I had to do a biography on someone for ELA so I chose Taylor Swift[]
I know there's a lot 😀[]
Introduction
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"There are two ways you can get through pain. You can let it destroy you or you can use it as fuel to drive you to dream bigger." Taylor Swift is an American singer and songwriter. According to billboardmusic.com she has so many achievements which include being the first female artist to win album of the year three times, getting more than three hundred awards, breaking spotify and Amazon music when releasing her most recent album Midnights, most-streamed artist in a single day on Spotify, with 228 million streams total, dethroned Ariana Grande by being the most streamed female artist on spotify, and so much more. Taylor Swift has been a very inspirational person to many people.
Childhood
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Taylor Swift was born on December 13th 1989.She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her parents were Andrea Swift and Scott Swift who was a stock broker and a homemaker. Taylor has a younger brother who was born on March 11 1992. In her early years she lived on a Christmas tree farm.At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theater 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. At the age of ten, a computer repairman showed her how to play three chords on a guitar, sparking her interest in learning the instrument. Afterward, Swift wrote her first song, "Lucky You". When Swift was 12, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished. She started writing songs and playing at local festivals and fairs. When she was 14 Swift and her family moved to Nashville Tennessee. She went to Henderson High School but later switched to home-school. (Taylor Swift Wiki)
Early musical career and debut
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According to the Taylor Swift Wiki as Taylor started to get more into singing and music she tried to obtain a record deal. Swift went to every label in town but got rejected by all the labels. She was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where her rendition of the national anthem received much attention. When Taylor was performing a song at The Bluebird Cafe, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta. The young singer signed his record deal with his newly made record label. At age 14, she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. Taylor Swift released her self-titled album on October 24 2006. Swift released her debut single called Tim Mcgraw, which peaked at number five on the billboard 200. The debut album spent eight weeks at the top of Top Country Albums charts. The singer released some other singles of the album which include : Teardrops On My Guitar, Our Song, Picture To Burn, and Should've Said No.
Fearless
Taylor Swift released her second studio album called Fearless on November 11 2008. The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,304 were the highest debut of any country artist in 2008. This is also the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music. The album's lead single Love story hit the country and the pop charts in 2008. Fearless has sold more than 338,467 downloads, making it the bestselling country album in digital history. In second place is Swift's debut Taylor Swift with sales of 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009. The singles from the album include : Love story, White Horse, You Belong With Me, Fifteen, and Fearless. The album got great reviews and lots of awards. Taylor got the awards for Fearless : Top selling album for Canadian Country Music Association, Album of the year for Academy of Country Music Awards and American Music Awards, and much more. In January of 2009, Swift announced the North American tour for her album Fearless. In February of 2009, Taylor and Miley Cyrus sang Taylor's song fifteen at the Grammy awards. On April 23, 2009 Taylor started her Fearless tour. In September of 2009, Swift attended the MTV Video Music Awards. During the show, as Swift was on stage accepting the award for Best Female Video for You Belong with Me, singer/rapper Kanye West came on stage and took the microphone from Swift, saying that Beyoncé's video for Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time," an action that caused the many audience members to boo West. Later, when Beyoncé won the award for best video of the year, she invited Taylor back on stage to finish her acceptance speech. In November of 2009, Taylor released a deluxe version of Fearless, which she released five singles off of the album and the singles all got onto the billboard top 100. The singer partner-upped with Boys Like Girls to make the song Two Is Better Than One which also got onto the top 100. When Fifteen reached No.38 on the chart week of November 21, 2009, Swift became the female artist with the most Top 40 singles this decade, surpassing Beyoncé. (Taylor Swift Wiki)
Speak Now
According to the Taylor Swift Wiki, Taylor released the single Today Was A Fairy-tale and it was featured in the film Valentine's day. The singer kicked off her acting career in the movie Valentine's day. The song became number one on the Canadian billboard top 100, making it her first number one hit in Canada. Taylor's Fearless tour ended on July 10 2010. On October 25 2010 Swift released her third studio album called Speak Now. Taylor Swift appeared at the 44th Annual Country Music Awards on November 10, 2010. Taylor kicked off her Speak Now World Tour on February 9 2011. Many dates on the Speak Now World Tour were canceled due to Swift suffering from bronchitis and was told she is unable to perform. Taylor was second for the ranking of queen of pop for rolling stones. She appeared on the show Hamish and Andy. The following week she released the music video for her single Spark Fly. The album is mostly about her exes.
Red and intense media scrutiny
Swift's fourth studio album, Red, was released in October 2012. She wrote nine of the album's sixteen songs alone. The remaining seven were co-written with Max Martin, Liz Rose, Dan Wilson, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody. The New York Times placed Red at number two on the end-of-year list. . She also appeared on many television chat shows and performed at award ceremonies in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Australia. The album's lead single, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, became Swift's first number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Three further singles have been released: Begin Again (for country radio), I Knew You Were Trouble and 22 (for pop and international radio). Red debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies; this marked the highest opening sales in a decade and made Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings. As of May 2013, Red had sold over 5.2 million copies worldwide. In her career, as of November 2012, she had sold in excess of 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads. Taylor Swift started The Red Tour on March 13 2013 and it ended on June 12 2014. Swift won three MTV Europe Music Awards in 2012, including the honors for Best Female and Best Live Act. She was named Best Female Country Artist at the 2012 American Music Awards. The Nashville Songwriters Association's 2012 Songwriter/Artist Award went to Swift for the fifth year in a row. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together was nominated for Record of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards. During this era of Taylor, her dating life became a subject of intense scrutiny. Even the The Village Voice remarked: "From late-night monologues, to the kids on 4chan, her breakups have become her defining characteristic and easiest detraction ... There are some obvious reasons; she's young, she can be contentiously dramatic, she puts herself in the center of her stories, and obviously she's dated a lot of famous people in a relatively short amount of time. But none of that is exceptionally rare -- pop-stars have led [sic] vogue, ecumenical lifestyles for a long time ... It should be a little bit uncomfortable that Swift's earnestness can be so easily discredited when plenty of other, more egregious songwriters are let off the hook ... It's really easy to dismiss a blonde girl trying to play by the rules." During this time period Taylor dated Jake Gyllenhaal, Conner Kennedy, Harry Styles.
1989 and The 1989 World Tour
On October 27 2014 the worldwide singer Taylor Swift released a new pop album which is titled 1989 with popular hits like Shake It Off, Blank Space, Style, Bad Blood, and Wildest Dreams. There were over 1 million copies sold on the first week of its release date. Both Blank Space and Shake It Off had over 1 billion views on YouTube in July 2015. She toured the world on her 1989 World Tour. This was her first official pop album. The videos for Blank Space and Bad Blood earned four nominations at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Bad Blood won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration. Swift's headlining tour, the 1989 World Tour, running from May to December 2015, grossed over $250 million, and was the highest-grossing tour of the year. In 2016, she won three Grammy Awards for 1989—Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video for Bad Blood. Prior to 1989's release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from the streaming service Spotify, arguing that its ad-supported free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during their free three-month trial period and said she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on their streaming service. In march of 2016 Taylor started dating british dj Calvin Harris Before Swift and Harris announced the end of their relationship in June 2016, they co-wrote his song This Is What You Came For (featuring Rihanna), for which she was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. (Taylor swift Wiki)
Reputation
In 2016 Kayne West called Taylor and asked for permission to use the line ¨I feel like me and Taylor might still have ***. Why? Cuz i made that ***** famous.¨ Taylor told Kanye no. Kanye still added that lyric into the song famous. A few days later Kim Kardashian; his wife at the time, posted an illegal recording of the video that had been edited to look like Taylor had said yes to Kanye. The media now thought Taylor was a liar so she disappeared from the world for a few months. In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. Swift thereafter cleared her social media accounts and then released Look What You Made Me Do as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The album topped the charts in several countries, including the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada. In April of 2018, Swift featured on the song Babe by Sugar land which Taylor wrote and sold to them. From May to November of 2018, The singer was on tour for the Reputation Stadium Tour. The tour broke multiple venue attendance and gross earnings records in the United States, taking in $266.1 million—selling more than two million tickets. Swift broke her own record for the highest-grossing domestic tour by a woman and surpassed The Rolling Stones' $245 million-grossing A Bigger Bang Tour (2005–2007). Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million. Reputation was the last album under her 12 year contract with Big Machine Records and switched to Republic Records. On December 31, Reputation Stadium Tour, a concert film, was released on Netflix. (Taylor swift wiki)
Lover
Swift released Me!, featuring Brendan Urie of Panic! at the Disco on April 26, 2019, as the lead single from her seventh studio album, Lover. The song debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 three days after its release, and jumped to number two the following week—the biggest single-week jump in the Hot 100's history. The music video for Me! broke a Vevo record by amassing 65.2 million views within its first day of release. On June 14, she released the second single You Need to Calm Down, which debuted and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The album Lover was released on August 23 2019. The songs on the album were mostly love songs about her boyfriend Joe Alwyn, a British actor. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, the videos for "Me!" and "You Need to Calm Down" received twelve nominations. "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. In June, Big Machine, Swift's former record label, was purchased by music manager Scooter Braun, including the masters for her first six albums. Swift voiced her displeasure in a Tumblr post, saying she had been trying to buy the masters for years and describing Braun as an "incessant, manipulative bully". In August, Swift announced plans to re-record the albums in November 2020. Swift was cast as Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, which was released on December 20, 2019.
