
In November 2009 Taylor Swift became the youngest ever artist, and one of only six women, to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association.

When Beyoncé later won the award for Video of the Year, she invited Taylor onstage to finish her speech. West declared Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated in the same category, to be "one of the best videos of all time". Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Ye, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents. In September 2009 she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video. It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Four more singles were released throughout 20: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2008 she released her second studio album, "Fearless". The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. Her single "Our Song" made her the youngest solo writer and singer of a #1 country song. The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Taylor released her debut album, "Taylor Swift", in October of 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics. Taylor was one of the new label's first signings. At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records. She left RCA Records when she was 15-the label wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material. She moved to Nashville at age 14, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem entitled "Monster in My Closet", but now began to focus on songwriting.
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This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.Īt age 12 she was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". At age 11, after many attempts, Taylor won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes' "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. However, after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything, she became interested in country music. She traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons.

At the age of nine she turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of "Grease", "Annie", "Bye Bye Birdie" and "The Sound of Music". Her mother put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and Swift later competed in horse shows. Her first hobby was English horse riding. Taylor spent her summers at her parents' vacation home at the Jersey shore. When she was nine years old the family moved to Wyomissing, PA, where she attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Taylor spent most of her childhood on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. She was named after James Taylor, and her mother believed that if she had a gender neutral name it would help her forge a business career. Her ancestry includes German and English, as well as some Scottish, Irish, Welsh and 1/16th Italian. Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Andrea (Finlay), a one-time marketing executive, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a financial adviser. As of this writing, she is also the top-selling digital artist in music history. She also has been named the American Music Awards Artist of the Year, as well as the Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, among many other accolades. In 2011 Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year. Taylor Alison Swift is a multi-Grammy award-winning American singer/songwriter who, in 2010 at the age of 20, became the youngest artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
