Taylor Swift
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This article is about the musician. For her self-titled debut album, see Taylor Swift (album).
| Taylor Swift | |
|---|---|
 Swift performing during the Australian leg of her Speak Now Tour in 2012 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Taylor Alison Swift |
| Born | December 13, 1989 Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S.[1] |
| Genres | Country pop |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, actress |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, ganjo, piano,[2] ukulele[3] |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Labels | Big Machine |
| Website |
TaylorSwift.com Taylor Swift's logo signature |
In 2008, Swift released her second album, Fearless, which became a crossover commercial success. Five singles were released: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". Swift wrote seven of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining six. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Fearless also received Album of the Year plaudits at the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, making it the most awarded album in country music history. Swift conducted a 105-date Fearless world tour in support of the album. Billboard named her Artist of the Year in 2009.
In 2010, Swift released her third album Speak Now, which sold over one million copies in its first week. Written and composed entirely by Swift, the record spawned six singles—"Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly" and "Ours". "Mean" was awarded Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance at the 54th Grammy Awards. The 111-date Speak Now World Tour was attended by over 1.7 million fans and has become one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. In 2011, Billboard named Swift Woman of the Year. She is currently recording her fourth album, due for release in the fall of 2012.
Swift's work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including six Grammy Awards, ten AMAs, seven CMAs, six ACMs and 13 BMI Awards. She has sold over 20 million albums and 41.8 million digital tracks worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Swift has endorsement deals with Target, CoverGirl, Sony, Elizabeth Arden, Walmart and American Greetings. She is considered by Forbes to be one of the wealthiest recording artists working today. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009), the romantic comedy Valentine's Day (2010) and the animated film The Lorax (2012).
Contents[hide] |
Early life
Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania,[1] the daughter of Scott Swift, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser,[4] and Andrea (née Gardner), a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.[1][5] Swift was named after singer James Taylor; her mother believed a gender-neutral name would help her forge a successful business career.[6][7] Her only sibling, a younger brother named Austin, is currently a student at Vanderbilt University.[8] She spent the early years of her life on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm near Pottstown, Pennsylvania and was educated at the fee-paying Wyndcroft School.[9] When Swift was nine, her family moved to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,[10][11] where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.[12] Swift spent her summers at her parent's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey[13] and has described it as the place "where most of my childhood memories were formed".[11]At the age of nine, Swift developed an interest in theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of Grease, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie and The Sound of Music.[14][9] She travelled regularly to Broadway, New York for vocal and acting lessons. However, "after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything”, Swift turned her attention to country music.[15] She was inspired by LeAnn Rimes's Blue[16] and her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer.[9] When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem, "Monster in My Closet".[17] At the age of eleven, after many attempts, Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes’s “Big Deal”, and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater.[14] She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs and Boy Scout meetings.[18][5] Swift recorded a demo of karaoke covers, and travelled with her mother to Nashville, Tennessee for spring break, leaving a copy of the demo with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realised that "I needed to know how to do something more than just sing a song".[14]
Swift began performing the national anthem at many sporting events in an attempt to create record label interest. On one occasion, an 11-year-old Swift high-fived Jay-Z after singing the national anthem at a 76ers game in Philadelphia.[19] At the age of 12, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You".[20][21] She then recorded a second demo of original songs.[14] In 2003, Swift and her parents began working with music manager Dan Dymtrow, after he spotted her singing at the US Open.[22] Swift's second demo caught the attention of RCA Records, who offered the eight-grader an artist development deal. In 2004, Swift modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign and had an original song included in a Maybelline Cosmetics compilation CD.[23]
When Swift was 14, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lake-shore house in Hendersonville, Tennessee.[1] Swift has said her parents "presented it as a move to a nice community" rather than as her chance to become a star.[24] Her mother has said, "We've always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true."[25] In Tennessee, Swift attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore year.[26] Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services, and earned her high school diploma in 2008.[27]
