Taylor Swift Enjoys Record Week

(http://www.gactv.com/)

More than a year after the release of her debut, Taylor Swift just enjoyed her best sales week ever.

Taylor's self-titled CD sold 88,342 units this past week, a 36 percent increase from last week, and her biggest sales week since its release in October 2006. In the three weeks since she performed at the Country Music Association awards and won the Horizon Award, Taylor scanned 220,823 albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Taylor's current single, "Our Song," is first on the Country Digital sales chart and sixth on Billboard's Country Singles chart and is her fastest moving single to date. Her single "Teardrops on My Guitar," which reached No. 2 on the country charts earlier this year, is currently in the Top 25 on Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 chart. Her rendition of "Last Christmas," from her Christmas EP Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection", is now first on Mediabase's Top 25 Current Most-Played Christmas Songs.

Taylor will join Akon, Quincy Jones and Linkin Park tomorrow morning to announce the nominations for the "50th Annual Grammy Awards." The Grammys will air live on CBS from Los Angeles on February 10, 2008.

Taylor Swift's Work Ethic

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Taylor Swift's parents taught her early on to put her heart into her work, and she learned that lesson well.

Taylor tells the Colorado Spring Independent that her parents stressed: "Have high hopes, but never expectations about what you're going to get in life," and now she says, "I still can't believe [my success]. I'm just trying to work so hard."

Taylor has already opened on tour for Rascal Flatts, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley and Tim McGraw & Faith Hill. She's been able to bring her live music performance to more than a million fans.

"I'm really, really lucky to be able to tour with all these people," she says. "I've had five major tours in a year and a half. I don't take vacations. I don't take weeks off. I'm so lucky; I should play every night."

While fans won't see a new album from Taylor until this time next year, she will sing in 33 states in just three months this fall. And Target stores have already released her six-song holiday exclusive, for which she wrote two new songs and rewrote the melody for "Silent Night."

"I like the holidays a lot," she says. "I grew up on a Christmas tree farm, so the holidays for me were about helping Dad lug trees up a hill, putting them on people's cars."

If Taylor keeps it up, it's likely she'll reach just the future she's hoping for. "In 10 years, I'll be 27," she says. "I hope I'm still doing this. I'd love to be headlining."

Taylor Swift Promotes Safe Teen Driving With Carols

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Taylor Swift will serve as a judge for a contest that encourages teens to rewrite traditional holiday carols into songs about safe driving over the holidays. Titled Holiday Holla, the contest is sponsored by the Allstate Foundation. Swift will help select the final winners at the Mall of America in Minneapolis on Dec. 8. She will also perform at the event. "This contest is a fun and creative way to make teens and their parents aware of how dangerous the holiday season is for teen drivers," said Swift.