Early Life and Career
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 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.
Country Crooner
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, selling more than
2.5 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 addition to commercial success,
Swift received a lot of critical praise for her debut effort. She won the
Horizon Award from the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of
Country Music Award for Top New Female Vocalist in 2007. Swift next released Sounds
of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in 2007. Her renditions
of "Silent Night" and "Santa Baby" were modest hits on the
country charts.
In 2008, Swift was nominated for a
Grammy Award in the Best New Artist category, and won the Academy of Country
Music's "Female Vocalist of the Year" Award, the American Music
Awards "Favorite Female Country Artist" award, and the American Music
Association's "Horizon" award. Around this same time, Swift released
her next album, Fearless (2008), 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.
2009 Video Music Awards
In 2009, 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 CMT
Music Awards. On September 13, 2009, Swift also won the MTV Video Music Award
for "Best Female Video," making her the first country music star to
win an MTV Video Music Award. 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.
The stunned Swift was unable to make
her acceptance speech, and West was removed from the show. When Beyoncé
accepted her award for "Best Video of the Year" later in the show,
she called Swift to the stage to finish her speech. West later apologized to
Swift privately, and made a public apology on The Jay Leno Show.
Commercial Success
The attention from the award show
made Swift an even hotter commodity. Her concert tickets began selling out in
less than two minutes, and she also made her second appearance on comedy show Saturday
Night Live, this time as both the host and musical guest. Additionally, she
became the youngest artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in
2010 for Fearless.
In 2010, she released the 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, selling more than one million copies in its first week.
She followed that album with Red (2012), featuring the hit single
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and also selling more than
one million copies in its first week. With her fifth album 1989, Swift
became the first woman in history to release three albums that sold more than
one million copies in their opening week.
She was ranked No. 1 as Forbes
magazine's highest paid celebrity under 30 in 2012, beating out Justin Bieber,
Rihanna and Lady Gaga with a salary of $57 million. She has also been tapped
for four CMA nominations in 2009—"Female Vocalist," "Music Video
of the Year," "Best Album" and "Entertainer of the
Year"—as well as six American Music Award nominations.
The following year, Swift shared
some of her fortune to help others. She funded the $4 million Taylor Swift
Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. The facility
has three classrooms, a learning lab and a space dedicated to exhibits for
children. In an interview with CMT Hot 20 Countdown, she explained that
"music education is really such an important part of my life. My life
changed so completely when I discovered writing my own songs and playing
guitar, and that can't necessarily all be taught to you in school because there
aren't enough hours in the day."
Also in 2013, Swift was honored with
the CMA Pinnacle Award for her achievements as a country music performer and
for her "positive impact" on country music, according to CMA website.
She picked up this award, along with two other wins for her collaboration with
Tim McGraw and Keith Urban, at the CMA Awards ceremony held that November.
Swift's winning streak continued at the American Music Awards. For the third
year in a row, she picked up the AMA Award for artist of the year. Swift also
took home the top honors for country album of the year and favorite female
artist in both the country and pop/rock categories.
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. Swift continued to play with her public persona with the
track "Bad Blood," which features Kendrick Lamar. In the video for
the song, which debuted at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards, she appears as a tough,
cutthroat character called "Catastrophe" in this noir action short.
Swift recruited a number of top names to appear in the video, including Karlie
Kloss, Cindy Crawford and Lena Dunham.
During much of 2008, reports
circulated that Swift was dating Joe Jonas from the popular musical group The
Jonas Brothers. Neither Swift nor Jonas has ever acknowledged the relationship.
"He's an amazing guy, and anyone would be lucky to be dating him,"
Swift said at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. Whatever their relationship, it
seemed to turn sour by the time Fearless was released. The song,
"Forever & Always," is reportedly about Jonas.
Swift was then romantically linked
to actor Taylor Lautner, one of the stars of the successful Twilight
saga. The pair reportedly met while filming Swift's big screen debut Valentine's
Day, which hit theaters in February 2010. Unfortunately, the couple didn't
make it long enough to see the premiere as a couple, having broken up in late
2009. Swift then dated singer John Mayer for a brief period, which ended on bad
terms when she wrote the tell-all song entitled "Dear John" about the
womanizer.
From there, Swift was romantically linked to Glee
star Cory Monteith and Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010, and Conor Kennedy—son of Robert
F. Kennedy, Jr.—in 2012. She found herself dating another celebrity at the
tail-end of 2012, bringing in the new year with One Direction's Harry
Styles. More recently, Swift has been seeing Calvin Harris, a music
producer, DJ and singer. sumber: http://www.biography.com
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar