129,000 of Swift's sales were sold
digitally. This gives Swift the best online start for any country album
in history.[46]
It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since
Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004.[47]
Through its eighth week of release, Fearless has sold more than
338,467 paid downloads, making it the bestselling country album in
digital history. In second place is Swift's debut Taylor
Swift with sales of 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009.[48]
In its debut week, seven songs in total on Fearless
were charted on Billboard Hot 100, tying Swift with Miley
Cyrus for the most by a female artist in a single week. With "White
Horse" charted at #13, this gave Swift her sixth top 20 debut of
2008, a calendar year record for any artist in the history of the
Billboard Hot 100. Of the 13 tracks on Fearless, 11 have already
spent time on the Hot 100.[47]
"Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack
supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008
Summer Olympics.[43]
The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's
broadcast package of the Olympics.
Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with her award.
The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released on
September 12, 2008. The Fearless album includes the "Love Story" music
video which is based on Romeo
and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes Store Top
Downloaded Songs and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Because of its
popularity, it is considered Taylor Swift's signature
song. Fifteen weeks after being added to pop radio, "Love
Story" also became the first country crossover recording to hit
number one on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart in the 16-year-history of
the list, as well as number one on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart.[49]
The second single from Fearless, "White
Horse", was released on December 8, 2008. The music video for the
song premiered on CMT
on February 7, 2009. Though it missed the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot
Country Songs as of the week April 11, 2009, "White
Horse" claimed the #1 spot atop the USA Today/Country Aircheck
chart (powered by Mediabase) in that week.[50]
"Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on
Swift's relationship with singer Joe
Jonas.[51]
She was the first artist in the history of Nielsen
SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year
end album chart.[5]
It also was the first album by a female artist in country music history
to log eight weeks at #1 on The Billboard 200. In mid-January 2009,
Swift became the first country artist to top the 2 million mark in paid
downloads with three different songs.[52]
Swift is Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of
2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008.[53]
Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling
artists across all genres in 2008. Fearless
and Taylor
Swift took the #1 and #2 slots on 2008 Year-End Canadian
Country Albums Chart.[54]
Swift sang the Star-Spangled
Banner at game three of the World
Series in Philadelphia
on October 25, 2008.
In January 2009, Swift announced her North American Fearless
Tour planned for 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and
Canada over the span of 6 months. [55]
The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville,
Indiana. In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest
appearance on Saturday
Night Live.[56][57]
On February 8, 2009, Swift performed her song "Fifteen"
with Miley
Cyrus at the 51st
Grammy Awards.
As of the week ending February 8, 2009, Swift's single "Love
Story" became the country song with the most paid downloads in
history.[58][59]
Since the release of Swift's second album, Fearless,
she has released one new song "Crazier"
for the soundtrack
of the feature film Hannah
Montana: The Movie. At the 44th Annual Academy
of Country Music Awards, Swift picked up Album of the Year honors
as a performer and producer for Fearless.
Swift performing during her Fearless tour in August, 2009.
Swift is the youngest artist in history to win the ACM Album of
the Year award. The Academy lauded her for career achievements
including selling more albums in 2008 than any other artist in any genre
of music, the breakthrough success of her debut album, and the
worldwide crossover success of her #1 single "Love
Story". The Academy also cited Swift's contribution to helping
country music attract a younger audience.[60]
As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads,
as well as three Gold Mobile Ringtones.[61]
On April 28, 2009, Swift gave a free, private concert to students at Bishop
Ireton High School, a small Catholic school in Alexandria,
Virginia after the school won a national "TXT 2 WIN" contest from Verizon
Wireless.[62]
The students sent over 19,000 text messages to Verizon during a roughly
one month long contest. Swift played for about an hour during the
school's field day, an annual day-long recess with games and activities.
On October 8, 2009 Swift's official website announced that her sold-out
Fearless Tour would return to North America for 37 additional dates in
2010.
On November 11, 2009 Swift became the youngest artist ever to win Country
Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year, and is one of
only six women to win Country Music Association's highest honor.[63]
On the chart week of November 14, 2009, Swift set a record for the
most songs on the Billboard
Hot 100 by a female artist at the same time with eight singles from
the re-release of her 2008 album Fearless namely five debut new
songs in the top 30: "Jump Then Fall" at #10, "Untouchable" at #19, "The
Other Side of the Door" at #22, "Superstar" at #27 and "Come in With
the Rain" at #30 and three already-charted songs that were released as
singles — "You
Belong with Me" (#14), "Forever & Always" which re-entered the
chart at #34, and "Fifteen"
(#46).[64]
In addition, the song "Two
Is Better Than One" by Boys
Like Girls which features Swift, debuted at #80 in the same issue.
