At just 11 years old, Taylor Swift pumped out her first demo recording, then got in a car with her mom and headed straight for Nashville in hopes of becoming the next big country star. They drove past record studios dropping off her CD house by house. A producer called her back, and while he didn’t think she was ready yet, he encouraged her to keep trying. So she picked up the guitar, taught herself to play and began writing her own songs, sometimes in the middle of class with everyone looking at her.
That was how she began her career as a singer and songwriter, a career that has led to almost unimaginable success in the past two years especially.
In 2008, Taylor Swift released an album that became the number one bestseller in pop and country. A year later, that same album earned Taylor Swift the title of most successful recording artist of 2009, defeating Britney Spears comeback album, and Eminem’s fheavily hyped first album out of retirement. She also defeated Susan Boyle, the youtube sensation who finished in second place for best selling artist.
Not only have Swifts albums been selling off the shelves, her tours have as well. Last year, she headlined her first nationwide 52 location tour, which sold out in just two minutes. She was only 19, and she was already headlining her own major tour, calling the shots, and managing the details. Taylor Swift often sings about her own life in music she writes herself. She wrote her opening monologue during a recent appearance on SNL. She has more than one million fans on My Space and nearly another million followers on twitter.And she’s performed before crowds of more than 70,000 people, and millions on television. She even found time to shoot a role in the upcoming Julia Roberts comedy Valentine’s Day.
“I never get tired of signing autographs ‘cause I used to do it so much in class dreaming about the day that it might mean something to somebody.”
-Taylor Swift
Just this year, Swift picked up a VMA award (and unless you were living in a cave, you would remember it as the one Kanye West interrupted, saying it should go to Beyonce).The public fascination with her love life recently prompted her to tell fans to go online to get the dirt on her. Paparazzi photos had captured her date with Taylor Lautner and nicknamed them ‘the two taylors,’ and she’s also been seen recently with John Mayer, prompting speculation that the two may be dating.
She appears to stay grounded through it all, and seems to have mastered the press tours, the late night appearances, the red carpet walks, and the tabloid rumors. With the Grammy Awards approaching this weekend, Taylor Swift is certainly riding the momentum, as she battles it out with pop stars like Beyonce and Lady Gaga in key categories such as Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Country Album. She says that one of the things she hopes to accomplish (and believe it or not, there are still a few things she hasn’t accomplished), is to win a Grammy.
We think she’ll achieve her goal, in a year that has been coined in the press “Taylor Swift’s Year” a year she calls “the happiest year of her life”.
