The Taylor Swift Handbook - Everything you need to know about Taylor Swift

Dan Bell

Description

Taylor Swift Fan this is your ultimate resource for the talented singer Taylor Swift. Here you'll find the most up-to-date information, photos, and much more.

In easy to read chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know right away this book covers: Everything about Taylor Swift, her hit songs, and all the Taylor Swift discography and her work; Fearless (album), Teardrops on My Guitar, List of awards and nominations received by Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift (album), Beautiful Eyes, Tim McGraw (song), Our Song (song), Picture to Burn, Should've Said No, Love Story (Taylor Swift song), White Horse (song), You Belong with Me, Fifteen (song), Fearless (Taylor Swift song), Two Is Better Than One, Change (Taylor Swift song), You're Not Sorry, Crazier (Taylor Swift song), Today Was a Fairytale, Fearless Tour, Taylor Swift discography, List of Taylor Swift songs, Valentine's Day (film), Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection.

Topic relevant selected content from the highest rated wiki entries, typeset, printed and shipped, combine the advantages of up-to-date and in-depth knowledge with the convenience of printed books. A portion of the proceeds of each book will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation to support their mission.

Sujets

• Performing Arts
• Biography
• Entertainment
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Emereo Publishing
• Date de parution: 24 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781486432271
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Taylor Swift

Topic relevant selected content from the highest rated wiki entries, typeset, printed and shipped. Combine the advantages of up-to-date and in-depth knowledge with the convenience of printed books. A portion of the proceeds of each book will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation to support their mission: to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The content within this book was generated collaboratively by volunteers. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. Some information in this book maybe misleading or simply wrong. The publisher does not guarantee the validity of the information found here. If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial, or risk management) please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area. Sources, licenses and contributors of the articles and images are listed in the section entitled "References". Parts of the books may be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. A copy of this license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License" All used third-party trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Contents Articles Taylor Swift Fearless (Taylor Swift album) Teardrops on My Guitar List of awards and nominations received by Taylor Swift Taylor Swift (album) Beautiful Eyes Tim McGraw (song) Our Song (song) Picture to Burn Should've Said No Love Story (Taylor Swift song) White Horse (song) You Belong with Me Fifteen (song) Fearless (Taylor Swift song) Two Is Better Than One Change (Taylor Swift song) You're Not Sorry Crazier (Taylor Swift song) Today Was a Fairytale Fearless Tour Taylor Swift discography List of Taylor Swift songs Valentine's Day (film) Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection References Article Sources and Contributors Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors Article Licenses License

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Taylor Swift Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift

Swift at theHannah Montana: The Moviepremiere in April 2009. Background information Birth name Taylor Alison Swift Born December 13, 1989 Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, United States

Genres

Occupations

Instruments

Years active Labels Website

[1] Country [2] Pop

Singer-songwriter Actress

Vocals Guitar [3] Piano [4] Ukulele 2006 present ˀ Big Machine

[5] www.taylorswift.com

[1] Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country pop 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.FearlessandTaylor Swiftfinished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with [6] [7] sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million.Fearlesshas topped theBillboardno album has200 in 11 non-consecutive weeks; [8] spent more time at No. 1 since 2000. Swift was namedArtist of the Yearby Billboard Magazine in 2009.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.Forbesranked Swift 2009's 69th-most powerful celebrity with [9] earnings of $18 million. In January 2010 Nielsen SoundScan lists Swift as the top-selling digital artist in music [10] [11] history with over 24.3 million digital tracks sold. To date, she has sold over ten million albums worldwide.

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2 Taylor Swift Early life Swift was born and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania as the first child and only daughter of Andrea, a [12] homemaker, and Scott Swift, a stockbroker. She has a younger brother, Austin. She was raised as a Baptist. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem entitled "Monster In My [13] [14] Closet". At the age of ten, 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 [15] [16] unpublished. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair. In 2008, she [17] earned her high school diploma through homeschooling at the age of 18. Songwriting interest Swift began learning to play guitar from a computer repairman who showed her how to play three chords. After [18] learning those three chords, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You". 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 [19] songs about them. Early work [20] Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain. Her other influences include LeAnn Rimes, Tina Turner, [21] Dolly Parton, and Swift's grandmother. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer, Taylor's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger years, she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly [22] Parton. She also credits the Dixie Chicks for demonstrating the impact you can make by "stretching [23] boundaries". At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her [24] [25] singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town, but was rejected. After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where her rendition [26] of the national anthem received much attention. 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 [27] family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb. When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist development [28] deal. After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott [29] Borchetta, who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big Machine Records. At age 14, she became the [30] youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. .