Music career
2004–2005: Move to Nashville
Swift moved to Nashville at the age of 14, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. Her musical influences included the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill,[24] Sheryl Crow,[28] Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.[29] Swift had writing sessions with experienced songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, and the Warren Brothers,[30] but eventually formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.[31] Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together.[32] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.[33] Rose has said that the sessions were "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".[34][33] Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman.[32] After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York,[30] Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.[35]Swift left RCA Records when she was 15; the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but Swift felt ready to launch her career.[36] Swift also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents.[23] At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records.[31] Swift was one of the new label's first signings.[31] She also joined talent agency CAA.[23]
2006–2008: Taylor Swift
Main article: Taylor Swift (album)
Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn", was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted and soon peaked at No.3 on the Billboard Country chart in spring 2008. "Should've Said No" became Swift's second No.1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift released Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.[48] In its first week of release, the album sold 45,000 copies, debuting at No.1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and No.9 on the Billboard 200. With her self-titled debut album sitting at No.2 during the same week, Swift became the first artist since 1997 to hold the Top 2 positions of the Top Country Albums chart.[49] In October 2008, Swift performed a duet with best selling rock band Def Leppard in a taped show in Nashville, Tennessee, and their collaboration was up for both Performance of the Year and Wide Open Country Video of the Year at the CMT Music Awards in 2009.[50]
2008–2010: Fearless
Main article: Fearless (Taylor Swift album)
The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released on September 12, 2008. It 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.[55] The second single from Fearless, "White Horse", was released on December 8, 2008. Though it missed the No.1 spot on Billboard's Hot Country Songs as of the week April 11, 2009, "White Horse" claimed the No.1 spot atop the USA Today/Country Aircheck chart (powered by Mediabase) in that week.[56] 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.[57] It also was the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at No.1 on The Billboard 200. Swift is Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008.[58] Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling artists across all genres in 2008.
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.[59] In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live.[60][61] 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.[62][63]
Since the release of Fearless, she 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 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, the worldwide crossover success of her No.1 single "Love Story" and Swift's contribution to helping country music attract a younger audience.[64] As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads.[65] 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.[66] 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 the Country Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year, and is one of only six women to win the Association's highest honor.[83] "Fifteen" reached No.38 on the chart week of November 21, 2009l.[84] "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls and John Mayer's "Half of My Heart" both featured Swift, peaking at No.40 and No.25 respectively. 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 No.1 and No.2 positions atop Nielsen's BDS Top 10 Most Played Songs chart, with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story", respectively.[85]
Swift released the track "Today Was a Fairytale" as a digital download on iTunes on January 19, 2010.[86] It sold more than 325,000 copies in its first week.[87] In February 2010, Swift brought her Fearless Tour to 5 cities in Australia. Opening acts included Gloriana.[88]
In January 2010, Swift won four awards for Album of the Year, Best Country Album, Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song at the 52nd Grammy Awards, from a total of eight nominations.[89][90] During the ceremony, she performed a duet with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received a negative critical response and was described variously as "tinny and rhythmically flat-footed", "badly off-key", "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched".[91][92] In April 2010, Swift was included in Time's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People. Swift's entry was written by Stevie Nicks, who said that "Taylor reminds me of myself in her determination and her childlike nature. It's an innocence that's so special and so rare. This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John [...] The female rock-'n'-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business."[93]
2010–2012: Speak Now
Main article: Speak Now
