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Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989. She is an American country-pop singer-songwriter. In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", which peaked at number six on the Billboard country charts. Later in October 2006, she released her self-titled debut album, which produced five hit singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and was certified 3× Multi-Platinum by the RIAA. 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".
Swift became the first solo female artist to score 5 top 10 hits from a debut album since the album chart was first published in 1964. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Fearless and Taylor Swift are among the Top 10 bestselling albums of 2008, which ranked at #3 and #6 respectively. Swift was the bestselling album artist of 2008 in all popular music formats with 4,003,000 copies sold in the United States.
The first single from the second album, "Love Story" eventually reached #4 and became Swift’s highest charted single on Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100 to date, as well as the first country song to reach Number One the Mainstream Top 40 chart. The song has already distinguished itself as the country song with the most paid downloads in history, tops the 3 million mark in paid downloads on the week ending March 15, 2009. The song was also released in several countries, and charted #1 on Australian Singles Chart. It was Swift’s first international single.
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According to Nielsen SoundScan, Swift was the biggest selling artist of 2008 in America with combined sales of more than four million albums. Swift’s Fearless and her self-titled album finished 2008 at number three and number six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. 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. Fearless has topped the Billboard 200 in 11 non-consecutive weeks. No album has spent more time at number one since 1999-2000. 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. As of the week ending February 8, 2009, Swift’s single "Love Story" became the country song with most paid downloads in history and the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart. According to the 2009 issue of Forbes, Swift is ranked as the 69th most powerful celebrity with over $18 million dollars in earnings this year.
Taylor Alison Swift was born in the city of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Scott, a stock broker, and Andrea Swift, a stay-at-home mother. She has one younger brother, Austin. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page long poem entitled "Monster In My Closet". At the age of ten, Swift began writing songs and singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. During one summer, Swift devoted herself to writing a 350-page (unpublished) novel. She was a member of Kirk Cremer’s SNL-inspired kid’s sketch comedy group, TheatreKids Live!, where she was a natural comedic talent. After seeing her karaoke performance at one of the cast parties, it was Cremer’s mother who first suggested that Swift seemed more of a natural to pursue a career in country music, rather than theatrical performing. Cremer soon leased space at a local mall and began to showcase his young protégé in weeknight performances of country songs with karaoke backing tracks. Emboldened by her performances and growing audiences, she began to perform in other local open mike and karaoke nights. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair, arranged by local performer Pat Garrett.
In January 2009, Swift announced her first headlining tour. Swift will take her North American Fearless Tour 2009 to 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months. Opening acts include Kellie Pickler and Gloriana, a new group in country music. The tour will feature a theatrical presentation of graphics, sets and visual elements designed by Swift. Swift will play guitar as well as piano. Multiple costume changes and a fairy-tale castle are some of the elements of the three-act show.
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The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville, Indiana. On February 6, 2009, tickets went on sale for the May 22 date at Los Angeles’ Staples Center and sold out in two minutes. Tickets for several dates and venues, including Madison Square Garden, went on sale the following week and sold out quickly.
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. 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.
Swift has been a cover girl for Blender, for which Swift was one of two country artists during the magazine’s fifteen year run to be a cover subject. Swift was named number fifty-seven on Maxim’s sexiest women of 2008. CosmoGirl voted Swift as the "2008 Girl of the Year". Swift was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of "The RS 100: Agents of Change". She was nominated as a candidate for TIME’s "2009 The Time 100 Finalists" list, which is determined by online voting.
