Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Taylor Swift's 22nd Birthday!!!

It's December 13 and guess what that means?!?! It's Taylor Swift's birthday!! She's turning 22 today and in honor of her and her many, many achievements, I'm dedicating this post to her. It's no wonder her lucky number is 13 considering her birthday is on the 13th. Most people would take that as a bad luck sign, but not her, she seems to be getting all the luck these days with her amazing album, Speak Now, which has been out for over a year now, her unbelievable Speak Now World Tour, becoming a CoverGirl, and her amazing achievements and awards she's received recently.


by me
Taylor Swift's amazing career all started when she was just 16 and released her first album Taylor Swift which is over 5 times platinum in the U.S.. Her career than really started going strong when she released her second album Fearless which is over 6 times platinum in the U.S. She than won four Grammys in 2009 including the biggest Grammy of then night, Album of the Year. By the time she was getting ready to release her third album, Speak Now, I had a countdown until October 25, 2010 when it was being released. I actually stayed up until midnight waiting to download it on iTunes. Speak Now sold over 1 million albums in the first week which is more than any other album has sold during it's first week since 2005 and is now listed in the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records for Speak Now being the fastest selling digital album by a female artist! She is named "Entertainer of the Year" by Entertainment Weekly, "Women of the Year" by Billboard magazine, Academy of Country Music award's Entertainer of the Year, American Music Award's Artist of the Year, Country Music Association award's Entertainer of the Year, Teen Choice Award's Ultimate Choice. That's just a few of the top honors Taylor has gotten or won in 2011, not including any achievements or awards from previous years for Fearless, Taylor Swift, or herself in general. Click here for a full list of achievements and awards Taylor has been nominated for or won throughout her career.
by me
So as you can see, Taylor has accomplished so much in her lifetime already and all before the age of 22. I think that's amazing! She's such a role model for me and she truly is my idol. She makes it so easy to relate to her through not only her songs, but her personality. I think she's such a sweet, funny person who truly loves her family, friends, and fans. She makes such a point to pay attention and thank her fans whenever she can. While some other artist might get annoyed with obsessive fans and try to disguise themselves when they go out somewhere, Taylor makes a point to walk up to those fans and give them a hug. Taylor makes video blogs for her fans to watch. Here's one of the many video blogs she's made.

Asia! (my February video blog)

You can find more of her video blogs here, on her official website. In both the Fearless and Speak Now World Tours, Taylor made sure she got to thanks fans for coming and supporting her by going out into the audiences and walk through the aisle hugging people, kissing them on the check, and saying "Hey! Thanks so much for coming!". I know she genuinely is thankful and appreciative of her fan's dedication to her. She even started a challenge between two adoring fans, Micheal Wekall and Ryan Leander, who started a website called "A Hug From Taylor Swift" with the goal of getting a hug from Taylor. Taylor saw their videos and responded to it with a video of her own, giving the guys a challenge to complete, walk an old lady across the street (find it here). Micheal and Ryan responded to the challenge, completing it (find it here), and then was given a second challenge (find it here), find the most create ways to use the number 13. They completed this challenge (find it here) and then Taylor finally gave them their third, and final challenge (find it here), get a group of people together to have the biggest karaoke of the song "You Belong with Me". Taylor then showed up there, at Micheal and Ryan's college, Auburn University, to give Micheal and Ryan a hug and give a little performance to the people who showed up for karaoke (find it here). This is just one example of Taylor's thoughtfulness to her fans. 

So to wrap this post up, I'd like to say Happy Birthday Taylor! Congratulations on all your success so far and I hope/know there will be so much more success to come.
(Any facts in this post can be backed up here)


Sunday, December 4, 2011

2011 American Country Awards


On Monday, December 5, 2011 there will be the second annual American Country Awards at 8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT taped-delayed on FOX. This award show will be hosted by Trace Adkins and Kristin Chenoweth.

The awards are fan voted online before hand. The voting for all the awards except Artist of the Year closed on November 11. People were able to vote for Artist of the Year until December 2, only three days before the show. I love fan voted award shows because you get to see how your voting has effected the winners. For me, I get more nervous and excited when they are announcing the winners at a fan voted show because I had control over who I voted for, so I get more into the award show. I have been voting and I'm excited to see who wins what awards. The nominees for the big award of the night, Artist of the Year, are Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift, and Zac Brown Band.

This award show has many different award categories that award artists for their talent and hard work. Other awards that will be given out throughout the night are Artist of the Year: male, Artist of the Year: female, Artist of the Year: New Artist, Album of the Year, Music Video of the Year, Touring Headline Act of the Year, and many more. Here is a full list of the nominees for each award. Some artist that will be performing throughout the night are Blake Shelton, Pistol Annies, Thompson Square, Eli Young Band, the Band Perry, and more. Click here for more information about the 2011 ACAs. I love country music and I can't wait to see this. My favorite country artist is Taylor Swift, so I do hope for a big win for her, but I do love other country artist as well. I'm a fan of Scotty McCreery, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean, and many others as well, so I do hope they do well too. Overall, I think this will be a can't miss night for country music.