In 2011, Swift visited Singapore as the first stop of the Asian leg of her first world tour.[96] After the last stop of the Speak Now World Tour in Hong Kong, Swift began the European and American leg.[97] Swift's first live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live, featuring all seventeen performances from the North American leg of her concert tour, was released on November 21, 2011.[98] Three dates on the Speak Now World Tour were cancelled because Swift fell ill with bronchitis.[99] Swift invited many stars to duet with her during the US tour, including singer-songwriters such as James Taylor, Jason Mraz and Shawn Colvin,[100] pop stars such as Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, rappers such as Nicki Minaj, Usher, Flo Rida and T.I., rock stars such as Jim Adkins and Hayley Williams, and country singers such as Ronnie Dunn, Darius Rucker, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney.[101]
In October 2011, Swift was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by Nashville Songwriters Association International. During the ceremony, she played an acoustic version of "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" in honor of Alan Jackson, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee.[102] When making his induction speech, Jackson praised Swift for "the prettiest version I've ever heard".[103] In December 2011, Swift released "Safe & Sound", co-written and co-recorded with The Civil Wars. The single featured on The Hunger Games soundtrack, which also featured a second Swift song, "Eyes Open".[104]
At the 54th Grammy Awards on February 12, 2012, Swift's song "Mean" won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance.[105] She performed the song during the ceremony; her first Grammy performance since her widely criticized 2010 appearance. She received positive reviews. Time felt she "delivered her comeback on-key and with a vengeance"[106] while USA Today remarked that the criticism in 2010 seemed to have "made her a better songwriter and live performer".[107]
On April 1, 2012, she won the award for "Entertainer of the Year" for the second time running at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She was also was nominated for "Female Vocalist" and "Video of the Year" for "Mean". Swift has sold over 20 million albums worldwide.[108] She holds the new record for Fastest Selling Digital Album by a Female Artist, for her latest CD, 'Speak Now,' as well as the Most Simultaneous U.S. Hot 100 Hits by a Female Artist, with 11 charting back-to-back singles in the Guiness Book of World Records 2012.[109] On January 8, 2012, Swift was elected the fifth top artist (fourth female top artist) of all-time with the best-selling digital music tracks. Swift has sold 41,821,000 digital tracks as of the end of 2011 according to Nielsen SoundScan.[110] Swift sold approximately 4,470,000 albums in the US in 2010 (more than any other artist) and sold 9.9 million digital tracks.[111] She was ranked second on Rolling Stone's lists of Top 16 "Queen Of Pops" of the decade.[112]
2012–present: Untitled fourth record
Swift is currently working on her fourth album with producer Nathan Chapman.[113][114] It is scheduled for release in the fall of 2012.[115] 25 songs have already been completed[115] but Swift intends to keep writing and recording throughout 2012 "because I'm having so much fun".[116] After writing her third album alone, Swift is now collaborating with people "from all different places in music",[116] including songwriter Lori McKenna.[117][118] The album will detail "the rise and fall of a relationship",[119] as well as the resulting "absolute crash-and-burn heartbreak".[120] She has described the album's mood as "sad, if I'm being honest."[121] There has been media speculation that it will focus on Swift's relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal.[120]It has also been confirmed that Swift will appear on a song called "Both of Us" from B.o.B's upcoming album Strange Clouds, due out May 1, 2012.[122]
Songwriting style
Swift's lyrics are highly autobiographical; she has said that "If you listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary."[123] 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."[124] She has 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."[125] She parodied her confrontational style of songwriting during her appearance on Saturday Night Live; during her opening monologue, she performed an original song that featured lines such as "You might think I'd bring up Joe, that guy who broke up with me on the phone/ Hey, Joe, I'm doing real well, tonight I'm hosting 'SNL'" referring to her highly publicized relationship with Joe Jonas.[126]The intensely personal nature of the songs has drawn her attention in the music industry. 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."[127] Due to the autobiographical nature of her songs, some fans have researched 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."[128] 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".[129]
Other work
Acting
Swift made her primetime television acting debut in 2009 in an episode of CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The episode was watched by 20.8 million viewers.[130] Swift both hosted and performed as the musical guest for the November 7, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live.[131] In 2010, Swift made her feature film acting debut in the romantic comedy Valentine's Day and won the Teen Choice Award for Movie Female Breakout.[132] In 2012, she voiced the character of Audrey in the animated film The Lorax.[133]Philanthropy
On September 21, 2007, Swift helped launch a campaign to protect children from online predators.[134] She has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes.[134] 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.[134] 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.[135]
On December 13, Swift's own birthday, she donated $250,000 to various schools around the country which she had either attended or been involved with.[143] 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.[144] On May 23, 2011, Swift transformed what was to have been the final dress rehearsal for the North American leg of her Speak Now tour into a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the United States southeast region. The concert in Nashville drew more than 13,000 people and raised more than $750,000 from proceeds from ticket sales, merchandise and other facets of the show.[145] The benefit concert for tornado relief was subsequently honored at the 2011 Do Something Awards.[146] In July 2011, Swift further aided the cause by donating $250,000 to Alabama football coach Nick Saban's charity Nick's Kids to aid in the tornado relief efforts of West Alabama.[147]
