Hello, Taylor Nation. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), announced a new record in career digital single sales certification of 22.5 million digital singles sold. I will give you thirteen chances to guess who set it, and the first twelve don’t count. She’s got six million followers in Twitter, she has curly hair, owns a lot of sparkly dresses and is the Entertainer of the Year according to you. She’s also probably on your playlist if you’re reading this site and graces the cover of Cosmopolitan in South Africa for May 2011.
If you said any other name than Taylor Swift, drop everything now, go stand in the corner and think about what you did.
The Outspoken One becomes the newly crowned digital singles artist. Previously, the record was held by Lady Gaga with her 20 million digital singles in February. The Sparkly Dressed would move into the lead thanks to You Belong With Me going from 2x to 3x platinum and popular songs like Fifteen, Forever And Always and Back To December to bring T-Swizzle’s certification up to 22.5 million digital singles. That’s the amount of times any of her songs have been legally downloaded. Taylor was the past RIAA certified top digital singles artist of 2000-2009.
Taylor’s Big Machine Records album are all currently certified as triple-platinum or more. Taylor Swift (2006) is 5x platinum(*), Fearless (2008) is 6x platinum and Speak Now (2010) is 3x platinum. You can read the original story in RIAA.com.
(*) Update: Thanks to 13SparksFly13 for the correction! RIAA actually certified Taylor Swift as 5x platinum in March, but forgot to update that for their news story.
The Always and Forever Fearless One along with Lady Antebellum leads the list of Country music finalist for the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, scheduled to air on May 22nd at 8p ET/PT on ABC. You can read more about it at Great American Country.
I’ve been trying to find out who to give a shoutout for this excellent explanation: the Billboard Awards are fan voted. By playing Taylor’s songs and listening to videos on popular sites fans have been (and continue to) vote. So, although it’s not as clear as going to a website and clicking the checkbox next to Taylor, fans have voted for her already. Of course how influential stats are is subjective to whoever makes the call.
I say let’s just give her all the awards now and be done with it 😉
Coming up in the Calendar!
- April 22: CBS airs the Academy of Country Music special Girls’ Night Out: Superstar Women of Country. Believe it or not, Taylor is not a part of this special. I can’t believe it.
- April 30: Grant Mickelson‘s Birthday.
- May 22: The Billboard Music Awards 2011 air live on ABC at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT.
- May 27: Elizabeth Huett‘s Birthday.
- May 27: Speak Now tour in Omaha, Nebraska at Qwest Center. Sold Out.
The Swift Agency 
#NowPlaying Enchanted, Live At Abby Road.
This is Awesome! Taylor is so deserving. Perfect role model! ❤
(I Want A Copy Of This Cosmo!)(Or At Least A Poster Of The Cover!)
Good Post Man!!
…a slight error in the RIAA story….Taylor Swift (2006) was RIAA certified 5x P in March 2011, so apparently RIAA just copied their 2010 end of year story info the last time they told us about Taylor being # 1
more details on Taylor Connect http://connect.taylorswift.com/forum/thread/36170/Taylor_Becomes_RIAAs_Newly_Crowned_Top_Digital
Nicely done! You did some investigative journalism there. Thank you! 🙂