NASHVILLE, TN. (Top40 Charts/ Big Machine Records) - Singer/songwriter
Taylor Swift has solidified her position as one of the most important artists to emerge on the popular music scene this decade as her sophomore album, Fearless, debuted this morning in the No 1 slot atop Billboard's Top 200 Albums Chart, with sales of 592,304 copies in its first week in stores. This is the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall, behind Lil Wayne,
AC/DC and Coldplay.
With 129,046 copies sold digitally, Fearless is the biggest country digital album debut in the history of Nielsen's Soundscan, and the 4th biggest digital album debut to date, behind only Coldplay, Jack Johnson, and Kanye West.
Taylor, who writes all of her own material and co-produced her album, has the highest country sales debut of 2008 - the only other country artists this year to debut at No 1 on the Top 200 chart were Alan Jackson, George Strait and Kenny Chesney. Fearless is the highest sales debut for a female country artist since Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks' 2002 album releases.
"White Horse," a track from Fearless that was featured on the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, will debut at No 13 on Billboard's all-genre Hot 100 singles chart this week, giving Taylor her 6th Top 20 debut of 2008. This breaks the all-time Billboard record for the number of Top 20 debuts in a calendar year by any artist. In addition, Taylor's 6 debuts and 7 total tracks on tomorrow's charts each tie her with Hannah Montana for the most by a female artist in a single week. Of the 13 tracks on Fearless, 11 have now spent time on the Hot 100.
Taylor reached another huge online milestone today, surpassing the 120 MILLION mark for music streams on MySpace, where she is consistently at the top of their highest ranking artists in all genres of music. Taylor has had more than 20 million MySpace streams in the past 10 days.
"Love Story," the lead single from Fearless, is currently in its second week at No 1 on both the Billboard and Mediabase/Country Aircheck country radio charts, reaching a weekly radio audience of more than 40 million listeners. When Fearless was released last week, it secured the No 1 slot at the top of iTunes all-genre Top Albums chart, with six songs placing in the mainstream Top 20. Taylor had 13 of the Top 15 songs on iTunes' Top Country Songs chart, including the entire Top 10.
Fearless has already become Nashville's most critically-acclaimed record this year, earning rave reviews from many of the nation's top publications, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Village Voice, Blender, People, Entertainment Weekly and The Associated Press.
Taylor released her self-titled debut CD in 2006, it has since been certified triple-platinum (with sales of more than 3.5 million copies), and is currently the best-selling country title of 2008. Taylor is the only female artist ever to have five consecutive Top 10 singles from a debut album on the Billboard country chart, and at the age of 17, she became the youngest person ever to single-handedly write and sing a number-one country single entirely on her own ("Our Song" spent 6 consecutive weeks at No 1 atop Billboard's Country Singles Chart). She is the first female solo artist in country music history to write or co-write every song on a platinum-selling debut CD.
At last week's 56th Annual BMI Country Awards, Taylor took home the prestigious Song of the Year award. "Teardrops On My Guitar" was honored for receiving more airplay in the past year than any other country song. "Teardrops" earned iTunes' No 1 Country Song of 2007 honors and it achieved RIAA Digital Platinum certification in early 2008. Taylor currently has 4 digital platinum singles, 2 digital gold singles and 1 mobile gold single.
Taylor was named this year's Top New Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music, and won 2008 CMT Music Awards for Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year. She was named Choice Breakout Artist at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards, and was honored as the Superstar of Tomorrow at the 10th Annual Young Hollywood Awards, making her the first musician to ever receive this prestigious award. She received a 2008 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and a CMA nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year. In 2007 she was named Country Music's Hottest Female Artist by AOL Music and Best New Artist by the editors of iTunes. She won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award, as well as the Nashville Songwriters Association International's Songwriter / Artist of the Year. She is currently nominated for an American Music Award for Favorite Female Artist - Country, and for two People's Choice Awards: Favorite Star Under 35 and Favorite Country Song (for "Love Story").
Taylor's album will be released worldwide early next year. She has toured with Rascal Flatts, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw & Faith Hill and Brad Paisley, and is currently preparing for a 2009 headlining tour.
To hear music from Taylor Swift, log on to: www.taylorswift.com or www.myspace.com/taylorswift. For Fearless album art and downloadable photos of Taylor Swift, log on to www.bigmachinerecords.com and click the media tab.
