TAYLOR Swift just made one of her young fan’s dreams come true.

Hannah, aka @sherbetswift, took to Instagram to ask her idol for some love advice earlier this week, and the 24-year-old singer-songwriter responded with what might be the most sincere message ever written.

Hannah’s original post read:
There’s a guy Taylor, a guy who’s sweet and charming and makes me laugh. A guy who said sorry for eating in front of me after finding out I had to skip breakfast. A guy who grew up across the street from me. A guy who plays guitar like me. A guy who was my first best friend. A guy who I met when I was seven and he was nine. A guy who this one time, when we were younger, said that I was ‘like’ his girlfriend because I was a girl and his friend. I wish. A guy who I have the biggest crush in the whole wide world on, and he’ll never like me back. (And he has a girlfriend who he adores and she’s pretty and has an amazing figure and is actually nice to me). A guy who will never like me back. @taylorswift can you give me some advice maybe. I love you. Hannah.

And here’s Swift’s response (get ready to tear up):
Hannah. Eyes, eyes, eyes. Woah. You have the prettiest, widest, most child like eyes. (Composes herself) Okay. About this guy. I think we grow up thinking the only love that counts as true love is the kind that lasts forever or is fully realized. When you have a broken heart, the first thing a stranger will ask is ‘how long were you two together?’ As if your pain can be determined by how long you were with someone. Or if you were with them at all. I don’t think that’s how it works. I think unrequited love is just as valid as any other kind. It’s just as crushing and just as thrilling. No matter what happens in this situation, I want you to remember that what you are doing is selfless and beautiful and kind. You are loving someone purely because you love them, not because you think you’ll ever have your affections reciprocated. You are admiring something for its beauty, without needing to own it. Feel good about being the kind of person who loves selflessly. I think someday you’ll find someone who loves you in that exact same way.

Hannah was clearly surprised Swift replied to her post, writing back to her, “You have no idea how much this means to me, thank you. You understand and that means so much. I feel like you’re the big sister I don’t have. Thank you, I really did need to hear that from you.”

SOURCE

Taylor Swift, Eric Church and Zac Brown Band are among the artists who will perform during the all-genre 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival. None of them are strangers to the festival. Swift performed at the 2012 event while Church was in the lineup of the first iHeartRadio Country Festival in March.

Additional artists scheduled to take part in the iHeartRadio Music Festival include Usher, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, Motley Crue, One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Paramore, Iggy Azalea, Train, Lorde, Calvin Harris, Bastille and Steve Aoki.
The iHeartRadio Festival will take place at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on September 19 and 20, with Ryan Seacrest returning as host. For a complete lineup and ticket information, visit http://www.festival.iheart.com

SOURCE

Check out Taylor talking about her role in ‘The Giver’. I’ve screencapped the video and added the caps to the gallery.

X198HQ//July 2014 – Taylor talks about The Giver

Check out Taylor behind the scenes of the Spring campaign for Keds! I’ve added screencaps of the video to the gallery.

X92HQ//July 2014 – Keds On Set with Taylor Swift

The Giver hits movie theaters next month, finally giving fans the chance to see Taylor Swift in her role as Rosemary. The book’s author, Lois Lowry, has revealed details to MTV about Swift’s role in the film. “The role in the movie is still a small role,” Lowry said. “But it’s a crucial and very important one.”

According to Lowry, Swift’s scene in the film was one that made the most impact on her teenage grandsons. “I have a copy of the movie in its final stages here on my computer, and I had my two grandsons here for the Fourth of July weekend — they’re 13 and 15, and I showed it to them — probably against the rules — anyways, I asked them was there anything special that they liked best, and one of them selected the scene with Taylor Swift,” she said.

Why did he find Swift’s scene unforgettable? “The elements of that particular scene he found very gripping,” Lowry said. “So her role in the movie is much the same in the book, except in the book she’s only remembered …. And in the movie you can see the memory of her. She appears in, I don’t know what the technical term would be, but you can see her, and it’s very compelling.”

The Giver stars Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Brenton Thwaites, and Katie Holmes. It hits theaters August 15.

SOURCE

Where will the music industry be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years?

Before I tell you my thoughts on the matter, you should know that you’re reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it’s just coming alive.

There are many (many) people who predict the downfall of music sales and the irrelevancy of the album as an economic entity. I am not one of them. In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.

In recent years, you’ve probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal. My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet…is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

In mentioning album sales, I’d like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they’re buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren’t alone in feeling so alone. It isn’t as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us.

There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people’s lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.

Read more HERE

Taylor has gotten a new kitten! She named it Olivia Benson, after the detective on Law and Order: SVU. Check out the photos below.

Taylor Swift and Ina Garten recently became fast friends, and it’s all thanks to Food Network Magazine!

The “Sweeter Than Fiction” singer, 24, and the Barefoot Contessa host, 66, teamed up for the magazine’s first-ever July/August Music Issue, on stands June 24. Taylor, who owns all of Ina’s cookbooks, traveled from her Tribeca apartment in New York City to the Hamptons to meet the celebrity chef. Taylor invited her mother, Andrea Swift, and brother, Austin Swift, to join her.

When the trio arrived, Ina was in the midst of slicing warm date bread and getting coffee ready for her guests. “Just another day at Barefoot Contessa,” joked the TV personality, whose show debuted in 2002.

Taylor and Ina baked a mustard-roasted fish in the oven and spread whipped cream on a Pavlova, all while bonding over their mutual frustration for people who don’t like to eat. “I’ll cook for these boys, and they’ll be like, ‘I’m on a diet,’” the country crossover artist said. “I’m like, ‘I can’t hang out with you.’”

Ina then shared a similar story in which a guest claimed she was on a cleanse before downing an entire whiskey sour—and then had the gall to ask for another! “Oh, I’ve never had a whiskey sour,” Taylor said.

As luck would have it, Ina had the ingredients on hand. “I have some in my refrigerator!” she told Taylor.

“Hey, Andrea,” the singer called. “Come over here. We’re day-drinking!”

Andrea and Austin joined the duo and tasted Ina’s favorite cocktail. The foursome then started spooning the Pavlova. “I don’t always eat it this way,” Ina said, laughing about their group decision to forgo plates.

During their impromptu sit-down lunch, Taylor invited her “hero” Ina to visit her home and see her perform one day. After they left, Ina looked around her kitchen and marveled, “Did that really happen?”

Check out images in the gallery of Taylor with the Food Network!

X04HQ//June 17th – Taylor visits the Food Network

Taylor attended Ed’s concert earlier this week, and I’ve added some images from the concert and some backstage images to the gallery. Also, check out Taylor in the video below chatting about Ed’s music.

X06MQ//June 14th – At an Ed Sheeran Concert

Now that the Red Tour is finished, I’m working on updating the gallery will all the missing tour date images. I want to get them all uploaded before Taylor’s new album is released later this year. Check out the albums I’ve already added.

X45HQ//May 30th – Shanghai Concert
X11HQ//June 4th – Jakarta Indonesia
X11HQ//June 6th – Manila Philippines
X14HQ//June 9th – Singapore
X06HQ//June 12th – Singapore