3 Taylor Swift Music career 2006–2008:Taylor Swift Swift released her debut single, "Tim McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching [32]  #6 onBillboardHer self-titledmagazine's Hot Country Songs chart. [33] debut album was later released on October 24, 2006. Debuting high  on theBillboard200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first [34] week. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 [35]  on theBillboard200. Her debut album spent eight consecutive [36] weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts and remained at [37] The only other country artists thisthe top for 24 out of 91 weeks. Swift performing at a café with a koa wood guitar decade to achieve the number-one sales position for 20 weeks or more in June 2006. Swift still performs with [38] [31] are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. custom-made Taylor guitars to this day. The music video for "Tim McGraw" won Swift an award for [39] Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. Her pursuit of country music stardom was the [40] subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006. 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 [41] Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well. The second single from theTaylor Swiftalbum, "Teardrops on My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. In mid-2007, the song peaked at #2 onBillboard's Hot Country Songs chart and #33 on theBillboardHot 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. [42] Intl., making her the youngest artist ever to win the award. 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. "Should've Said No" became Swift's second #1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift [43] releasedBeautiful EyesIn its first week, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. 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 [44] to hold the Top 2 positions of the Top Country Albums chart. 2008–2009:Fearless Swift's latest studio album,Fearless, was released in the United States on [45] November 11, 2008. 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 Swift performing at Yahoo HQ in genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall behind Lil Wayne, AC/DC and 2007.

Taylor Swif  t 4 [46] Coldplay. 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 [47] album in history. It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began [48] tracking them in 2004. Through its eighth week of release,Fearlesshas sold more than 338,467 paid downloads, making it the bestselling country album in digital history. In second place is Swift's debutTaylor Swiftwith sales of [49] 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009. In its debut week, seven songs in total onFearlesswere 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 [48] Fearless"Change", a, 11 have already spent time on the Hot 100. song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting [44] Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Olympics. 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 onRomeo and Juliet. The song has reached Swift performing live in 2007. #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 [50] CHR/Top 40 chart in the 16-year-history of the list, as well as number one on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart. The second single fromFearless, "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 [51] Mediabase) in that week. "Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on Swift's relationship [52] with singer Joe Jonas. She was the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year [6] end album chart. 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 [53] downloads with three different songs. Swift is Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling [54] artist of 2008. Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling artists across all genres in [55] 2008.FearlessandTaylor Swifttook the #1 and #2 slots on 2008 Year-End Canadian Country Albums Chart. 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 [56] in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months. The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville, Indiana. In the same [57] [58] month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance onSaturday Night Live. 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 [59] [60] downloads in history. Since the release of Swift's second album,Fearless, she has released one new song "Crazier" for the soundtrack of the feature filmHannah 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 forFearless.

Taylor Swift Swift is the youngest artist in history to win the ACMAlbum of the Yearaward. 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 [61] attract a younger audience. As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads, as well as three Gold Mobile [62] Ringtones.

Swift performing on April 25, 2009, in St. Louis at the Scottrade Center.

Swift performing during herFearlesstour in August, 2009.

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 [63] Verizon Wireless. 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 10, 2009 Swift became the youngest artist ever to win [64] Country Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year.

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 albumFearlessnamely 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 [65] ˁIn"You Belong with Me" (#14), "Forever & Always" which re-entered the chart at #34, and "Fifteen" (#46). 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 [66] charting songs by the same female artist in the same week. 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. [67] "Fifteen" became Swift's twentieth Top 40 single overall. "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 [68] plays.

