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Is it possible to be a bona fide superstar aged just 19? In Taylor Swift's case, the answer has to be "hell yeah". Last year, Swift was the bestselling artist in America. She shifted more than 4 million albums at a time when the music industry was in meltdown. Rolling Stone hailed her as a "preternaturally gifted songwriter". The New York Times described her self-titled debut album, released when she was 16, as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country". Swift is young, talented, gorgeous and utterly focused, telling Rolling Stone : "All I ever wanted to do was sing, ever since I was born."
And sing she does. Last year, she had six Billboard top 20 hits and her second album, Fearless , was sitting atop the Billboard 200 for the seventh week last week, keeping Beyonce at bay. Swift is unlike any country star before her, her mainstream pop aesthetic attracting a devoted young audience in what is a traditionally a middle-aged market. Bob Harris, who hosts a weekly country music show on Radio 2, has no doubt about her pedigree: "She's definitely the real thing. There's a driving force in her. She was destined to be a singer. The degree of her success is sensational; she's had a huge impact on the pop charts."
Swift writes (or occasionally co-writes) her own music and pens teen diary lyrics fuelled by anger and regret. The music is country-lite and the lyrics are direct, honest and personal. On Fearless , there's a song about longing for a boy who only wants to be a friend ("You Belong With Me") and another detailing relationship frustrations: "I'm sick and tired of your attitude/ I'm feeling like I don't know you." Her most-quoted song is "Fifteen", in which she sounds twice her age: "In your life you'll do things greater/ Than dating a boy on the football team/ But I didn't know that at 15."
She tells American journalists that she "absolutely can't stop writing songs". Mostly about boys: "When...