Taylor Swift (born 13 December 1989) is an American grammy-nominated country singer and songwritter.At the age of 15 she became the youngest recruit to independent Big Machine Records.On October 24 2006 Taylor released her first self-titled album peaking #1 on U.S. Country charts and debuted on U.S. Billboard singles with smash country hit “Tim McGraw”, the album was certified 3x Platinum.In late 2007 Taylor gained fame out of only the “Country” world with her smash hit “Teardrops on my Guitar” that debuted at #2 on U.S. Billboard Hot 200, This made Taylor re-release her first and self-titled album with 4 new tracks on 6 November 2007.

Taylor Swift was born in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. and right now lives in Tennessee, Her influences to sing are her mother, who was an opera singer, however Taylor’s taste were more to country than to any other genre, When she was 10 she began to perform around her hometown (Wyomissing, Pennsylvania) singing at karoke contests, festivals and she also started writing songs.At age of 11 Swift made a trip to Nashville, Pennsylvania in hopes of obtaining a record deal by handing a demo tape she had made of her singing along on the karoke.After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, her break came at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, when her rendition of the national anthem moved the crowd. Swift signed to a record label when she was 13 years old, but walked away because it “wasn’t where she wanted to be.”After her family moved to Nashville, she started performing at local cafes and bars, Taylor performed at Nashville’s premier songwriters’ café, The Bluebird Café, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records.

Summer of 2006 was released on radio her first single, “Tim McGraw” and released her first and self-titled album on October that year, Swift wrote or co-wrote all songs of the album, The album debuted on #19 on U.S. charts selling 60,000 copies that week, one week later it peaked #1 and then spent ten weeks on the top of U.S. Country Charts.Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace. She is currently ranked at 15 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace’s current top-ranking Country artist.

Taylor’s first single “Tim McGraw” released on summer 2006 peaked #6 on Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Hot Country Songs.The music video won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of “GAC Short Cuts”, a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006 on the country music channel.

On May 15 2007, Swift perfomed “Tim McGraw” for the Academy of Country Music Awards, she sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience and introduced herself to him.Taylor has been an opening act to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul Tour in 2007.On August 21, 2007, Swift performed live on the season finale of America’s Got Talent.

Taylor’s second single “Teardrops on my guitar”, which gave her a nominee to 2008 Grammy Awards as “Best New Artist” was released early 2007.The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high school in which she liked a boy named “Drew Hardwick”. He only saw Swift as a friend and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted she heard “through the grapevine” that Drew is well aware the song was written about him, The song was remixed and the single was re-released late 2007 peaking at #13 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100, #2 on U.S. Billboard Country Songs and #11 on U.S. Billboard Pop 100.

In October 2007 Swift won an award Songwriter/Artist of the Year from Nashville Songwritters Association, making her the youngest artist to ever win this award.

The third single for her first album, “Our Song” was released August 2007, two months later was awarded at the 2007 Country Music Association Awards.The single debuted at #1 on U.S. charts and spent 6 weeks on the top of U.S. Country songs.

Taylor released a holiday season album on late 2007 titled “Sounds of Season”, it was available only on Target stores, The album peaked #14 on U.S. Charts.

Taylor was nominated to “Best New Artist” at the 2008 Grammy Awards, but lost to Amy Winehouse.

The fourth single to her first album is “Picture to Burn” released in 2008, the single peaked #4 on Country charts and #29 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

In early 2008 Taylor won 2 awards at The Country Music Television Awards, “Female Video of The Year” and “Video Of The Year”, both for “Our Song”.

Swift’s second studio album is slated for a fall 2008 release. In a repeat of her debut album, Swift is expected to have at least a co-writing credit on every track; John Rich and Colbie Caillat contributed writing to the album’s early songs, according to Billboard Magazine.