NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Top40 Charts/ Big Machine Records) - Taylor Swift's highly-anticipated sophomore album, Fearless, arrived in stores yesterday, and the collection's lead single, "Love Story," this week is in the No 1 position atop both the Billboard and Mediabase/Country Aircheck country radio charts, reaching a weekly radio audience of more than 40 million listeners. Taylor will perform "
Love Story" live tonight on the 42nd Annual CMA Awards, broadcast on ABC from 8-11 p.m. (ET/PT). She is nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year.
Fearless is holding firm in the No 1 slot at the top of iTunes all-genre Top Albums chart, with six songs placing in the mainstream Top 20. Taylor has 13 of the Top 15 songs on iTunes' Top Country Songs chart, including the entire Top 10. Taylor also has two songs in the Top 15 of Billboard's all-genre Hot 100 singles chart.
At last night's 56th Annual BMI Country Awards, Taylor took home the prestigious Song of the Year award. "Teardrops On My Guitar" (which she wrote with Liz Rose) was honored for receiving more airplay in the past year than any other country song. "Teardrops", the second single off her triple-platinum selling self-titled debut, earned iTunes' no. 1 country song of 2007 honors as it achieved RIAA Digital Platinum certification in early 2008. Taylor is the only female artist in the history of the Billboard country chart to release five consecutive Top Ten singles from a debut album.
Fearless has been in stores less than two days, and has already become Nashville's most critically-acclaimed record this year. Here's what some of the nation's top critics are saying about Taylor Swift:
The New York Times: "Ms. Swift has quickly established herself as the most remarkable country music breakthrough artist of the decade. One of Nashville's most exciting songwriters."
Rolling Stone: "Swift is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture. She is a blond, blue-eyed, amazonian starlet who - unlike nearly every other person who fits that description - writes her own songs, plays an instrument, answers to no Svengali and doesn't rely on high-priced studio ninjas and trendy producers. Britney she ain't." 4 STARS
The New Yorker: "Prodigy. A preternaturally skilled student of established values. Her precociousness isn't about her chart success, but lies in the quality of her work."
Billboard: "Those who thought Taylor Swift was a big deal after the release of her first record should be prepared: She's about to get way bigger. Though they're written by a teenager, Swift's songs have broad appeal, and therein lies the genius and accessibility of her second effort."
Los Angeles Times: "With her cover girl beauty and effervescent personality, she's great on camera, and she brings with her a suitcase full of songs that aren't ashamed to voice the perspective of a living, breathing and sometimes heartbroken teenager. Fearless represents a major advance in her confidence and acumen as a songwriter and evinces complete faith in her conversational vocal style, one that positions her as the celebrity teen that other girls would most like to hang out with and the one most boys would want to ask to the prom."
The Associated Press: "Swift is not only one of country music's brightest and most popular young stars, but is also poised to become pop's next superstar act - just weeks away from her 19th birthday. What distinguishes Swift from her peers is her gift for songwriting. While the songs reflect the thoughts of a teenager, they are written with a sophistication that songwriters years older have yet to master."
USA Today: "You just can't fake the kind of innocence and wonder that ring through the glowing title track and the moonstruck single Love Story, or the guileless urgency and unmannered precociousness marking more bittersweet songs such as Fifteen and White Horse. It's a pleasure to hear a gifted teenager who sounds like a gifted teenager, rather than a mouthpiece for a bunch of older pros' collective notion of adolescent yearning."
Entertainment Weekly: "There is nothing remotely Britney- or Christina-esque about Swift. She does something rarely seen from stars in either [the country or pop] market: write or co-write all her material. Her supple, lightly twangy vocals fit the album's lilting melodies, and her sentiments ... are refreshingly age-appropriate. It will be exciting to watch her precocious talent grow."
People: "The singer-songwriter shows a flare for youthful enthusiasm .... but she also embraces folk music, and recounts searing heartbreak. [She] showcases her evolution as a songwriter - and a woman." 4 STARS
To hear music from Taylor Swift, log on to: https://www.taylorswift.com or https://www.myspace.com/taylorswift.
For Fearless album art and downloadable photos of Taylor Swift, log on to https://www.bigmachinerecords.com and click the media tab.
