Swift during 2009's Fearless Tour
Nashville, TN – July 20, 2010 – Taylor Swift’s highly-anticipated third studio album will be released worldwide on October 25th, Taylor herself announced this afternoon during a web chat with her fans. Entitled SPEAK NOW, the album will be released on Big Machine Records and contains 14 tracks, all written solely by Taylor. Taylor co-produced the project with Nathan Chapman, and the first single from the new record, “Mine,” will be released on August 16th.
“Saying the right thing at the right moment is so crucial that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I’ve begun to fear more than that is letting the moment pass without saying anything,” Taylor says of the very personal collection that is Speak Now. “These songs are made up of words I didn’t say when the moment was right in front of me. These songs are open letters. Each is written with a specific person in mind, telling them what I meant to tell them in person.” Starting on August 20th, Speak Now will be available for special pre-sale on the site www.SpeakNow13.com. Four-time GRAMMY award winner Taylor Swift is the top-selling digital artist in music history, has had singles top both the Country and Pop radio charts, and had the #1 best-selling album in any genre of music in both 2009 and 2008. This year, at the age of 20, she became the youngest artist in history, and the first female solo country artist ever, to win the music industry’s highest honor, the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year. Also at the 2010 GRAMMYs, she took home the awards for Country Album of the Year, Best Country Song, and Best Country Female Vocal Performance. In 2009, she was named Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards and also became the youngest artist in the 43-year history of the Country Music Association, and the seventh female act ever, to be awarded country music’s top prize when she took home the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year. Taylor’s sophomore release, Fearless, reached double-platinum in just four weeks and in addition to the Album of the Year GRAMMY, was voted 2009’s Album of the Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Fearless also won the 2009 American Music Award for Favorite Country Album, and was 2008’s biggest debut for any female artist, and the fourth highest debut of the year, over all.
Now 6X-platinum, Fearless has spent more weeks in the #1 position atop Billboard’s Top 200 all-genre CD sales chart than any other album this decade. Taylor, whose career record sales now top 13 million, currently holds the Billboard all-genre records for most first-week downloads by a female artist, for the longest charting album of this century and for most Top 20 debuts in a calendar year, as well as the Billboard record for the largest overall airplay audience for a country-based act. Taylor headlined her first arena tour last year, the TAYLOR SWIFT FEARLESS 2009 TOUR. Every show on the tour sold out within minutes, including Madison Square Garden in one minute, and Los Angeles’ STAPLES center in just two minutes. Taylor’s 40-date FEARLESS 2010 North American tour sold out arenas and stadiums in 32 cities in 26 states and provinces in the US and Canada.
Taylor Swift
At the age of 17, Taylor became the youngest person ever to single-handedly write and sing a number-one country single entirely on her own, and Taylor is the first female solo artist in country music history to write or co-write every song on a platinum-selling debut CD. When Taylor was just 14, she signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV Music, and in 2006 released her self-titled debut CD on Big Machine Records. Taylor Swift has surpassed quadruple-platinum status and spent more than 20 weeks in the #1 position atop Billboard’s Country CD Sales Chart. Taylor is consistently ranked Country’s #1 artist on MySpace, and was named Country Music’s Hottest Female Artist by AOL Music and Best New Artist by the editors of iTunes. Taylor has more than 7.4 million Facebook friends, more than 3.6 million followers on her Twitter account, and has had more than 273.8 million music plays on her MySpace page.
In 2009 Taylor won AMA Awards for Artist of the Year, Favorite Female Artist (Country), Favorite Female Artist (Pop/Rock), Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist, and Favorite Album (Country). She also took home CMA Awards for Entertainer of the Year, Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Video of the Year and International Artist Achievement. The same year, Taylor was awarded the Academy of Country Music’s Crystal Milestone Award, given for Outstanding Achievement in Country Music. Taylor was the 2nd artist in history to receive this prestigious award — Garth Brooks received the award in 2007. She is also the first Country artist to win an MTV VMA Award, taking home the 2009 Moonman for Best Female Video.
In 2009 Taylor won CMT Music Awards for Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year, awards she was also honored with in 2008. In addition, she won 2009 Teen Choice Awards for Choice Female Artist and Choice Music Album – Female Artist. Taylor was named 2008’s Favorite Female Country Artist at the American Music Awards, and Top New Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music. She was named Choice Breakout Artist at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards, and was honored as the 2008 Superstar of Tomorrow at the 10th Annual Young Hollywood Awards, making her the first musician to ever receive this prestigious award. She was named Songwriter / Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International in both 2009 and 2007, and she won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award, as well as receiving a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. In 2009, NBC dedicated an entire hour to the primetime special “Dateline: On Tour With Taylor Swift.” Taylor’s other television appearances include a guest-starring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and in 2009 she became only the twelfth person in 35 years to both host and perform on Saturday Night Live. Taylor’s numerous television guest appearances include The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Jay Leno Show, the Late Show with David Letterman, the Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, The View, and Live with Regis & Kelly. Taylor made her feature film acting debut in 2010, as part of the ensemble cast of the Garry Marshall film Valentine’s Day. Taylor has been featured on the covers of Rolling Stone (twice), Billboard (twice), Elle, Glamour, People, InStyle, New York Times T magazine, Allure, Marie Claire, People StyleWatch, Blender, USA Weekend, Seventeen (twice), Redbook, Self, Us Weekly, CosmoGirl, Girl’s Life, Teen Vogue, Women’s Health, First, Your Prom, and Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine. She was featured in a Vanity Fair spotlight, was profiled in Vogue, was named one Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010, was named one of People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People of 2008, 2009 & 2010, was Cosmopolitan magazine’s Fun Fearless Female, was Allure’s Face of December, was named a Style Star of 2008 and 2009 by the editors of Seventeen, and was featured on Maxim’s Hot 100 list in 2008, 2009 & 2010.