Product endorsements
Jakks Pacific released a celebrity doll of Swift in late 2008.[148] Swift has been the face of L.E.I. Jeans (Life Energy Intelligence) since 2008.[149] Swift and the L.e.i. Clothing Line made a deal to create a line based on Swift's style of dressing, which will appear in Wal-Mart in the coming months.[150] 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."[151] In 2009, Swift became the National Hockey League's newest celebrity spokesperson. She appears in commercials for the Nashville Predators.[152]In May 2009, Swift filed a lawsuit (kept sealed until August 2010) against numerous sellers of unauthorized counterfeit merchandise bearing her name, likeness, and trademarks, where she demanded a trial by jury, sought a judgement for compensatory damages, punitive damages, three times the actual damages sustained, and statutory damages, and sought for recovery of her attorney's fees and prejudgement interest.[153] Nashville's U.S. District Court granted an injunction and judgment against the sellers, who had been identified at Swift's concerts in several states. The court ordered merchandise seized from the defendants to be destroyed.[154][155][156] On July 15, 2011, Swift's official website announced that she had partnered with Elizabeth Arden to launch a fragrance, which is to be released in October 2011.[dated info] The fragrance's name, "Wonderstruck", is a reference to the song "Enchanted" featured on her Speak Now album.[157] Swift is also working with American Greetings, Inc.[158] She has endorsement deals with companies including Target, CoverGirl, Sony, Elizabeth Arden, Walmart and American Greetings.[159]
In the media
Position as a role model
Swift has been described as a role model.[160] The singer considers it "my responsibility" to be "conscious" of her influence on young fans.[161] However, she insists that "I don't live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free."[162] Swift does not drink alcohol because she worries that "I might come off in a way that I can't control. Maybe I should just lighten up!" "It's not like I judge people who [drink] or that I don't hang out with people who drink."[162] She refuses to take part in overly sexualised photo-shoots: "I like trying out new styles but I don’t feel comfortable taking my clothes off."[10] A 2012 Vogue cover story described Swift as "clever and funny and occasionally downright bawdy" in person, but noted that she "asks if her cursing can be off the record".[163] The lyrical content of her songs is regarded as appropriate for young audiences; a New Yorker journalist who attended a Swift concert recounted watching "six sixteen-year-old girls holding hands and swaying, and a girl in a hijab sobbing as she sang the words. It was hard not to be a little moved, and not to feel relieved that the words being sung were, more or less, safe ... One can attend a concert by Katy Perry and listen to a stadium full of thirteen-year-olds chant along with the song “Peacock” which goes, “I want to see your peacock-cock-cock! Your peacock-cock!"[1]Feminist discussion
The song Fifteen has been the subject of particular scrutiny. It has been said that the song contains a "feminist message" in the lyrics "Back then I swore I was gonna marry him some day, but I realized some bigger dreams of mine” and "In your life you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team".[167] Feminist critics claim the use of the word "everything" in the lyric "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy, who changed his mind, and we both cried" is a reference to virginity: "Songs like "Fifteen" dig up the ancient Puritan ideal that girls can only access power by confidently and heterosexually denying access to their pants."[168] However, others interpret “everything” as trust: "Abigail trusted and opened up to a boy for the first time, only to be let down. Maybe that includes sex, maybe it doesn’t."[167]
When asked by The New York Times in 2010 whether she considered herself a feminist, Swift replied, "I have never really thought about that".[169] In 2012, Billboard asked Swift whether the marginalization of women in country music, prevalent in the 1950s, was still an issue: "I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn't feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to pay in the same ballgame as the boys, you've got to work as hard as them. I was always playing just as many shows as they were and playing on the same shows as they were. I was willing to pay my dues as an opening act, playing in clubs and bars and playing in tiny venues. The new male artists were doing the same thing, so I never saw an issue there".[170]
Criticism of vocal abilities
