
line 1	line 1
	+	Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country music artist who began her career as a teenager. Signed to the independent Big Machine Records label in 2006, she made her debut on the Billboard country charts with the release of her debut single "Tim McGraw". This song, which peaked at #6, was the first of five singles from her self-titled debut, which was released in late 2006 and re-issued in 2007, and has been certified 3× Multi-Platinum by the RIAA. Following "Tim McGraw" were the #2 "Teardrops on My Guitar", the six-week Number One "Our Song", the #3 "Picture to Burn" and another Number One in "Should've Said No". All five singles from her debut were Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, as was her song "Change" from the AT&T TEAM USA Soundtrack. Her second album, Fearless, was released on November 11, and its lead-off single "Love Story" has become her highest Hot 100 hit.
	+

	+	+Early life+
	+	Taylor Swift was born in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania and lives with her parents, Scott and Andrea, and her brother, Austin,[1] now in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift's influences include her grandmother and LeAnn Rimes.[2] Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer,[3] Taylor's tastes always ran more toward country and she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton at an early age.[4] She also credits the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain for demonstrating how much impact can be made by "stretching boundaries".[5] At the age of ten, Swift began to perform around her home town, Wyomissing, singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs, and also started writing songs. Her first exposure to the music business consisted of recording demo tapes at a studio. At age eleven, Swift made her first trip to Nashville in hopes of obtaining a record deal by handing out a demo tape she had made of her singing along to karaoke songs. She boldly handed this tape to receptionists at every label on Music Row.[2] Swift faced much rejection, not just from record labels, but also from her peers. When asked how she was able to handle such hurtful rejection from record labels, she responded saying that it wasn't nearly as painful as the rejection she received from the kids around her. One of the first songs she wrote, The Outside, was her expression of feeling that rejection. After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament; her rendition of the national anthem completely moved the crowd. Swift signed to a record label at the age of thirteen, but walked away because it "wasn't where she wanted to be."[citation needed]
	+
	+	Swift began to regularly visit Nashville, where, at age twelve, she wrote songs with local songwriters. Eventually, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.[6] Taylor Swift performed at Nashville's premier songwriters' café, The Bluebird Café, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records.
	+
	+	Swift plays a Taylor Grand Auditorium acoustic guitar made of koa wood.
	+
	+
	+	+Music career+
	+
	+	_2006—2008: Debut album Taylor Swift_
	+	Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006 and on October 24, 2006, her self-titled album was released. Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. It later peaked at #1 at Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 at Billboard 200. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts, and has since sold over 3 million copies.[7] Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace. 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.[8]
	+
	+
	+	Regarding "Tim McGraw", Swift said, "I wrote the song in my freshman year of high school. I was dating a guy who was about to go off to college. 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."[9] "Tim McGraw" peaked at #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,[10] and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video also won Swift an award for 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.[11] On August 21, 2007, Swift performed live on the season finale of America's Got Talent.[12]
	+
	+	The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops On My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high school in which she liked a boy named "Drew Hardwick". He only saw Swift as a friend and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted she heard "through the grapevine" that Drew is well aware the song was written about him.[13] "Teardrops on My Guitar" originally made its peak positions in Summer 2007, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Country Chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released to the Hot 100 and Pop 100 in late 2007 with a Pop remix that brought "Teardrops on My Guitar" to #13 on the Hot 100 and #11 on the Pop 100.
	+
	+	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.[14]
	+
	+	On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our Song", the third single from her album, which would go on to become her first #1 song the week of December 22, 2007, where it leaped up from the #6 spot. This was the biggest jump to Number One since January 1998, when Tim McGraw's "Just to See You Smile", also jumped from #6 to #1.[15] "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts and also peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the Billboard Pop 100.
	+
	+	Swift also recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, that was released October 16, 2007, exclusively available at Target stores. The album, which was not as successful as her self-titled debut, featured both holiday classics such as "Last Christmas" and original songs written by Swift.
	+
	+	Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn" was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted early in 2008 and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country Chart in the spring of 2008.