This gives Swift six debuts in one week, the biggest number of debuts by
any female artist of all time. It also lifts the number of her
simultaneously-charting songs to nine, setting another record for the
biggest number of charting songs by the same female artist in the same
week.[65]
When "Fifteen" reached #38 on the chart week of November 21, 2009,
Swift became the female artist with the most Top 40 singles this decade,
surpassing Beyoncé.
"Fifteen" became Swift's twentieth Top 40 single overall.[66]
"Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls and John
Mayer's "Half of My Heart" both featured Swift, peaking at #40 and
#25 respectively. The two songs are her 21st and 22nd Top 40 singles.
Fearless"
was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US with more than 3.2
millions copies sold in that year. Swift claimed both the #1 and #2
positions atop Nielsen's BDS Top 10 Most Played Songs chart (all
genres), with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story," respectively. She
also topped the all format 2009 Top 10 Artist Airplay chart with over
1.29 million song detections, and the Top 10 Artist Internet Streams
chart with more than 46 million song plays.[67]
MTV VMA incident
West taking the microphone from Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music
Awards.
Scheduled to perform on September 13, 2009, Swift attended the 2009
MTV Video Music Awards. This was her first VMA performance, where
she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music
Award.[68]
During the show, as Swift was on stage accepting the award for Best
Female Video for "You
Belong with Me," singer/rapper Kanye
West came on stage and took the microphone from Swift, saying that Beyoncé's
video for "Single
Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one
of the best videos of all time," an action that caused the many audience
members to boo West.[69][70]
He handed the microphone back to a stunned and reportedly upset Swift,
who did not finish her acceptance speech.[69][71]
When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for "Single
Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she called Swift up on stage so that she
could finish her acceptance speech.[69][72]
Following the awards show, West apologized for his verbal outburst in
a blog entry (which was subsequently removed).[69]
He was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst,[70][73][74][75][76]
and even by President Barack
Obama in an "off
the record" comment.[77][78][79][80]
He later posted a second apology on his blog and made his first public
apology one day after incident on the debut episode of The
Jay Leno Show.[70]
On September 15, 2009, Swift talked about the matter on The
View, where she said she was at first excited to see West on
stage and then disappointed once he acted out.[81][82]
She said West had not spoken to her following the incident.[82]
Following her appearance on The View, West contacted her to
apologize personally; Swift said she accepted his apology.[82][68]
2010–present:
Film debut and upcoming third studio album
In February 2010, Swift is set to bring her Fearless
Tour to 5 cities in Australia.
Opening acts will include Gloriana.[83]
Swift is currently recording songs for her third album, to be
released in late 2010.[84]
Swift released the track "Today
Was a Fairytale" as a digital download on iTunes
on January 19, 2010. The song was featured on the soundtrack for the
film Valentine's
Day, in which she made her feature-film acting debut. The song
debuted on the Billboard
Hot 100 at No.2[85],
becoming her sixth Top 10 and 23rd Top 40 single on that chart.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, with sales of "Today Was a Fairytale"
more than 325,000 in its first week, Swift has broken the record for
first-week download sales by a female artist.[86]
The song also debuted at number one on the Canadian
Hot 100, making it Swift's first number one hit in Canada.
Songwriting style
Swift's lyrics are highly autobiographical; she has said that "If you
listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary."[87]
For instance the song "Forever & Always" was inspired by her
relationship with Joe Jonas,[88]
while the song "Hey Stephen" was written about a guy who opened some
shows for her.[87]
"Fifteen" was written about her freshman year of high school. It has
been said that her lyrics "can be tinged with acid: the quiet loner girl
getting one over on the cheerleaders, or a caustic payback for the boy
who dumped her."[89]
She's also indicated that she tries to write so her fans can relate to
the lyrics, saying "My goal is to never write songs that my fans can't
relate to."[90]
The intensely personal nature of the songs has drawn her the most
attention. Swift once said, "I thought people might find them hard to
relate to, but it turned out that the more personal my songs were, the
more closely people could relate to them."[91]
The autobiographical nature of her songs has led some fans to
research the songs' origins. Swift once said, "Every single one of the
guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by
my fans."[92]
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".[93]
Acting career
She started her acting career as a teen, playing a small role in Larry
Schwarz's Thumb
Wrestling Federation as Pei Pei The Purple Panda. In 2008, Swift
made her acting debut in Brad
Paisley's music video "Online".