Swift's vocal performance during a duet with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammy Awards was widely criticized as "badly off-key", "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched".[171][172] Music critic Bob Lefsetz was particularly vocal in his criticism. He argued that, while "Taylor’s too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made", she killed her career "overnight". "In one fell swoop, Taylor Swift consigned herself to the dustbin of teen phenoms".[173] Lefsetz had previously been a supporter of the singer's career,[174] and Swift and Lefsetz had corresponded occasionally by email and telephone.[175] Wired has described "the Swift attack" as "one of the most personal tracts Lefsetz had ever written. You got the sense that he felt duped, that he really believed in her. Which, for Lefsetz, doesn’t happen a whole lot anymore".[176]Swift's song "Mean" is believed to a rebuttal to Lefsetz.[177] In the album liner notes, Swift wrote, “I thought you got me", and Lefsetz has said she told him “You get me” on several occasions.[178] In response to the song, Lefsetz wrote that, while Swift had "captured the teen zeitgeist better than anyone in this century", it was now time for her to "be a woman singing about womanly issues". "Joni Mitchell ultimately sang about the human condition, contemplating suicide in "Song For Sharon". Is Taylor Swift gonna grow or keep on fighting these petty wars?"[179] "She still can’t sing," he concluded. "And if this song is really about me, I wish it were better".[180] Swift performed "Mean" at the 2012 Grammy Awards, with the song winning two awards. In her acceptance speech, Swift said, "There's really no feeling quite like writing a song about someone who's really mean to you ... and then winning a Grammy for it."[181]
In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift refused to defend her singing voice: “I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across”.[1] "I'm not trying to go out there and do vocal acrobatics. I'm just trying to write good songs".[182] She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows".[183]
Industry polls
Swift was included in People's annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008, 2009, and 2010 lists.[184][185] Additionally, she was named 57th on Maxim's sexiest women of 2008, 50th on the 2009 list[186] and 31st on the 2010 list.[187] CosmoGirl voted Swift as the "2008 Girl of the Year".[188] Swift was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of "The RS 100: Agents of Change".[189] She was nominated as a candidate for TIME's "2009 The Time 100 Finalists" list, which is determined by online voting.[190] People magazine named Swift one of 25 Most Intriguing People of 2009.[191]Personal life
Swift's main residence is a duplex penthouse in midtown Nashville, Tennessee.[192][1] She also owns a house in Beverly Hills, California.[193][194]Relationships
Swift dated singer Joe Jonas from July to October 2008.[195][196] Jonas ended the relationship by phone after meeting actress Camilla Belle, whom he then began dating.[197][198] Swift's songs "Forever and Always", "Last Kiss" and "Better than Revenge" were inspired by her relationship with Jonas.[199] Swift casually dated actor Taylor Lautner from October to December 2009.[200][201] Her song "Back to December" is believed to be an apology to Lautner.[202]Swift was romantically linked to musician John Mayer from late 2009 until June 2010.[203][204][205] They first met in 2008[206] and recorded a duet, "Half of My Heart", in late 2009.[207] There is speculation that Swift wrote the songs "Dear John" and "The Story of Us" about her relationship with Mayer.[208][199] Swift dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal from October 2010 to December 2010.[209][210] They were last photographed together in Nashville on January 19, 2011.[211] Swift has indicated that her fourth album will be about the relationship.[212]
Politics
After casting her vote in the 2008 US presidential election, Swift declined to inform journalists which candidate she had supported.[213] However, following Barack Obama's inauguration, she told Rolling Stone: "I've never seen this country so happy about a political decision in my entire time of being alive. I'm so glad this was my first election."[214] In 2009, after Swift's VMA acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye West, President Obama described West's behaviour as "really inappropriate. The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She’s getting her award. What is he doing up there? He’s a jackass."[215]In 2010, former U.S. President George H. W. Bush attended the taping of a Swift television special in Kennebunkport, Maine,[216] and later described Swift as "unspoiled" and "very nice".[217] In 2012, Swift was presented with a Kids' Choice Award in recognition of her charitable work by Michelle Obama, who praised her as someone who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year old can accomplish".[218] Swift later described the First Lady as "a role model".[219]
Swift is an admirer of the Kennedy family and has spent time with Rory, Caroline and, particularly, Ethel Kennedy.[220] When asked about her friendship with Swift, Ethel replied, "Oh, she is amazing! Such good company."[221] Rory has said, "There is a mutual admiration society between my mother and Taylor Swift and I just love it! I think it says so much about Taylor - she has that ability to connect and cross generations ... She's terrific and such a great role model for young girls, as well as for all women, really. ... She's just so curious and interested".[221] In January 2012, Swift travelled to Utah to attend the Sundance premiere of the HBO documentary Ethel.[222]
In a 2012 interview, Swift remarked that she was "very cautious" about using her public profile to address political issues, adding that she hoped to "gradually" become more outspoken: "I don't feel that I am in a place to sing about politics or anything like that. I don't know enough at this point".[223]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation | Haley Jones | Episode: "Turn, Turn, Turn" |
| 2009 | Saturday Night Live | Herself | Host and Musical Guest |
| 2010 | Valentine's Day | Felicia | Teen Choice Award for Choice Breakout Female Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Chemistry (with Taylor Lautner) Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Liplock (with Taylor Lautner) Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (with Taylor Lautner) |
| 2012 | The Lorax | Audrey | Voice only |
Discography
Main article: Taylor Swift discography
Albums
- Taylor Swift (2006)
- Fearless (2008)
- Speak Now (2010)
Tours
- Fearless Tour (2009–10)
- Speak Now World Tour (2011–12)
Awards and nominations
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Taylor Swift
