Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. When she was 14 years old, she moved to Nashville. It was in Nashville that Swift developed an ability to turn her negative relationship experiences into songs. 

As Faith Hill and McGraw tours Columbus, Ohio on their Soul2Soul II tour, young Taylor Swift was their opening act on some dates. This tour became the highest-grossing country tour of all time. this exposure significantly impacted Taylor Swift and her career.

On October 24, 2006, Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut album. The record was a collection of country-pop songs from the young singer. She wrote the songs for the album while she was in her freshman year in high school. He album peaked at #5 on the Albums chart in the US. It also became the longest-charting album in the 2000s in the United States. It spent 157 weeks on the chart.

Taylor Swift performed her debut single, ‘Tim McGraw’ at the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 15, 2007. The teenager went into the audience and personally introduced herself to McGraw and his wife. 

Taylor Swift was eighteen years old when she released her second studio album, ‘Fearless’. The album was met with huge support and became a major success. ‘Fearless’ sold more than 10 million copies in the United States. The tracks that did the best were ‘Love Story’ and ‘You Belong With Me.’

The singer won the Best Female Video of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009. Unfortunately, her victory was bittersweet because Kanye West came on the stage unauthorized and took the mic from the singer and stated that Beyonce should have won the award for the song ‘Single Ladies’. Later that night, Beyonce won the award for Video of the Year. Beyonce invited Taylor on stage to finish her speech that was interrupted by Kanye West. 

Both Taylor Swift and Beyonce broke records at the 2010 staging of the Grammy Awards. Taylor Swift earned Album of the Year for ‘Fearless’ at 19 years old. Swift became the youngest artist to ever win the award. Beyonce won six out of the ten Grammy nominations that she received that night. Beyonce set the record for the most wins in one night by a female artist. 

On October 25, 2010, Taylor Swift released her third studio album, Speak Now. On this album, the singer spoke out against industry insider Bob Lefsetz who had said some negative things about her and her decision to perform with Stevie Nicks at the Grammy Awards.

On October 22, 2012, the singer released “Red. The first single from this album was “We Are Never Getting Back Together”. The song was written about an ex of the singer that she refused to name. 

Taylor Swift released ‘1989’ on October 27, 2014. The album became the singer’s best-selling album. The smash hits of the album were ‘Shake It Off’ and ‘Blank Space’.

On January 27, 2015, Taylor Swift’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were hacked. The hacker sent fake posts to the singer’s 51 million followers. Swift was the owner of the fourth-largest Twitter account at the time. Swift announced the hack on her Tumblr. 

Kanye West’s ‘Famous’ featured controversial lyrics about the singer. The rapper claimed that he received permission from Taylor Swift before releasing the song with the lyrics. The official spokesperson of Taylor Swift shared that the singer had not heard the actual lyrics that Kanye would share. She shared that Swift was not pleased with what Kanye said on the song about her.

After winning the award for the Album of the Year, Taylor Swift made statements that seemed to be addressed at the lyrics shared by Kanye West in the song, ‘Famous’. 

After pulling a publicity stunt, the singer released her sixth album, ‘Reputation’. The singer had removed all her posts from her social media accounts. She then posted a video of a hissing snake. This was done to prepare the world for the single, ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and ultimately her sixth album. 

Big Machine, the label to which Taylor Swift was formerly signed was purchased by Scooter Braun’s company for approximately $300 million. This gave Scooter Braun complete control of the singer’s back catalog. This includes her master recordings. Swift then shares that Braun had been bullying her. The singer later announced that she would re-record all her previous albums to reduce the value of Scooter Braun’s purchase. 

The tone of the singer’s seventh album was a little different from her previous albums. ‘Lover’ was a highly upbeat record. 

There was no publicity stunt to boost interest in ‘Folklore’. Instead, the singer’s eighth album was more like a surprise. It was announced a day before it was to be released. The album makes it to the number one spot in America just as her previous six albums did.

On August 8, 2020, Taylor Swift became the first artist to debut at the number one spot on both the Hot 100 and US albums chart at the same time.  

In March 2023, Taylor Swift launched the Eras Tour, a comprehensive journey through her entire discography. The tour garnered significant attention from the media for its profound cultural and economic influence, setting a new record by selling the most tickets in a single day during its US leg. Ticketmaster faced widespread criticism from both the public and political figures for its handling of ticket sales for the tour. Ultimately, the Eras Tour achieved unprecedented success, becoming the highest-grossing tour of all time with earnings surpassing $1 billion.