Taylor Swift on the Orange Carpet at the "42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards," Tuesday, May 15, 2007. Photo by David Vespie.
June 15, 2007 — Taylor Swift, MySpace's top-ranking country artist, has secured her place in country music history with the recent platinum certification of her self-titled debut CD. She is the only female artist in country music history to write or co-write every song on a platinum-selling debut.
Taylor has enjoyed a near meteoric rise to stardom in recent months. This time last summer she was in a rental car visiting radio stations, introducing her debut single "Tim McGraw." By May of this year, she was serenading Tim himself on live national television at the ACM Awards.
Taylor continues to sell more than 30,000 albums a week. Her current single, "Teardrops on My Guitar," is rapidly approaching country's Top 10, reaching No. 12 with a bullet this week, and she is currently the only country artist with a video in the Top 25 on the Yahoo music chart.
"Having my album go platinum in eight months is something I've always dreamed about but never actually imagined would happen," Taylor said. "I can't believe this! I remember two years ago when Sugarland's first album went platinum, I cut out the picture from Country Weekly and put it in my wallet and thought to myself, 'They've made it.' I never actually thought that two years later, I'd have a platinum album of my own.
Taylor said she's also proud to have the first platinum CD for her label, Big Machine Records. "But to be realistic about this," she added, "the only reason I have this is because of the fans — those incredible people who are going out and buying this record. I love all of them, and I owe them everything. They're everything to me."