Taylor Swift has taken the world by storm since she landed her record deal with Big Machine Records and released her self-titled debut album back in 2006. The album was eventually certified five-times platinum. Its followup, 2008's 'Fearless,' has now sold nearly 10 million copies and earned the country darling four Grammy awards, including the all-genre Album of the Year honors. 'Speak Now,' Taylor's third studio album released in October 2010, sold more than one million units in its first week and is soon to be certified four-times platinum. In short, Taylor has become music's biggest superstar in a matter of less than five years.
Still, it's hard to remember when the multi-talented, singer-songwriter wasn't a household name. Taylor remembers very well being a brand-new artist waiting to hear herself on the radio. The country songbird tells The Boot exactly where she was when she heard herself on the airwaves for the very first time.
"I was 16, and the Big 98 [WSIX] in Nashville played 'Tim McGraw' in a song challenge one evening," explains Taylor. "My high school friends and I all sat in my convertible with the top down in my driveway and blasted it. Then, listeners called in and said whether they liked it or not, and I remember being more nervous than I'd ever been. Thankfully they said nice things. I'll never forget that feeling!"
The Pennsylvania native wasn't comfortable sharing her singing ambitions with her friends until her parents moved her to Hendersonville, Tenn. " I moved there when I was in the end of my eighth grade year," recalls Taylor. " I remember back in Pennsylvania, it was kind of an oddity that I loved music and I was really trying to pursue it ... almost to the point where it set me apart from other kids and I spent a lot of time alone. But when I moved to Hendersonville, they didn't think it was a weird thing at all that I loved music that much. Their neighbors were producers and their dad was a songwriter, so it wasn't such a big deal to them that I was so immersed in music. I loved that."
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