Taylor Swift

[Mallrat]

Taylor Swift Postpones More Shows

07/6/11, 4:00 pm EDT

Taylor Swift has postponed three more concerts due to bronchitis. Her doctor advised her she is not well enough to perform her shows this weekend in Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta. Swift will now perform in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 16 (rather than July 8) and Atlanta on Oct. 1-2 (instead of July 9-10). As previously reported, Swift canceled Saturday's (July 2) concert in Louisville, Ky., and rescheduled it for Oct. 11. She plans to resume the tour on July 14 in Montreal. "It breaks my heart to miss out on this weekend's shows with my friends in Charlotte and Atlanta," Swift said. "I would never cancel if I thought I was physically able to perform these shows. I am so sorry to the fans, but I look forward to seeing you when we come back through your towns, which we will do."

[Kim]

Sporting her lucky number, Taylor Swift – who has been playing N.Y.C. tourist since wrapping her Speak Now tour – stops into the Ralph Lauren Rugby store Tuesday for some holiday shopping. "So much Christmas in here," she Tweeted.

[Kim]

"Ours" girl is home safely from her world tour...thank God!
She looks bored ...but it is going to SNOW...
Guess it's back to December...again!

[Kim]

Her name is Meredith -- Meredith Grey because she's a gray cat, and because I love Grey's Anatomy!" she told Us Weekly in a phone interview Tuesday. Swift was home in Nashville gearing up for the CMAs Wednesday night, where she's nominated for Entertainer of the Year.



"She's awesome. She's like one of those cats that give cats a good name," Swift gushed. "She doesn't hide under furniture and get weird around people. She's really friendly and fun and she's perfect for the road because she doesn't ever get freaked out. So I'm really glad that she has a cool personality."

Meredith is a Scottish Fold cat, "so she has the awesome, weird ears," Swift explained. "I love it. She's so cute... She's a good cat."

[Kim]

Celebrating the top acts the genre has to offer, the stars of country music joined forces to tape the 2011 CMT Artists of the Year event in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday night (November 29).

Taking place at the Bridgestone Arena, Taylor Swift was the belle pf the ball as she dazzled the arrivals area in a bright red frock while chatting it up with the ceremony's host, actor Rob Lowe.

Prior to showtime, Taylor kept her legions of fans in the know by tweeting, "Getting ready to head to the CMT Artist of the Year taping- blasting 'Keep You With Me' by @hotchellerae. This song = pop melodic goodness."

Joining Miss Swift as the five acts comprising the 2011 CMT Artists of the Year were fellow attendees including Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum and Brad Paisley.

Featuring performances and appearances by Ellen DeGeneres, Gavin DeGraw, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, Miranda Lambert, Matthew McConaughey, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, Lionel Richie, the All-American Rejects, the Avett Brothers and Hank Williams Jr., the country showcase is set to premiere on December 13th at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CMT.

[Kim]

Here you have it, the youngest superstar ever chosen as Billboard Woman of the Year for our woman in music issue. Taylor Swift, 21, has enchanted fans, fellow stars and the music business alike in 2011 and just happens to be on a hot streak of late, with hauls at the CMA's, AMA's and three hot off the presses Grammy nominations. For our pick for rising star, we (naturally) went withTaylor's friend, Niki Manaj. As a MC, she can hold with the best of them. As a fasion icon she has limitless potential. As a pop star she's just getting warmed up.



Pick up a copy of Billboards seventh annual Women in Music report (out Friday) for our in-depth stories of these two trailblazers, plus we reconize the bevy of rock star female executives who drive the music business forward.

[Kim]

Taylor Swift doesn’t think the Recording Academy is mean. Though she won the Grammy for album of the year in 2010, she’s not sad her latest multiplatinum effort isn’t up for the honor this time around.

“I got three nominations. I was just so excited,” she said on Friday before she was honored as Billboard’s “Woman of the Year.”

Among the Swift achievements that led to her Billboard honor was the best-selling performance of her third album “Speak Now,” which has sold more than 3.7 million copies and generated hits like “Mean.”

There was some surprise when the critically acclaimed album wasn’t among the overall best album nominees when the Grammys nominations were revealed on Wednesday, but Swift says she’s excited by her nominations, which include best country album and two for “Mean,” in which she answers her critics and challenges bullies.

