georgia - taylor swift
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Swift spent her early years on her family's Christmas tree farm in nearby Wyomissing. Her grandmother had been a professional opera singer, and Swift soon followed in her footsteps. By the age of 10, Swift was singing at a variety of local events, including fairs and contests. She sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game at the age of 11, and began writing her own songs and learning guitar at 12 years old.
To pursue her music career, Swift often visited Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital. There she co-wrote songs and tried to land a recording contract. Noting her dedication, Swift and her family moved to nearby Hendersonville, Tennessee, in an attempt to further Swift's career.
A stellar performance at The Bluebird Café in Nashville helped Swift get a contract with Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Records. She released her first single, "Tim McGraw," in 2006, and the song became a Top 10 hit on the country charts. It also appeared on her self-titled debut album in October of that same year, which went on to sell more than 5 million copies. More popular singles soon followed, including "Our Song," a No. 1 country music hit. "Teardrops on My Guitar," "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No" were also successful tracks.
In 2008, Swift was nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Artist category and won other accolades, including the ACM's Female Vocalist of the Year Award. Around this same time, Swift released her next album, Fearless, which hit the top of both the country and pop charts and stayed there for 11 weeks. By the end of the year, Swift had become the highest-selling country artist of 2008.
Swift netted several awards for her work on Fearless, including Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards. That year Swift also won the MTV Video Music Award's Best Female Video, for "You Belong With Me," making her the first country music star to earn a VMA. The win stirred controversy when rapper Kanye West leaped to the stage during Swift's speech, took the microphone and declared that R&B singer Beyoncé should have won Swift's award.
That year Swift released a new album, Speak Now, which featured the hit songs "Mean," "Ours" and "Sparks Fly." The album was a success, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and selling more than 1 million copies in its first week. She followed with Red (2012), which featured the hit single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and also topped 1 million in its first week of sales.
With her next effort, Swift seemed to step further away from her country music roots. She released 1989, her most pop-sounding record to date, in October 2014. "Shake It Off" proved to be one of the catchiest tracks of the year, reaching the top of the pop charts, and she immediately followed with a second chart-topping single, "Blank Space." In an age of low album sales, 1989 moved more than 1.2 million copies in its first week, making Swift the first artist to top the 1 million mark in opening-week sales for three albums.
In late August 2017, Swift revealed that she would release her sixth studio album, Reputation, in November. The album's first single, "Look What You Made Me Do," came out August 24.
Reputation sold 1.05 million copies in the U.S. over its first four days. Along with giving the artist her fourth consecutive album to surpass 1 million in sales for its opening week, that total made Reputation the top-selling album of 2017.