Taylor Swift is country’s youngest star
 NTaylor Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006. On October 24, 2006, her self-titled CD was released. The album, on which Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. It later peaked at No. 1 at Billboard Top Country Albums and No. 5 at Billboard 200. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts, and has since sold over two million copies.[4] Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace, she was able to rise to the top. where she is currently ranked at #15 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist.[5]
Taylor Swift performing in 2007.Swift's debut single, "Tim McGraw", was released in Summer 2006. “I wrote the song in my freshman year of high school,” she says. “I was dating a guy named Brandon Borello, and I was about to move. I knew we were going to break up so I started thinking of all the things that I knew would remind him of me. Surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was that my favorite country artist is Tim McGraw.”[6] "Tim McGraw" peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of January 27, 2007. The song's music video set a record by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music countdown show,[7] and reached #1 on CMT's video charts; the video also won Swift a "Breakthrough Video of the Year" at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music video series airing since the summer of 2006 on the country music channel.
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the first time to him. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well.[8] On August 21, 2007, Taylor Swift performed live on the season finale of America's Got Talent.[9]
Taylor Swift prides herself on writing or cowriting each song on her album. She has written "over 200 songs" and has been writing since age 12.[citation needed]
In October 2007 Swift's songwriting peers at the Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her with their Songwriter / Artist of the Year Award, making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.[10]
On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our Song", which would go on to become her first No. 1 song the week of December 22, 2007.
Taylor also recorded a holiday album "Sounds of the Season" that was released October 16, 2007 and exclusive to Target stores. While not as successful as her self-titled debut, the album featured both holiday classics such as "Last Christmas", and songs that she has written herself.
She has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist.
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