	+
	+	Swift was cover girl of Seventeen in the June 2008 issue. She was also named number fifty-two on Maxim's sexiest women of '08.
	+
	+	Big Machine Records announced the release of "Should've Said No" on Monday, May 19. The song is the fifth and final single from Swift's debut album. She performed it on 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards.[16] The performance started off with her dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, but soon after a short black halter dress was revealed. In the last minute of the song, she went backstage to perform the final verse under a cascading waterfall. Swift had wanted to do that performance on stage with the water and the change of clothes since she was 10 years old.[17] In 2008, Swift released Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.[18]
	+
	+	In July 2008, Swift graduated from the Aaron Academy, a Christian school in Hendersonville, TN which offers a home schooling program.[19] "Should've Said No" became her second Number One single for the chart dated August 23, 2008.
	+
	+
	+	_2008—present: Fearless_
	+	Swift's next studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008.[20] The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,000 was the best single week for any country album in a year, and six singles from the album debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week.[21] "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics.[22] The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Games. She also released the lead single from the album, "Love Story", on September 12, 2008. The song is accompanied by a music video that is based on Romeo and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
	+
	+	Swift sang the Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia, October 25, 2008.
	+
	+
	+	+Philanthropy+
	+	On September 21, 2007, Swift launched a campaign to protect children from online predators.[23] Swift has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes.[23]
	+
	+	The year-long campaign, launched in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state.[23]
	+
	+
	+	+Personal life+
	+	Swift confirmed in a 2008 interview with Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show that she had dated singer Joe Jonas and that he "dumped her over the phone in 27 seconds."[24] They supposedly broke up because Joe cheated on Swift with Camilla Belle.[25] However on November 14, 2008, Jonas stated in a MySpace blog on the Jonas Brothers official Myspace that, "I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful but it is simply not true" and that, "For those who have expressed concern over the '27 second' phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did." This post has since been removed.[26] Swift wrote the song "Forever & Always" about Joe Jonas, and the song appeared on her album, Fearless. [27] It was the last song that she had recorded, and it was a last minute addition to her album, making it 13 songs total. 13 is also Swift's "lucky number". [28]
	+
	+
	+	+Discography+
	+	Albums
	+	2006: Taylor Swift
	+	2008: Fearless
	+
	+	EPs
	+	2007: Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection
	+	2008: Beautiful Eyes


line 1	line 1
	+	Julianne Hough (pronounced "huff") (born July 20, 1988) is an American professional ballroom dancer and country music singer. She is most-widely known for her repeated appearances on ABC's program, Dancing with the Stars, which she won twice. She earned a Creative Arts Primetime Emmy nomination in 2007 for her choreography. ABC's 20/20 called her one of the "very best dancers on the planet."[1] Julianne's brother, Derek Hough, is also on Dancing with the Stars. Hough was signed to Mercury Nashville Records in December 2007. Her self-titled debut album was released May 20, 2008, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart and #3 on the Billboard 200. This season Hough was partnered with Cody Linley.
	+
	+
	+	+Early life+
	+	Hough grew up one of five[2][3] children from an LDS (Mormon) family in Salt Lake City. Her brother Derek Hough is also a professional dancer. She has three sisters named Sharee, Marabeth, and Katherine. All four of her grandparents were dancers, and her parents met while on a ballroom dancing team in college in Idaho.
	+
	+	Her formal training began at the Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Orem, Utah, where she danced with Josh Murillo, among others, in Latin Ballroom; she began dancing competitively at nine. Her parents sent her and her brother to London for a year later to live and study with their coaches, Corky and Shirley Ballas, and to spare them the strife of divorce.[4] The Ballas' helped tutor the two Hough children alongside their own son, Mark, while schooling them at the Italia Conti Academy. They received training in song, theatre, gymnastics and many forms of dance, including jazz, ballet, and tap.[5][4] The three children formed their own pop music trio 2B1G ("2 Boys, 1 Girl") when Julianne was twelve,[6] performed at dance competitions in the U.K. and the U.S., and showcased in a UK television show.[7] At fifteen, Julianne Hough became the youngest dancer, and only American, to win both Junior World Latin Champion and International Latin Youth Champion at the Blackpool Dance Festival.