“That song is so personal, and I’m so glad that the Grammys recognized it,” she said on the red carpet ahead of the event.

Swift got a standing ovation as she accepted her honor. Swift recalled reading Billboard as a teen, pouring over its pages and hoping one day to see her name in the trade magazine.

“I got here today and there were all these flashing camera bulbs ... I got to the table, and I saw the magazine on the chair and it had me on it,” she said. “All the daydreams I had as a little kid, I guess this is what it looked like.”



One of the country singer’s favorite artists, Nicki Minaj, was also honored at the event as Billboard’s “Rising Star.”

Like Swift, Minaj was rocking blonde bangs.

“This is my Taylor Swift look,” Minaj joked.

But the rapper and singer got teary-eyed at the event when she received her honor. She’s costarred on dozens of hit songs in the last two years, and her debut CD, “Pink Friday,” has sold more than 1.6 million copies in the United States. Minaj is nominated for four Grammys, including best new artist, pitting her against the Band Perry, Bon Iver, Skrillex and J. Cole.

“I don’t ever expect to win those kinds of things, but it’s good to be recognized and it’s good for girls to see that you can do whatever kind of music that you want to do,” Minaj said on the red carpet.

Minaj is also up for best rap album, where she’ll face her mentor, Lil Wayne, as well as Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lupe Fiasco. She says she’s diligent, and that lethargic people annoy her.

“I always say hard work pays off. Don’t be lazy. I am racist against lazy people. I wish they would not exist in this world,” she said.

Minaj, known for her outrageous and colorful fashion style, says she’s learning to “trust my first instinct.” The 28-year-old says proof of that will show on her upcoming album, “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” due out on Valentine’s Day.

“Things are happening so much easier for me now because I was over-thinking on the first album. I was trying to give people what I thought they needed, and what I needed my reputation to be,” she said. “And now it’s like, ‘I don’t care what you think. I’m going to do what I wanna do for my core fans and if you like, you like it. If you don’t, bye!

[Kim]

Taylor Swift made a rather large statement about her status in the music business during 2011 by simply placing a request. Entranced by Nicki Minaj's hit single "Super Bass," she invited Minaj to come out to the Staples Center in Los Angeles and perform the song in a surprise appearance during Swift's concert in August. In the aftermath, Justin Bieber asked if he could do a guest spot with Swift. In short order, the singer/songwriter was lining up musicians in many of the major markets to add a little local flavor to the night: Jason Mraz in Los Angeles; Usher and T.I. in Atlanta; Shawn Colvin in Austin; Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World in Phoenix; Ronnie Dunn, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney and Paramore's Hayley Williams in Nashville; and Selena Gomez and James Taylor at Madison Square Garden in New York, as her 2011 tour concluded.



"I'm just as shocked by it as all the fans are in the audience," Swift says of her guest stars, "the fact that they would spend their evening coming out and playing for free for my fans."

That gesture, made by artists across a variety of genres in numerous cities, speaks volumes about Swift's influence on pop culture in the five years since she arrived with her self-titled debut album on Big Machine Records at the age of 16.

On Dec. 2, Swift accepted Billboard's Woman of the Year award during Billboard's Women in Music event at Capitale in New York. At 21, Swift is the youngest artist ever to receive the honor.



The annual award celebrates the achievements of a trailblazing female recording artist during the past 12 months and acknowledges her overall success and leadership in the music business.

For Swift, the honor comes at the close of a year in which she earned the entertainer of the year award from both the Academy of Country Music in April and the Country Music Assn. (CMA) in November. In May, Swift also won Billboard Music Awards for top country album, top Billboard 200 artist and top country artist.

For most of the past year, Swift has been on a worldwide tour supporting her 2010 album "Speak Now," with dates in Asia, Europe and the United States. The trek has been captured on the newly released Speak Now World Tour Live album and DVD, the former selling 28,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Her 2010 album Speak Now arrived with debut-week sales of 1 million units and has sold more than 3.7 million.



Worldwide, Swift has achieved album sales of more than 20 million and digital track sales of more than 40 million, according to Big Machine Records.

