Taylor Swift Tour Overview
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Recognized for her songwriting, musical versatility, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music industry, she is a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century.
Swift began songwriting professionally at age 14 and signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country musician. Under Big Machine, she released six studio albums, four of them to country radio, starting with her self-titled album (2006). Her next record, Fearless (2008), explored country pop, and its singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" catapulted her to mainstream fame. Speak Now (2010) incorporated rock influences, and Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift's first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". She forwent her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". Media scrutiny inspired her next album, the hip-hop-flavored Reputation (2017), and its number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do".
After signing a new contract with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her seventh album, Lover (2019), and autobiographical documentary, Miss Americana (2020). She embraced indie folk and alternative rock on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and explored chill-out styles on Midnights (2022). The albums broke multifarious records, led by the respective number-one singles "Cardigan", "Willow", and "Anti-Hero". A dispute with Big Machine led Swift to re-record her first six albums, launching three of them from 2021 to 2023 as "Taylor's Versions". Her song "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" is the longest to top the Hot 100. Swift has directed music videos and films such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) and played supporting roles in others.
About Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish, German and Italian heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father had purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where Swift attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. She spent her summers at the beach in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, and performed in a local coffee shop.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
Taylor Swift Facts
- Taylor wrote a 350-page novel when she was 12, which, so far, has never been published.
- Taylor Swift is extremely talented; she can play the guitar, piano, ukulele, electric guitar, and banjo!
- She says Shania Twain is her biggest musical influence; however, she’s also “devoted” to Britney Spears.
- Taylor’s first single was called Tim McGraw, which reached the top ten songs on the country charts in 2006.
