Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania) is an American pop and country singer, guitarist, songwriter, music producer and actress. She has sold 252.5 million records worldwide according to IFPI (as of November 2021), making her one of the world's most successful artists.
Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1989 into an upper-middle class family from Wyomissing. Her mother Andrea Finlay was a marketing executive and later a homemaker. Her father Scott Swift is a wealth advisor at Merrill Lynch. Her younger brother is actor Austin Swift. Swift's parents ran a Christmas tree nursery. Her maternal grandmother was an opera singer. Swift's childhood interest was in country music by artists such as LeAnn Rimes, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, and Shania Twain.
At the age of ten, Swift began participating in karaoke competitions and performing as a singer at festivals and fairs. For this she was already writing her own songs. At the age of eleven she tried to get a contract with various record labels in Nashville. At the age of 12 she learned to play the guitar. At 14, while performing at the Bluebird Café, she was discovered by Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his new record label, Big Machine Records. That same year, the family moved to Hendersonville, Tennessee. There she attended Hendersonville High School. In 2010, Swift was involved with Taylor Lautner for a few months after the filming of Valentine's Day. Since the end of 2016, she has been in a relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn.
Taylor Swift in 2012 on her Speak Now World tour.
2006-2012: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now and Red - Beginnings with Country.
Swift as an opening act at a Brad Paisley concert in 2007.
In 2006, Swift released her debut single Tim McGraw, which reached number six on the American country charts. Her debut album Taylor Swift was released in October of the same year and reached number five on the Billboard 200, and was certified five-times platinum by the RIAA. From the album, four singles reached the top ten on the U.S. country charts; on the Billboard Hot 100, three of the singles entered the top 40. All of the songs on this album were either written by Swift or co-written by her.
In November 2008, she released her second album, Fearless, which topped the album chart intermittently for eleven weeks;[9] no other album since 2000 has held that top spot longer, and it was the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. In early February 2009, the single Love Story from the album Fearless became the country song with the most paid downloads, with approximately 2.7 million units. In September 2009, her song You Belong with Me managed to reach the number one spot on the country charts. In 2010, she won the People's Choice Award in the Best Female Artist category. She received four awards at the 2010 Grammy Awards. In February 2010, her Fearless Tour toured five cities in Australia, opening for the country band Gloriana.
Swift's third album Speak Now, released in October 2010, sold more than one million copies in the United States within its first week. The album's songs were written in Arkansas, New York City, Boston and Nashville, and were written by herself. Nathan Chapman, who had already worked on Swift's first two albums, acted as co-producer. The album's first single release was Mine; it was followed by Back to December, Mean, The Story of Us, Sparks Fly and Ours. She won two Grammys for Mean.
Swift on her The Red Tour in 2013.
Her fourth studio album Red was released in October 2012 and was produced by Nathan Chapman. The first single from this album was We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, which became the first number one hit for Swift in the United States. The second single released was Begin Again. The third single, I Knew You Were Trouble, charted in the Top 10 in Germany and reached number two in the UK and the US. The single sold more than three million copies in the USA. The fourth single off the album was 22, which sold more than six million copies. Swift, who was the world's most commercially successful musician in 2011 with earnings of more than $35 million, plays an acoustic acoustic acoustic guitar made by California-based Taylor Guitars from the wood of the koa acacia tree.
2014-2019: 1989, Reputation and Lover - Switching to pop music.
Swift on her The 1989 World Tour, the world's biggest-selling tour of 2015.
In October 2014, Universal Music released her fifth studio album titled 1989, which she produced with Max Martin, Shellback, Ryan Tedder, Jack Antonoff, Nathan Chapman, Imogen Heap and Greg Kurstin, among others, back at Big Machine Records. The album's name refers to Swift's birth year. The album marked the singer's first turn from country to pop. She gave a first glimpse of the album's new style in August 2014 with the release of the single Shake It Off and as part of a live streaming event from New York City and the release of the music video for the single. This became Swift's second U.S. number one hit The second single, Blank Space, was released as a music download in November and as a CD in Germany in January 2015; it marked the artist's third time at the top of the U.S. charts. Other singles from the album were Style in February, Bad Blood in May and Wildest Dreams in August. Bad Blood became Swift's fourth number one hit in a version performed with rapper Kendrick Lamar. Out of the Woods was released as a single in January 2016 and New Romantics in February.
Her sixth studio album Reputation was released in November 2017, with the first single Look What You Made Me Do released in advance in August 2017 and entering the Top 10 of the German, Austrian and Swiss singles charts. In the British singles chart and in the Billboard Hot 100, she achieved a number one success with this song. The second single, Ready for It, was produced by Swift along with Jack Antonoff, Max Martin and Shellback. In the song End Game, she collaborated with rapper Future and singer Ed Sheeran.
Swift on her Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018.
On the tour for her sixth studio album Reputation, the Reputation Stadium Tour, she grossed $345.5 million and had 2.88 million viewers during her 53 shows. The tour set the record for the highest earnings for a U.S. tour.
After Swift ME! (feat. Brendon Urie) as the first advance single release from her seventh studio album Lover in April 2019, she showed her support for the LGBT community with the second advance single release You Need to Calm Down. The song was appropriately released during Pride month. The music video featured appearances by celebrities such as Katy Perry, Ellen DeGeneres and Adam Lambert. The accompanying studio album - released through Republic Records - was released in August 2019 after the release of the promotional single release The Archer and the third advance single release Lover. Following the release of the album, The Man was released as the fourth and final single release for now in spring 2020. In the accompanying music video, Swift played Swift's identity as a man described in the song.
2020: Folklore and Evermore - reorientation to indie and folk.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift's performances in the United States and Brazil were postponed until 2021. In May 2020, footage from her 2019 City of Lovers concert aired on ABC. She also released the live versions of the Lover songs she sang at that concert. In June 2020, she participated in YouTube's livestream Dear Class of 2020.
In July 2020, she released her eighth studio album Folklore.[29] With this and the single Cardigan, she became the first artist to enter the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 at number one in the same week. In March 2021, she won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards with Folklore.
December 2020 saw the release of Evermore, her ninth studio album. As with the previous album, she wrote all the songs in self-isolation during the Covid 19 pandemic. For the second time, she managed to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. charts with an album and a single simultaneously; the song Willow immediately positioned itself at the top of the chart, as did the album.
Since 2021: re-recording two albums.
In April 2021, she released a re-recording of her album Fearless (with the addition of Taylor's Version), thus regaining commercial control over her compositions. Andreas Borcholte therefore describes the "perfect-looking one-to-one copy" as an "act of artistic self-empowerment".
Red (Taylor's Version) was released in November 2021 with 30 songs. Together with the revised version of the song All Too Well, Swift was again able to enter the top of the US charts simultaneously in the same week with a song and an album.
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