we're concerned, she can be anything she wants to be. she's a multi-platinum power house. >> she connects with people. ♪ trying to find a place ♪ >> who found her place in country music. >> she just had a charge in her that was twice her age. >> for a decade, she's been building an empire and an image. >> i think you could make an argument that taylor is the anti-miley. >> from the brandy to the boys.

>> she's as cute as a truckload of baby ducks. >> so your advice to her in her love life? >> she's shaking up the music world. >> i really like to challenge myself musically, kind of push the envelope. >> tonight in the cnn spotlight, the newly crowned princess of pop, taylor swift. >> i can't even believe that this is real. >> the country music awards, november 2007. >> i can't even believe this. this is death my highlight of my senior year. thank you cma. >> a big night and a big surprise for taylor swift, nabbing the cma horizon award for best new artist.

>> i'm not even like an adult yet legally. it's really exciting. >> barely 18 years old and owning country music, a cma win, a platinum record and a grammy nomination. >> i mean, i mean imagined that my life would be this magical. >> taylor allison swift has been writing her own fairy tale since she was born. >> you want to see your daughter. >> yes. she's all dolled up and ready to go. >> oh, my god. >> here she is just a few days old. taylor posted the home video for fans who preordered her latest album 1989, named for the year she was born. >> i don't want to ever hear from this kid that we never did anything for her, never. >> taylor had a privileged and

idyllic childhood, both her parents had careers in finance and she and her brother austin were raised on a 12 acre christmas tree farm in redding, pennsylvania. dolly baby sat taylor for years. >> i didn't have a little granddaughter, so she kind of filled that space for me. i love ed her beautiful almost white hair and her clear blue eyes. you just wanted to hug her because she was just a sweetheart. >> she was a fantastically car rise mat eck child. >> every time i took a camera and just pointed it at her, boom, boom, boom, and that's when i told her parents, this girl is going to be a superstar. >> taylor was a natural and a ham.

♪ twinkle twinkle little star >> there are great videos of very, very young taylor swift running around the house at 2 years old, singing pop and country hits. you can tell even at that young age that there was something special about her. >> she had grade schoolteachers robin klein and nancy boyer at hello. >> i thought one day i'm going to read about her, one day i'm going to vote for her, one day she's going to perform open heart surgery. >> she was a very talented writer, used very colorful language, mature for a fifth grade writer. taylor performed in school plays, proving she had pipes taking the lead in the school musical "bye-bye birdie." next she took on the karaoke circuit, local country singer

pat garrett ran the contests. >> she was poised and handled the crowd quite well for an 11-year-old. i said when i was 11, i couldn't even tie my shoes, now get out of here. she got better as she went along. and in the finals, she got to open the charlie daniels show. >> next up -- ♪ star spangled banner >> the national anthem at the philadelphia 76ers game. >> i think that probably gave her a little taste of what superstardom is like, looking around tens of thousands of people and thinking this is what i want to do with my life. >> taylor found an audience, but she struggled socially during her middle school years. >> i had this clique of girls that i used to hang out with and all of a sudden they didn't want to hang out with me anymore. i don't know if it was because every single weekend i was at

songwriter acoustic nights, but all of a sudden the friends were gone. >> she poured her heart into her music and relentlessly lobbied her mother to take her to music row. >> when i was 11 i came to nashville and just kind of knocked on doors of record labels while my mom was waiting in the car. and i had this little demo karaoke cd and would walk into every record label, hi, i'm taylor, i want a record deal, call me. >> the phone never rang. but taylor didn't stop, she mastered the guitar, as seen here in her 2010 concert doc and wrote and recorded her first song. ♪ >> lucky you, she wrote it the day that she learned how to play guitar, and if you listen to

that song, it is very characteristic of the way that taylor will write songs, it's about now fitting in at school, of being the outsider. >> turning hurts into hits would become her trademark. ♪ when you're 15 and your first kiss makes you spin around ♪ >> coming up, taylor's unstoppable quest for fame, the swift family sells the farm. >> her dad said, well, we're going. i said yeah? where you going? he said nashville, i stayed how long are you going for? he said for the rest of our lives. i said what? cocoa or eggnog?

