Fearless Era
2008-2010
Table of Contents
The Breakthrough
On December 11, 2017, Fearless became only the 121st album in music history to achieve a Diamond certification in the US, having sold over 10,000,000 copies in America.
“When the Fearless album came out in 2008 you could feel this tidal wave was coming. That led to the first headlining tour and our first overseas trips,” Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, said in 2018. “That Fearless era was the one that we were really going to do some big things.”
The Famous Girl Next Door
Fearless is not just an album for teenage girls, nor is it limited to being about the experiences of one. It is not, by any means, a juvenile work. Upon listening to the album, it is clear that Taylor’s skills for writing earworm melodies and spinning vivid imagery out of plainspoken storytelling are a remarkable reminder of her talents as an artist.


Capturing the Teenage Life
Fearless feels like what being a teenage girl felt like. It has the sparkling hope of a young woman thrilled to finally be stepping into adulthood (“Fearless“, “Fifteen“), impatient to live out the romances she’s grown up on (“Love Story”), chiding her crushes for not noticing her (“Hey Stephen“, “You Belong With Me”). She’s looking forward to a future outside of school and away from her small hometown. Even amid the quiet devastation of “White Horse“, Taylor asserts that she’s “going to find someone someday who might actually treat [her] well.” She maps the interior world of a girl waiting for her real life to begin, so she can get off the bleachers and shed this awkward phase.
Five singles were issued from the album. The first, “Love Story’” shattered records for the music industry. Featuring lyrics that invoked Shakespeare’s “Romeo And Juliet”, and with an eye-catching video to accompany its release, the song was a crossover hit that sold more than eight million copies worldwide. It quickly became the best-selling country song of all time.
As well as having an assured feel for songwriting, Taylor showed she had a gift for creating melodies and countermelodies. Her verse-chorus-bridge structures were sleek and professional in lyrics unashamedly aimed at youngsters. In “Fifteen’” she sings “In your life you’ll do things greater than/Dating the boy on the football team/I didn’t know it at 15”. Her American high-school romance narratives proved to have universal appeal.


The Fearless Tour
MTV VMA Incident
Most Awarded Country Album
In 2019, Rolling Stone wrote: “In retrospect, it’s pretty incredible that an institution as stodgy as the then-Recording Academy were able to see 20-year-old Taylor for who she already was: one of the most important singer-songwriters of her generation. Following her pop crossover, Fearless tends to get overlooked a little in terms of the great leap forward it represented at the time. But it brought country into the bedrooms of teen girls who might’ve rocked out to Avril Lavigne and Michelle Branch earlier in the decade, and showcased not only the pop chops that would get bigger but the storytelling instincts that would get better — in the same smash hit songs, no less.”
Non-Album Releases


Acting Debut
Taylor made her acting debut in a 2009 episode of CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, playing a rebellious teenager. The New York Times noted that the character allowed Taylor to be “a little bit naughty, and credibly so”.
Later that year, Taylor both hosted and performed as the musical guest for an episode of Saturday Night Live. Entertainment Weekly described her as “this season’s best Saturday Night Live host so far”, noting that she “was always up for the challenge, seemed to be having fun, and helped the rest of the cast nail the punchlines”.
In 2010, Taylor made her feature film acting debut in Valentine’s Day. The romantic comedy, released the following year, saw her play the ditzy girlfriend of a high school jock, a role in which Los Angeles Times found “serious comedic potential”.
The Definition of Fearless
Fearless will always play a special role in Taylor’s story. It was the album that made her a star, and that captured her at the point at which she most believed in magic. The joy of Fearless is how its spirit will live on — in her 2021 re-recording Fearless (Taylor’s Version), in her greatest-hits repertoire and her live shows, certainly, but also in her recordings to come, whenever she needs to channel the joys and pains of youth.
Associated Album | Fearless | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Beginning of Era | August 2008 | |||
End of Era | July 2010 | |||
Tour | Fearless Tour | |||
Aesthetic | 13 Hand hearts High school Romance Whimsy | |||
Style | Schoolgirl Bracelets Sequins Ball gowns Soft curls | |||
ERA CHRONOLOGY | ||||
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