	+
	+	After five years in London, Hough returned to the U.S., first living with her mother for a year and attending Las Vegas Academy then returning to Utah to live with her father and graduating from Alta High.[8] She then moved on her own to Los Angeles to begin her career.
	+
	+
	+	+Dancing career+
	+	One of her earliest professional experiences was as an assistant choreographer on Gwen Stefani's Wind It Up music video.[citation needed] She was also featured in two television commercials and was an extra in an episode of Cold Case. She was also one of the "Million Dollar Dancers" in the short-lived network television game show Show Me the Money.
	+
	+	Hough's big break was when she appeared in the fourth season of the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars, a televised ballroom dance competition. In her first season, she won with her partner, Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, making Hough the youngest professional dancer to win on the program. On November 27, 2007, Hough and her partner, two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Hélio Castroneves, became the winners of Season 5. Hough returned for season 6 with radio host/comedian Adam Carolla, and were eliminated in the fourth week. In July 2008, Hough was nominated at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in the category of "Outstanding Choreography" for her Mambo "Para Los Rumberos" (performed with partner Hélio Castroneves) on Dancing with the Stars,[9] but lost to choreographer Wade Robson.
	+
	+	On August 25, 2008, the cast of Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 7) was announced, and Hough was partnered with Hannah Montana actor Cody Linley.[10] She was feeling stomach pains during her jitterbug performance and was immediately rushed to a hospital following the encore performance of her jitterbug with Cody. She subsequently had surgery to have her appendix removed on October 28, and now Linley and Hough "turned the time over to" Edyta Śliwińska. Hough hoped for a quick recovery so she could begin dancing again. She began training Cody again but were ultimately eliminated in the Semifinals Competition. She also appeared on the November 12 results show dancing the jive to Great Balls of Fire with her brother for the "Design-A-Dance" contest.
	+
	+	On November 20, 2008, Julianne told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show she would not be returning for the foreseeable future to Dancing With The Stars in order to further her country music career. It is unknown if Hough has retired completely from dancing though.
	+
	+
	+	+Music career+
	+	Hough's first country music single "Will You Dance With Me" was released to iTunes and Wal-Mart in May 2007 to raise money for the American Red Cross. The song peaked at #100 on the Billboard Pop 100 chart.[11] She later signed with Universal Music Group Nashville.
	+
	+	Her self-titled debut album was recorded in Nashville and produced by David Malloy, who has worked with Reba McEntire, Eddie Rabbitt, among others. Hough's album, which met with mixed reviews,[12][13] debuted at #1 on the Top Country Albums chart on May 31, and also peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200.[14] Hough's second single, and the first to be released to country radio, "That Song in My Head" debuted on the Country charts in March.
	+
	+	Hough joined Brad Paisley's 2008 Tour, along with Jewel and Chuck Wicks. Hough, Paisley and Willie Nelson appear in the video for the Snoop Dogg song "My Medicine".[15]
	+
	+	Later in 2008, Hough released an EP of Christmas music entitled Sounds of the Season: The Julianne Hough Holiday Collection, which is available exclusively at Target stores.
	+
	+	On November 18, she performed her second single "My Hallelujah Song" at Dancing With the Stars, she also was eliminated of the show, being the 4th place.
	+
	+
	+	+Personal life+
	+	Hough was previously engaged to dancer Zach Wilson; they ended their engagement in May 2007.[16] Despite various rumors linking her romantically with various Dancing With the Stars partners,[17] and public courting by Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame,[18] Hough's first public relationship after Wilson was with country singer Chuck Wicks.[19]
	+
	+	Julianne Hough was diagnosed with endometriosis, which is a common condition in which tissue from the uterus lining grows outside the uterus. It often causes painful cysts and possiblly infertility. Hough, 20, had to undergo an appendectomy in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on October 28, 2008 to remove her appendix, a cyst on her ovary, and scar tissue that had formed on her bladder and fallopian tubes.[20]
	+

InTheZone1103

InTheZone1103's Contributions