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>> i think about that move to nashville like the actresses in the '40s coming to hollywood, they step off the bus, they've got big dreams, wide eyes. >> and in taylor's case, she was also carrying some middle school angst she had turned into songs. >> i think everybody goes through a period like that when you're just so alone, and inge stead of just letting it drag me down in a downward spiral, i just wrote songs about it. >> even in a city full of talented performers, like due we big and rich, it quickly became clear that taylor swift had something special. >> some people just have magnets on them, you can feel it when they come in. >> she has the it. >> they saw the it, signing her to a development deal which she

walked away from a year later. >> she had a collection of songs she really wanted to get u out there and rca didn't think she was reddy. >> she landed here, nashville's blue bird cafe, the place for aspiring singer songwriters, she was heard and quickly signed by a music executive that helped her laumpl her own company. taylor swift's first single tim mcgraw dropped in june 2006. ♪ when you think tim mcgraw ♪ i hope you think my favorite song ♪ >> it was from her debut album, taylor swift. >> my album is selling like freakish amounts -- i can't believe it's selling like it is. >> it made her the youngest person in history to write and

perform a number one country song. >> the first of many firsts. it was a platinum effort right out of the gate. she was just 16. >> taylor swift tapped into a young market that the country music industry was basically ignoring. and they were young girls. >> oh, my gosh. this is the best moment of my life. >> one thing that makes taylor swift unique is her relationships with fans. that's thanks in part to social media. >> myspace has been one of the things that launched me as an artist. >> she had an energy in social media that no one had done to that point. she was connecting with her fans because she was talking to them all the time. >> myspace morphed into video blogs, instagram and twitter. >> if you followed her on twitter or on instagram, you

feel like you could be best friends with taylor swift. >> she works hard to connect with followers in the real world too. posting hour-long parties for randomly picked fans after every concert. >> she would go around to everybody in the room and she would have a conversation with them, how did you like the show. >> frankie ballard toured with taylor in 2011 and says nobody connects with an audience like she does. >> hi, nashville. >> i went to taylor's show here in nashville a year or so ago -- >> thank you for coming tonight. >> i have never seen anything like it. i swear a couple of times i felt taylor was looking at me. the energy connection and the personal connection with the audience. i would compare it to springsteen, but it was a level above, the energy with her a and the fans was phenomenal. >> good night, nashville. >> it helps that she has bruce

springsteen's song writing skills. >> today alreadyaylor is one of songwriters ever to put a pencil to paper. >> many song writers agree. >> what a knockdown lyric that is. the first time i heart her sing it at a little writer's night in new york city several years ago and she sang that and i went -- it was vince gill, trishia year wood and me. >> trish is like look at this lyric coming out of this girl. >> john rich co-wrote this song with taylor swift after she called him out of the blue. >> i said yeah, come on over. and she pulls that guitar out and has some words already down and starts tearing into this song ♪ the way i loved you .

>> it was 90 minutes, two hours max and the song was done. >> >> i brought that title to john. he was able to relate to it. you know, he's that complicated messy kind of guy in a relationship. >> there you go. >> is it true? >> of course it's true. yeah. ♪ that's the way i love you >> that song along with 15 are on "fearless." taylor's second album. >> tayloda she became the first star to ever win a vma. >> best female country song goes to taylor swift. >> as she was accepting the award, kanye west bum rushed the

stage and took the mike away from her. >> beyonce had the best albums of all time. >> he's a dope. >> he's an idiot, he's just a waste. >> it's a night that she went super nova. even people that knew her in passing before, really wanted to know who this artist was. >> the night u i saw kanye pull the mike out of her hand, i felt like someone had disrespected my little sister. if i had been in that room, i would have tried. >> ahead, back breakups have taylor seeing red. >> any advice to her on her love life? >> a shotgun. a shotgun. ce fair projects. schedule guinea pig feedings. video chemical reactions. take pics of mr. bones. time the next launch. calm down principal jones. i can do all that with my android from tracfone.