In that same year Swift filmed a documentary for MTV
entitled MTV's Once Upon a Prom and a documentary with Def
Leppard for CMT
entitled CMT Crossroads, which premiered on November 7, 2008.[94]
Swift collaborated with the Jonas
Brothers in their 3D Concert Film, Jonas
Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. The film was released on
February 27, 2009 in North America and brought in $12.7 million on its
opening weekend.[95]
Swift made her primetime television acting debut on CBS's CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation Turn,
Turn, Turn on March 5, 2009 in the U.S. and Canada. The episode was
watched by 20.8 million viewers.[96]
Swift made a cameo appearance in Kellie
Pickler's music video "Best
Days of Your Life". Swift also appeared in Hannah
Montana: The Movie credited as "woman singing in the barn". The
film was released on April 10, 2009 in North America.[97]
The television show Dateline
NBC showcased an hour on Swift on May 31, 2009. The episode titled Dateline
NBC: On Tour With Taylor Swift included scenes from her tour bus,
concert footage, and rehearsals.[98]
Taylor both hosted and performed as the musical guest for the November
7, 2009 episode of Saturday
Night Live.[99]In
2010, Swift made her feature film acting debut as Felicia in the film Valentine's
Day.
Philanthropy
On September 21, 2007, Swift helped launch a campaign to protect
children from online predators.[100]
She has teamed up with Tennessee
Governor Phil
Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes.[100]
The year-long campaign, in partnership with the Tennessee Association
of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and
materials to parents and students across the state.[100]
In early 2008, Swift donated the pink Chevy pick-up truck given to her
by her record label to the children’s charity, the Victory Junction
Gang; in June, 2008, Swift donated all the proceeds from her
merchandise sales at the 2008 Country Music Festival to Red
Cross, the Nashville Area Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and
the National American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.[101]
Swift donated $100,000 to the Red Cross in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa to help the victims of the Iowa
flood of 2008.[102]
Swift has teamed up with Sound Matters to make listeners aware of
listening "responsibly".[103]
Swift supports @15, a teen-led
social change platform underwritten by Best
Buy to give teens opportunities to direct the company's
philanthropy through the newly-created @15 Fund. Swift's song, "Fifteen",
is featured in this campaign.[104]
Swift lent her support to the Victorian
Bushfire Appeal by joining the lineup at Sydney's Sound
Relief concert,[105]
reportedly making the biggest contribution of any artist playing at
Sound Relief to the Australian Red
Cross.[106]
Swift donated her prom dress, which raised $1,200 for charity, to DonateMyDress.org.[107]
On November 20, 2009 after a live performance on BBC's
Children
in Need night Swift announced to Sir Terry
Wogan she would donate £13,000 of her own money to the cause.[108]
On December 13th, Swift's own birthday, she donated $250,000 to
various schools around the country which she either attended or been
involved with.[109]
Taylor Swift has donated a pair of her shoes - a gently-worn pair of
black Betsey Johnson heels with her autograph on the sole - to the Wish
Upon a Hero Foundation's Hero in Heels fundraiser for auction to raise
money to benefit women with cancer.
In response to the May
2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a flood relief
telethon hosted by WSMV,
a Nashville television station.[110]
Public
image and other work
Swift has been featured on the cover of a number of magazines. She
has been a cover
girl for Blender,
for which she was one of two country artists during the magazine’s
fifteen year run to be a cover subject.[111]
She was included in People's
annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008, 2009, and 2010 lists.[112][113]
Additionally, she was named number fifty-seven on Maxim's
sexiest women of 2008[114],
number fifty on the 2009 list [115]
and number thirty-one on the 2010 list. [116]
CosmoGirl
voted Swift as the "2008 Girl of the Year".[117]
Swift was named by Rolling
Stone magazine as one of "The RS 100: Agents of Change".[118]
She was nominated as a candidate for TIME's
"2009 The Time 100 Finalists" list, which is determined by online
voting.[119]
People magazine named Swift one of 25 Most Intriguing People of
2009.[120]
Jakks
Pacific released a celebrity
doll of Swift in late 2008.[121]
Taylor Swift is the face of L.E.I.
Jeans (Life Energy Intelligence) since 2008.[122]
Swift and the L.e.i.
Clothing Line made a deal to create a line based on Swift's style of
dressing. It will appear in Wal-Mart
in the coming months.[123]
However, Swift said she does not want to be called a designer. Instead,
she says she will inspire the clothing company's dress line based on
her own style. "I don't look at it like I'm branching out as a
designer... It's not the Taylor Swift designer line."[124]
In 2009, Swift became the National
Hockey League's newest celebrity spokesperson. She appears in
commercials for the Nashville
Predators.[125]
Personal life
In 2008, Swift was in a relationship with pop singer Joe
Jonas which ended in November of that year.[126]
Swift indicated that her heartbreak
song "Forever & Always" on her album Fearless
was inspired by Jonas.[88]
Discography
- Albums
- EPs
- Video albums
Filmography
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