And Swift has donated more than $1 million to charity in the past year. Her efforts have raised money and awareness for causes including clean water, literacy and disaster relief.



The guest artists on Swift's tour stops testify to both her business and personal achievements. On a business level, they recognize the size of her audience and the media splash a guest artist will enjoy by sharing the stage with her.

But those moments are also a testament to Swift on a personal level. While undeniably a superstar, she is likable, inviting, savvy and talented. And she has managed to grow up in public while remaining both sweet and classy.

In October, when Alan Jackson was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Swift was one of just two acts asked to perform his material for the A-list music business crowd. Swift sang Jackson's 9/11 memorial ballad, "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," in a manner that balanced the song's emotionalism with a perfectionist's attention to detail. With Garth Brooks, Lynn Anderson and John Oates among the celebrities in attendance, Swift rendered the song as if it were her own, providing a dynamic arc to many of the lines and coaxing a standing ovation. It was just one more moment when Swift proved how she makes sparks fly.

Swift, who turns 22 on Dec. 13, was in the closing weeks of her current U.S. tour when she took time on a day off to speak with Billboard.



Congratulations on being Billboard's Woman of the Year.

Thank you. It is pretty cool.

Just a few weeks ago was the five-year anniversary of your first album, released when you were 16. Now you're Woman of the Year. Where do you see yourself on that scale of girl and woman?

Growing up in this position, making music, writing songs and having everyone hear what I'm going through since I was about 16 years old, now I'm 21 about to be 22 -- I wouldn't have had it any other way. On a scale of being a girl or teenager or woman, I never tried to be the one to label myself which of those three I was. I've just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans. Whether I'm a woman now, or whatever, is up to my fans to decide, not for me. I really haven't felt the need to make some bold statement of maturity or make the "dark" record yet.

Given the Woman of the Year honor, what women do you consider to be your role models, and why?

I have a lot of role models. Faith Hill is a big role model. Reese Witherspoon is a role model of mine-she's not in music, but I love everything she stands for. Shawn Colvin is a huge model for me. Her writing has been consistently great and thoughtful and wistful and beautiful. And also-[he's] not a girl-but Kris Kristofferson has been a big role model for me. When I look at people who I feel have really lived their lives and recorded their lives in music so beautifully, those are my role models. They've all taught me lessons just by example.

[Kim]

Taylor Swift has often said she wants to issue albums every two years, and it appears her as-yet-unnamed fourth studio record will meet that standard, giving music retailers a bellwether title for the holiday shopping season in 2012.



Swift says she is "twice as far along," she says, in writing and recording material for her next studio album, than she had been at this point for previous albums. She already has written 25 songs for her next release. "Speak Now," by comparison, had 14 titles on the album's standard version and 17 tracks on a Target-exclusive deluxe edition.

"During the first year of writing the 'Speak Now' album, I was really writing songs that didn't end up on the record because I didn't know what the record was going to be," she says. "Once I kind of locked into what the record was going to be, in the second year I wrote the songs that I was most proud of, like 'Back to December' and 'Mean' and the first single, 'Mine,' and a song called 'Ours.'"

Nathan Chapman, who produced her albums, is overseeing the next as well.

Swift wrote the songs on "Speak Now" by herself, though the credits will likely include a few collaborators the next time out.

"I've had two co-writes, and I've written the rest of it by myself," she says. "Co-writing is so much fun when you have time to schedule it in, but for me, usually songs hit me in the middle of the night and I end up writing it before dawn, so there's no time to call somebody. When there is time and you can get in a room and talk it out and work it out with somebody, it's like the coolest form of therapy."

[Kim]

Taylor Swift – TaylorSwift13: Winter = baking season. It’s on.

[Kim]

On whether she's ever had a year she just wanted to forget:
"Not an entire year, but I've had a six-month period I've wanted to forget-whether you're talking about criticism or an awful breakup or whatever trauma you happen to be going through. Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months. For me, what helps me with sad times or frustration or rejection is writing songs about every one of those emotions, and for some reason, after I do that and I'm proud of the song, things make a little more sense to me."

