Nielsen SoundScan Lists Taylor Swift as the Top-Selling Digital Artist in History

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 24.3 million digital tracks sold to date, Taylor Swift is the top-selling digital artist in music history, according to sales figures released yesterday by Nielsen SoundScan. In addition, her FEARLESS album was 2009's top-seller, with sales last year in excess of 3.2 million copies, and Taylor claimed both the #1 and #2 positions atop Nielsen's BDS Top 10 Most Played Songs chart (all genres), with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story," respectively. She also topped the all format 2009 Top 10 Artist Airplay chart with over 1.29 million song detections, and the Top 10 Artist Internet Streams chart with more than 46 million song plays.

FEARLESS was also the top-selling album of 2008, and Taylor is the youngest solo artist ever to top the year-end sales chart. FEARLESS, now quintuple-platinum, also topped Billboard's 2009 all-genre Top 200 Albums chart and was named Country Album of the Year by the editors of iTunes. Taylor's self-titled debut album, released in 1996, currently holds the record for Billboard's longest charting album this century, and she is tied with the Beatles and Mariah Carey for Billboard's Most Top 20 Debuts.

Taylor finished 2009 not only with the best-selling album, she was named Billboard's Artist of the Year, as well as Entertainer of the Year by the Associated Press. She topped People magazine's Most Intriguing People of 2009 list, was named a Person Who Mattered by the editors of Time magazine, a Person of the Year by NBC, and was featured as one of Rolling Stone's 100 People Changing America. People named her one of 2009's 10 Best Dressed Celebrities and also one of the year's Most Beautiful People.

Taylor started off the New Year with a big win at last night's People's Choice Awards in Los Angeles, taking home the all-genre Favorite Female Artist award. Earlier in the day she made a surprise appearance at CES in Las Vegas, where Sony Chairman & CEO Sir Howard Stringer introduced her as the newest Brand Ambassador for Sony Electronics.

Taylor's next television performance will be on the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, broadcast live on CBS on January 31st. Taylor is nominated for eight Grammies, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. She makes her feature film acting debut in Garry Marshall's Valentine's Day, set for US release on February 12th, and takes her sold-out FEARLESS tour back on the road in Australia next month. Her line of American Greetings cards will also hit stores in February.

For a complete listing of dates and updated information on the 2010 FEARLESS tour, please visit: www.taylorswift.com.

For more information, please contact:

    Natalie Kilgore                     Paula Erickson
    Big Machine Records                 Erickson Public Relations
    615.324.7769                        615.665.5950
    [email protected]  [email protected]

SOURCE Big Machine Records