Music Career
Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006 and on
October 24, 2006, her self-titled album was released. Swift wrote or
co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard
200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. It later peaked at #1 at
Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 at Billboard 200. It also spent eight
consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts, and has since
sold over 3 million copies. Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music
streams on MySpace. She is currently ranked at 15 for the most MySpace
visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist.
Regarding "Tim McGraw", Swift said, "I wrote the song in my freshman year of high
school. I was dating a guy who was about to go off to college. I knew we were going
to break up so I started thinking of all the things that I knew would remind him of
me. Surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was that my favorite country
artist is Tim McGraw." "Tim McGraw" peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot Country
Songs charts for the week of January 27, 2007. The song's music video set a record
by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music
countdown show, and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video also won
Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.
Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a
part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006 on
the country music channel.
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards.
She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the
first time to him. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill
on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad
Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well. On August 21, 2007, Swift performed live on
the season finale of America's Got Talent.
The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops On My Guitar", was released
February 24, 2007. The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high
school in which she liked a boy named "Drew Hardwick". He only saw Swift as a friend
and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted
she heard "through the grapevine" that Drew is well aware the song was written about
him. "Teardrops on My Guitar" originally made its peak positions in Summer 2007,
peaking at #2 on the Billboard Country Chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song
was re-released to the Hot 100 and Pop 100 in late 2007 with a Pop remix that brought
"Teardrops on My Guitar" to #13 on the Hot 100 and #11 on the Pop 100.
In October 2007, Swift's songwriting peers at the Nashville Songwriters Association
International honored her with their Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award, making her
the youngest artist ever to win the award.
On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our
Song", the third single from her album, which would go on to become her first #1 song
the week of December 22, 2007, where it leaped up from the #6 spot. This was the biggest
jump to Number One since January 1998, when Tim McGraw's "Just to See You Smile", also
jumped from #6 to #1."Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts and also
peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the Billboard Pop 100.
Swift also recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday
Collection, that was released October 16, 2007, exclusively available at Target stores.
The album, which was not as successful as her self-titled debut, featured both holiday
classics such as "Last Christmas" and original songs written by Swift.
Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but
lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn" was the fourth
single from her debut album. The song debuted early in 2008 and peaked at #3 on the
Billboard Country Chart in the spring of 2008.
Swift was cover girl of Seventeen in the June 2008 issue. She was also named number
fifty-two on Maxim's sexiest women of '08.
Big Machine Records announced the release of "Should've Said No" on Monday, May 19.
The song is the fifth and final single from Swift's debut album. She performed it on
43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. The performance started off with her
dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, but soon after a short black halter dress was
revealed. In the last minute of the song, she went backstage to perform the final verse
under a cascading waterfall. Swift had wanted to do that performance on stage with the
water and the change of clothes since she was 10 years old. In 2008, Swift released
Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.
In July 2008, Swift graduated from the Aaron Academy, a Christian school in
Hendersonville, TN which offers a home schooling program. "Should've
Said No" became her second Number One single for the chart dated August 23, 2008.
Swift's next studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11,
2008. "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting
Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics.The song was also featured as part of
the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Games. She also released the lead
single from the album, "Love Story", on September 12, 2008. The song is accompanied by
a music video that is based on Romeo and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes
Store Top Downloaded Songs and #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Swift sang the
Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia, October 25, 2008.