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♪ >> it was early 2012, taylor swift's worldwide tour was anything but mean. she just won her sixth grammy and had become one of the hottest country artists of the decade. >> there's something on that girl that is bigger than she is. and when she comes in the room, you go, who is that? >> then -- ♪ >> six years after releasing her first album in country, taylor releases red. >> why test the waters there? she's doing so great in country?

>> it had to be because she was being true to herself. >> she really diversified her sound, which was not only a way for her to expand her song writing overall, but to get a new audience. >> in truth, taylor swift style, the songs were personal and focused on a recent string of breakups. >> red is a breakup album, so there are songs -- taking her heart breaks from her relationships and putting a great hook behind them and turning them into great pop hits. >> the album was an instant success. becoming swift's first song to

ever hit number one on the billboard hot 100. >> the word play in those songs, they're sassy, they're meant to sort of sting a little bit. it was a little bit of like a f-u to anyone who had basically gotten in her way or in her heart's way. >> brilliant, sassy, and instantly relatable. >> you can only hope that what you are saying resonates with people and that you're saying that something maybe helps them get through what they're going through. ♪ >> a song like "i knew you were trouble ♪ >> that message clearly resonated with fans, red sold 1.2 million copies in its first week. becoming the fastest selling album in a decade. >> red was massive, she was no longer just segregated to

country radio, that was a really big sort of catalyst in just launching her to the stratosphere. >> but certainly songs about the boys she dated. had its down side. she does have a tendency to have these relationships, she falls too hard, too fast, sometimes for the wrong guy for short periods of time. >> get the bumps with the boys didn't diminish the brand. >> do you know how hard it would be the to maintain such a reputation if you with respect that person? it would be damned near impossible. >> taylor swift hand picked country sensation frankie ballard to tour with her in 2011. >> when things go good, you get

the credit and when things go bad, it's your fault. i still think about her in the back of my head, what would taylor do? >> wwtd. >> i got it tattooed on my chest. >> by 2014, swift was ready for reinvention, she moved from nashville to new york, and swore off the boys, something john rich and big kenny fully support. >> she's actually too young for a man in her life. >> so your advice to her in your live life? >> advice to her is a shotgun. ♪ >> swift released a new album, 1989, trading country for straight pop. >> i think it's really important to evolve musically, i think it's easy to stay the same, but i really like to challenge myself musically, and kind of push the envelope.

>> and if there was any risk in leaving nashville behind, it paid off the first week of the album's release. >> not only is it the biggest week for an album in over a decade, it's also taylor's third consecutive record to sell more than a million copies. if that doesn't cement her as one of the biggest stars on the planet, i don't know what does. >> all of the fans she's had with her since the beginning, then she makes a record like 1989 and of course all these people are growing up with her. >> but after her evolution to pop, country music was missing her and she heard about it at the cmas. >> you can't turn on the tv or open up a newspaper or a website without being reminded of the epidemic we're all facing, and of course we're talking about post-partum taylor swift disorder. >> what do you say to the critic

who is say how can you leave country behind? >> can we just get off her back for a minute? she's an artist, she's a songwriter, let her make whatever music she wants to. >> and john rich says taylor swift is still country at heart. >> taylor swift can make a country song all day long, she know what is writing a song is all about. she knows what it means to not sand off the rough edges but put a magnifying glass on it. >> swift told "good morning america" she has an entirely knew message. >> people will find anything about u you and twist it to where it's weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad. you have to not only live your life in spite of people who don't understand you, you have to have more fun than they do. >> at the moment, taylor swift

is having a whole lot of fun. and shaking it off just fine. tonight on unguarded with rachel nichols, actor steve corell on his new sports movie and his challenge to the nba's best play. >> i could take on lebron james. i'm sorry i even said that, but he's not so tough. >> gary beckman answers questions about the future of -- >> and pro ball receiver larry fitzgerald, his informal cardinals have the nfl's best record, but some questions heading into this weekend. >> it's