Taylor Swift’: Princess of country music

TAYLOR Swift opened the Country Music Television awards on June 16 with a skit about living out her dreams.

The 19-year-old country-and-pop sensation went a long way towards doing just that by winning video of the year and female video of the year for Love Story. To add icing to the cake, she got to perform with one of her favourite rock bands.

“I want to thank Shania Twain for always making such theatrical videos, and Garth Brooks for always putting the fans first. I take my cues from you,” Swift said in accepting video of the year honours at Nashville’s Sommet Centre in Tennessee.

“I like to thank the fans for giving me video of the year when my whole family is here watching.”

Swift with the Female Video of the Year award for Love Story at the CMT Music Awards.

Swift won the fan-voted award in a competitive ­category that included Brad Paisley’s Waitin’ on a Woman, Trace Adkins’ You’re Gonna Miss This, Carrie ­Underwood’s Just a Dream and Sugarland’s All I Want to Do.

Her Love Story video is an ­elaborate production with period costumes that echoes the story of Romeo and Juliet.

“This is for everybody who still believes in love stories, because I do,” Swift said.

She then closed the awards show by performing Pour Some Sugar on Me with the British rock band Def ­Leppard.

Paisley was the night’s other big winner, taking home awards for male video (Waitin’ on a Woman), ­collaborative video (Start a Band with Keith Urban) and performance of the year (Alan Jackson’s Country Boy with Jackson, George Strait and Dierks Bentley).

Start a Band features two youngsters playing the Rock Band music video game. Paisley and Urban also urged young viewers to learn to play.

Taylor Alison Swift was born on Dec 13, 1989, and is currently the hot rising star in American country-pop genre.

She cites Twain, her grandmother and LeAnn Rimes as her musical influence.

Although her grandmother was a professional ­opera singer, Swift’s tastes always ran more towards country and she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton at an early age.

She also credits the Dixie Chicks and Twain for ­demonstrating how much impact can be made by “stretching ­boundaries”.

Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was 12. She began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local songwriters.

By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.

In 2006, she released her debut single Tim McGraw, which peaked at No.6 on the Billboard country charts.

Later in October that year, she released her self-titled debut album, which ­produced five hit singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and was certified triple multi-platinum by the RIAA.

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”.

Her second album, ­Fearless, was released in the United States on Nov 11 last year. The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and the lead single Love Story became a hit on both the country and pop charts.

Through its eighth week of release, Fearless sold more than 338,467 paid downloads, making it the best-selling country album in digital ­history.

She released the lead single from the album, Love Story, on Sept 12. The song reached No.2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and No.4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Swift’s Fearless and her self-titled album finished 2008 at No.3 and No.6 respectively, with sales of 2.1 million and 1.5 million each.

Fearless has since topped the Billboard 200 for 11 non-consecutive weeks. It also was the first album by a female ­artiste in country music ­history to log eight weeks at No.1 on The Billboard 200.
As of the week ending Feb 8 this year, Swift’s single Love Story became the country song with most paid downloads in history and the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40.

At the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on April 5, Swift was honoured with Album of the Year as a performer and ­producer for Fearless. She is the youngest artiste in history to win this award.

Swift was also awarded the Academy’s Crystal Milestone Award, given for ­outstanding achievement in country ­music.

She was lauded for career achievements including ­selling more albums in 2008 than any other artiste in any genre of music, the breakthrough success of her debut album (which spawned five Top 10 hits, more than any in history for a female artiste’s debut CD), and the worldwide crossover success of her No.1 single Love Story.

As of late April, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads, as well as three Gold Mobile Ringtones. – Agencies