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6 Taylor Swift MTV VMA incident 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 [69] Music Award. 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," West taking the microphone from Swift at the [70] [71] 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. an action that caused the many audience members to boo West. He handed the microphone back to a stunned and reportedly upset [] [72] Swift, who did not finish her acceptance speech. 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. [73] Following the awards show, West apologized for his verbal outburst in a blog entry (which was subsequently [] [71] [74] [75] [76] [77] removed). He was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and even by President Barack [78] [79] [80] [81] Obama in an "off the record" comment. He later posted a second apology on his blog and made his [71] first public apology one day after incident on the debut episode ofThe Jay Leno Show. On September 15, 2009, Swift talked about the matter onThe View, where she said she was at first excited to see West on stage and then disappointed once he [82] [83] [] acted out. She said West had not spoken to her following the incident. Following her appearance onThe View, West contacted her to apologize [] [] personally; Swift said she accepted his apology. 2010 – present In February 2010, Swift is set to bring her Fearless Tour to 5 cities in Australia. [84] Opening acts will include Gloriana. Swift is currently recording songs for her third album, to be released in late [85] 2010. Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with her award. 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 [86] No.2 , becoming her sixth Top 10 and 23rd Top 40 single on that chart. In January of 2010, Taylor Swift set a [87] new download record with the song "Today Was a Fairytale" with 325,000 downloads of the song. 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 [88] [89] my diary." For instance the song "Forever & Always" was inspired by her relationship with Joe Jonas, while [88] the song "Hey Stephen" was written about a guy who opened some shows for her. "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 [90] over on the cheerleaders, or a caustic payback for the boy who dumped her." She's also indicated that she tries to [91] write so her fans can relate to the lyrics, saying "My goal is to never write songs that my fans can't relate to."

7 Taylor Swift The intently 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 [92] relate to them." The autobiographical nature of her songs has led some fans to research the songs' origins. Swift once said, "Every [93] single one of the guys that I ˅ ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans."The New York Timesdescribed Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country ˅ s foremost pragmatist and more in touch [94] with her inner life than most adults". 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 entitledMTV's Once Upon a Promand a documentary with Def Leppard [95] for CMT entitledCMT CrossroadsSwift collaborated with the Jonas, which premiered on November 7, 2008. Brothers in their 3D Concert Film,Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. The film was released on February [96] 27, 2009 in North America and brought in $12.7 million on its opening weekend. 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 [97] Canada. The episode was watched by 20.8 million viewers. Swift made a cameo appearance in Kellie Pickler's music video "Best Days of Your Life". Swift also appeared inHannah Montana: The Moviecredited as "woman [98] singing in the barn". The film was released on April 10, 2009 in North America. The television show Dateline NBC showcased an hour on Swift on May 31, 2009. The episode titledDateline NBC: On Tour With Taylor Swift [99] included scenes from her tour bus, concert footage, and rehearsals. Taylor both hosted and performed as the [100] musical guest for the November 7, 2009 episode ofSaturday Night Live. In 2010, Swift made her feature film acting debut as Felicia in the filmValentine's Day. Philanthropy [101] On September 21, 2007, Swift helped launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has [101] teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes. The year-long campaign, in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and [101] materials to parents and students across the state. In early 2008, Swift donated the pink Chevy pick-up truck given to her by her record label to the children ˅ s charity, theVictory Junction Gang; in June, 2008, Swift donated all the proceeds from her merchandise sales at the 2008 Country Music Festival to Red Cross, theNashville Area Red [102] Cross Disaster Relief Fundand theNational American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. [103] Swift donated $100,000 to the Red Cross in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. [104] Swift has teamed up with Sound Matters to make listeners aware of listening "responsibly". Swift supports @15 [105] , a teen-led social change platform underwritten by Best Buy to give teens opportunities to direct the company's [106] philanthropy through the newly-created @15 Fund. Swift's song, "Fifteen", is featured in this campaign. Swift [107] lent her support to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal by joining the lineup at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, [108] reportedly making the biggest contribution of any artist playing at Sound Relief to the Australian Red Cross. [109] [110] Swift donated her prom dress, which raised $1,200 for charity, to DonateMyDress.org . On November 20, 2009 after a live performance on BBC's Children in Need night Swift announced to Sir Terry Wogan she would [111] donate £13,000 of her own money to the cause. On December 13th, Swift's own birthday, she donated $250,000 to various schools around the country which she [112] either attended or been involved with. 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.