Folklore and Evermore
Like everyone else, Taylor had to quarantine because of COVID-19 meaning that her upcoming Lover Tour called Lover-fest, was canceled. During quarantine, Taylor was writing songs. She was switching genres to folk and indie. On July 24 2020, Taylor released her 8th studio album Folklore, which includes collaborations with Bon Iver, Aaron Dessner, and Jack Antonoff. In the album The singer made a love triangle with teenagers and the songs for the love triangle are Betty, August, and Cardigan. The story is Betty and James are dating, but the school year ends and Betty goes on a trip. James meets Augustine at the mall and they start hanging out. The school year starts and Augustine realizes that it was just a summer thing. Soon Betty finds out from the gossip girl Inez and they break up, but they get back together. Swift's ninth studio album, Evermore, was released on December 11, 2020, along with its leading single Willow. Described as a "sister record" to Folklore, the album again includes collaborations with Bon Iver, Aaron Dessner, and Jack Antonoff, as well as with American rock band Haim.
Re-recordings and Midnights
Following the masters' controversy, Swift released the first re-recording of her back catalog, Fearless (Taylor's Version), on April 9, 2021. The re-recording of her 2008 album Fearless peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so, and was preceded by three of its tracks: Love Story (Taylor's Version), You All Over Me with Maren Morris, and Mr. Perfectly Fine. Love Story (Taylor's Version), the re-recording of Swift's 2008 single Love Story, made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs.The second re-recording of her back catalog, Red (Taylor's Version)—the re-recording of her 2012 album Red—was released on November 12, 2021.In addition to solo material, Swift featured on the single "Gasoline", from the expanded edition of Haim's 2020 album Women in Music Pt. III, and two songs, Renegade and Birch, from the indie folk band Big Red Machine's 2021 album How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association. A short film written and directed by Swift, All Too Well, was released alongside Red (Taylor's Version) on November 12, 2021; it is titled after and features the extended re-recording of her 2012 song by the same name, and stars herself, Sadie Sink, and Dylan O'Brien. Swift was also cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release on November 4, 2022. Taylor Swift at the 2022 VMAs announced that she would be releasing a new album on October 21. On October 21, Taylor released her new album Midnights which broke a ton of world records.
Challenges
Some challenges Taylor faced were being bullied in middle school because of her curly hair, treated, like an outcast by her peers because she wanted to be a country singer in middle school,first demo-record was rejected, and Kanye West publicly stated she was undeserving at the VMA in 2009.
Achievements
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Taylor Swift has lots of achievements including winning 317 awards, being the first female artist to win album of the year three times, getting more than three hundred awards, breaking spotify and Amazon music when releasing her most recent album Midnights, most-streamed artist in a single day on Spotify, with 228 million streams total, dethroned Ariana Grande by being the most streamed female artist on spotify, and so much more.
Conclusion
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Taylor Swift is a very inspirational person. She has dedicated her life to music and is one of the most famous artists in the world. A lesson we can learn from her is that Small-town Girls Can Win Big. Taylor Alison Swift has been a very inspirational and helpful person to the world.