Wednesday, January 25, 2012

She is raising millions of young virgins in America and she knows it so she makes her words count. Yes, she is the poet of puberty! She is now 21 years old and she is Taylor Swift. Five years ago she released her first album and dreamed of being a country western star. Over those five years she has sold more albums than any other artist in any category. In an era of declining record sales, she manages to appeal to all kinds of people but especially to young girls about 12 or 13 years old and their Moms that will pay for music not steal it.
She has managed to hold onto her Country Western fans even though she has become huge in Pop music. She is on of the few that has also managed to keep her image in tact with no scandals. She sells out shows within minutes. He message to her young fans are that you can be a good girl a good person and still have fun. Taylor writes her own songs about love and heartbreak and being the ordinary girl next door.
Bill Werde the Editorial Director of Billboard says that she is a credible songwriter and deserves respect despite her screaming young fans. Even if she wasn’t young and cute she would be considered a great songwriter. All of Taylor Swifts songs are autobiographical. Her song “Love Story” grew out of a teenage argument she had with her parents over a boy who they thought was creepy. Thus the lyrics grew ”You were my Romeo …. Stay away from Juliet” the Shakespearean reference.
Love Story went to number one on both the Country and Pop songs charts; the first song EVER to do that. She started singing when she was a toddler and fell in love with Country music. Surprisingly that she is not from the south but the daughter of a stock broker from Pennsylvania. At age 10, spring break in 2001, she began nagging her parents to take her to Nashville to sing in clubs and bars seeking a recording contract carrying Cds of her singing Karaoke songs.
The contract came as a developmental one year deal where RCA records told her to sing other people’s songs. At age 14 after the year was up she walked away and found someone from another label to start up with her because she wanted to sing her songs. She was the first artist on a new label he was starting. The risk paid off for both of them. “Speak Now” is her third multi-platinum album that sold 5 million copies world wide.
Taylor is on a world wide 76 city tour to promote her albums. The show includes aerialists and fireworks on stage . Swift makes a fortune on her tours. She has branded her merchandise of shirts and accessories and has a huge Cover Girl product endorsement. The owner of her expensive tour busses, makes her big business. This tour alone will net her about 120 Million dollars. That is more the worth of most corporations.
Taylor Swift is a major corporation where she also runs her management meetings calling the shots on the colors of her programs to her investments; she is her own CEO whereas other artists hire management companies to run things. It could be the way she pays attention to her fans that is the key to her success.
During the concerts she has her staff give out glow rings to the most enthusiastic fans and meets them after the concert. She spends an hour before her shows doing meets and greets with fans. She posts video blogs to connect with her fans on line by posting personal thoughts and places she is at the time. At her concerts halfway through the show she walks through the audience greeting fans. She will even sing a few songs at the back of the arena to connect with the audience with the worst seats in the house.
Lately she has been poking fun at her squeaky clean image by making fun of herself by teeming up in videos with really cool guys like T-Pain. Taylor has already won every award that exists including the industries highest honor the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2010.
The few set backs she has ever had in her career was the infamous night Kanye West took the microphone out of her hands and declared that someone else was more worthy of her award and the night at the Grammy’s when she sang off key live with Stevie Nicks. Some reviewers said she was too young and dumb to understand her mistakes. It hurt her hard.
Swift then turned her pain around and wrote her hit song “Mean” and got back at the reviewers taking her revenge all the way back to the bank. Her video took it even further by letting the song become an anti bullying anthem of sorts. She has become a role model and knows that she is raising the generation of kids listening and singing to her songs.

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