On whether she has any idea where she wants to be in 2018:
"I love that Dolly Parton plans out her life in seven-year plans. I thought that was brilliant. There's so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it's reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She's been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there. As far as in the next seven years, I'll be 28 or 29, so I don't know. It just depends who I meet. But I've always hoped that I continue to write music for the rest of my life, and the clearest future I see is always my next album because I'm always obsessed with the latest song I've written, my newest idea about the newest thing for my newest album. That's been my obsession for the last six months to a year."

On whether she considers herself to be a role model:
"As you enter down a career path it becomes very clear what that career path is going to ask of you. One of the things that is a huge part of making music and putting it out into the world is understanding that you now have a role in shaping the lives of the next generation. And you can either accept that role or you can deny it and ignore it and say it's a parent's job to raise their kids. But the reality is what you wear matters. If you're a singer and on TV and in the living room of some 12-year-old girl, she's watching what you're wearing and saying and doing.

[Kim]

youtu.be/NOggp_tR9tI

Family Pays Tribute to Taylor Swift with Christmas Light Display


A family of Taylor Swift fans decided to celebrate Christmas and Taylor’s birthday in one via Christmas light display.

My daughters just love Taylor Swift and have been to a couple of her concerts. They wanted to do Christmas Lights to one of her songs to send Taylor a birthday message. Taylor’s birthday is on December 13th and 13 is her lucky number. In the lights we hid patterns of 13 throughout. See if you can find them. The easiest one is at the end.

[Kim]

Taylor named the top country artist of 2011


Taylor Swift has yet another achievement she can call "Mine." She was named the top country artist of 2011 by Billboard magazine on Friday (Dec. 9).

In addition, Swift's album, Speak Now, ranked second on the industry publication's year-end Top 200 list for album sales, just behind Adele's 21. Swift placed eighth on the all-genre Top 100 artists list.

Jason Aldean ranked second on the top country artists list, and his My Kinda Party album placed fourth among the Top 200 albums, just after Lady Gaga's Born This Way.

[Kim]

What’s on Taylor Swift’s Christmas List?


With her Speak Now tour over, Taylor Swift is enjoying some downtime in Nashville, catching up with family, reconnecting with friends — and creating homemade snow globes.

“That was my first time making snow globes out of mason jars, antique Christmas trinkets and glitter,” she tells PEOPLE of her recent holiday experiment. “I found out how to do it on Pinterest. It made for a lovely winter activity day — [it] made me feel like a little kid again.”

From the sounds of it, Swift — who turns 22 today — will spend a lot of time reflecting on her childhood this season, considering her favorite family tradition is trimming “a big Christmas tree” with ornaments she and brother Austin made as kids. “It’s so nostalgic,” she says, “looking back at all the Christmases past and comparing them to how different our lives are now.”

“Now” means living life as a recording artist, being a recipient of CMT’s “Artist of the Year” award Tuesday night and releasing her first fragrance, Wonderstruck. “It turned out to be something I wear every day, and I’m so proud of how well it’s done,” she says of the scent. “I love it when people come up to me and tell me they wear it every day.”



The singer — whose toasty “Nashville holiday uniform” consists of sweaters, jeans and boots — is currently taking a break from the busyness, though, and focusing on shopping for friends. “I like to get my friends gifts that show that I really know them,” she explains. “If one of my friends says something about wanting something, I’ll write it down and get that for them for Christmas.”

Her own holiday wish list is a bit simpler: it includes a pasta maker, antique picture frames and “anything from Free People or Anthropologie,” she shares. She has big holiday hopes for her fans, too. “I hope that they’re happy, wherever they are … [that] they feel loved by the people around them,” she shares. “And most of all I hope they feel appreciated by me. My life would look nothing like this without them.”

[Kim]

22nd birthday celebration was a mixture of business and pleasure. After spending time in the studio working on her new album, the crafty singer hosted a holiday luncheon for her record label, Big Machine. They, in turn, presented the Grammy winner with a European chocolate butter cream birthday cake with edible glitter from Nashville bakery Dulce Desserts. The cake also featured a layer of chocolate truffle and was covered in vanilla butter cream! Apparently the singer liked the cake so much that after her lunch, her mom drove to the bakery to request a smaller version to serve that night during a low-key bash for Taylor's friends.[/b][/color][/i]