Taylor Swift Makes Country Music History With Platinum-Selling Debut

NASHVILLE, TN. (Top40 Charts/ Big Machine Records) - Taylor Swift, MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist and the first bona-fide country star of the MySpace generation, has secured her place in country music history with the recent Platinum certification of her self-titled debut CD, released last fall on Big Machine Records.

Seventeen year-old Taylor Swift 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, having just been awarded the fan-voted CMT Music Award for Breakthrough Video, Taylor serenaded country superstar McGraw himself with his namesake song on live national television at the Academy of Country Music Awards.

Other highlights of Taylor's debut year have included:

- Tours with Rascal Flatts, George Strait and Kenny Chesney. She is currently on tour with Brad Paisley and will join Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Soul2Soul 2007" tour next month.

- Taylor continues to sell in excess of 30,000 albums a week - every week, outselling many of the genre's superstars. Taylor Swift debuted on the Billboard sales chart at No 3 in October of last year, and has been one of Country's Top 10 sellers for 26 weeks. The CD was RIAA certified Gold in just 13 weeks, and is now Platinum (sales of over 1,000,000).

- Taylor was named one of AOL's Best New Artists of the Year, was chosen by the Los Angeles Times as "One to Watch in 2007," was nominated by the Academy of Country Music for Best New Female Vocalist, and was honored by Music Row magazine with their prestigious Critic's Pick award.

- Taylor's debut single "Tim McGraw" hit the Top 5 of the country radio charts, reaching over 30 million listeners a week. The song has sold more than 500,000 digital downloads and is certified Digital Gold, one of only eleven country singles to ever reach this milestone. Her current single, "Teardrops on My Guitar," is rapidly approaching country's Top 10, this week reaching No 12 with a bullet.

- Taylor has appeared on numerous national television shows, including "Good Morning America," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and "Fox & Friends."

- Taylor's videos have received massive airplay on both CMT and GAC, with both clips topping the country video charts. She is currently the only country artist with a video in the Top 25 on the Yahoo music chart.

Taylor is very proud to have the first Platinum CD for Big Machine Records.