Taylor Swift Reaches #1 on Country Albums Chart, Outselling Music's Biggest Superstars

Taylor Swift Reaches #1 on Country Albums Chart, Outselling Music's Biggest Superstars

NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Taylor Swift's self-titled debut CD reached the #1 position atop Billboard's Country Albums chart this week, outpacing such superstars as Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts.

With more than 34,000 CDs sold this week, Taylor is outdistancing the current releases by such mainstream acts as Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Maroon 5, Rihanna, Velvet Revolver, Daughtry, and R. Kelly. Taylor is the only country artist currently ranked in the Top 15 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 Chart.

This marks the first #1 selling album for Taylor's record label, Big Machine.

Taylor's continual sales escalation is extraordinary, given that her CD was released 39 weeks ago. This week Taylor Swift sold 34,586 copies, while the current CDs from Daughtry (released 35 weeks ago) and Gwen Stefani (out for 33 weeks) sold 25,029 and 14,407 units this week, respectively. Velvet Revolver's current album, released just 3 weeks ago, trailed Taylor by 12,815 units, and she outsold the new release from Lifehouse, out only 5 weeks, by more than 22,000 units.

Taylor has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace, where she is currently ranked at #15 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music. MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist, and the first bona-fide country star of the MySpace generation, seventeen year-old Taylor is country music's 3rd best-selling artist this year, behind only Carrie Underwood and Tim McGraw.

Taylor Swift debuted on the Billboard sales chart at #3 in October of last year, and has been one of Country's Top 10 sellers for 30 weeks. The CD was RIAA certified Gold in just 13 weeks, and is now Platinum (sales of over 1,000,000 units).

Just last month Taylor secured her place in country music history as the only female solo artist in Country music history to write or co-write every song on a Platinum selling debut.

Last week Taylor wrapped a series of dates as a featured guest on Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul 2007 tour, and she is currently on tour with Brad Paisley. She has also shared the stage with Rascal Flatts, George Strait and Kenny Chesney.

In May she was awarded the fan-voted CMT: Country Music Television "CMT Music Award" for Breakthrough Video, and was nominated for Best New Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music. 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," and was honored as a breakthrough artist by Music Row magazine with their prestigious Critic's Pick award.

To hear music from Taylor Swift, log on to: www.taylorswift.com or www.myspace.com/taylorswift.

For downloadable photos of Taylor Swift, log on to www.bigmachinemedia.net.

   For more information, please contact:   Natalie Kilgore                       Paula Erickson   Big Machine Records                   Erickson Public Relations   615.324.7769                          615.665.5950   Natalie.kilgore@bigmachinemail.com    paula@ericksonpr.com  

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Source: Big Machine Records

CONTACT: Natalie Kilgore, Big Machine Records, +1-615-324-7769,
Natalie.kilgore@bigmachinemail.com; or Paula Erickson, Erickson Public
Relations, for Big Machine Records, +1-615-665-5950, paula@ericksonpr.com

Web site: http://www.bigmachinemedia.net/
http://www.taylorswift.com/

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Profile: International Entertainment