Taylor Swift | Artist
Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter born 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Named after American singer-songwriter James Taylor, Swift is known for her autobiographical songwriting, and is a leading figure in popular music with millions of fans. Swift's father was a stockbroker and her mother worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. Their maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer, whose singing in church became one of Swift's earliest memories of music that shaped her career. Swift spent her early years on the family's Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania and spent summers at their vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where she occasionally performed at a local coffee shop. She is a Christian and attended preschool and kindergarten at a Montessori school run by the Bernardine Sisters of St. Francis. As a child, she performed in youth theatre productions and traveled regularly to NYC for vocal and acting lessons. Her early love for country music was influenced by Shania Twain, Patsy Cline, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks, and after watching a documentary about Faith Hill, she became determined to pursue a country-music career. At 11 Swift traveled to Nashville with her mother to visit record labels and submit demo tapes of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected by all the labels, which led her to focus on songwriting and learning the guitar. In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with the talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch and got a song included on a Maybelline compilation CD. After performing at an RCA Records showcase, 13-year-old Swift was given an artist development deal and began to travel regularly to Nashville with her mother. To help her break into the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift began working with songwriter Liz Rose, meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose called the sessions "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." Swift became the youngest artist signed by Sony/ATV Tree Music Publishing. Swift began working on her debut album with Nathan Chapman of Big Machine Records, writing or co-writing all tracks. Released in October 2006, Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the US chart and Swift became the first female country artist to write or co-write every track on a platinum-certified debut album. She has since gone on to record 15 studio albums to-date, including 4 re-makes of early works. Standout albums include Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Red (Taylor's Version) (2021), and Speak Now (Taylor's Version) (2023). On her critically acclaimed albums Folklore and Evermore Swift collaborated with Aaron Dressner from the band The National. Swift has become one of world's best-selling artists with estimated global sales of 200 million records. She has been listed amongst history's greatest artists in publications such as Rolling Stone and Forbes, and named "Person of the Year" in Time magazine. Accolades include 14 Grammy awards, an Emmy award, 40 American Music awards, 39 Billboard music awards, and 30 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2023 Swift was responsible for 7% all vinyl records sold in the US, selling 3.484 million albums in that year alone.
Artist Website: taylorswift.com
Featured Albums: Taylor Swift
Related Artists: The National
