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Beautiful Eyes

Extended Play | July 15, 2008

This article is about the EP. For its title track, see Beautiful Eyes (song).

Beautiful Eyes is Taylor’s third extended play (EP). It was released on July 15, 2008 by Big Machine Records exclusively to Walmart stores in the United States and online.

The limited release EP has a primarily country pop sound and features alternate versions of tracks from her debut album, Taylor Swift (2006), and two original tracks, “Beautiful Eyes” and “I Heart ?“, songs which she had previously written; a DVD, featuring music videos of singles from Taylor Swift, is also included on the physical release of the EP.

Background and Release

Taylor received much success with the release of her self-titled debut album, Taylor Swift, and began working on her second studio album, Fearless (2008), in 2007. During that time, she received a number of e-mails from fans requesting new material to be released, which drove Taylor into releasing Beautiful Eyes: “I thought this might tide them over till the new album comes out in the fall.”

Beautiful Eyes is musically oriented to country pop and contemporary music. It includes new versions of tracks from Taylor Swift: an alternate version of “Should’ve Said No“, the fifth single from the album, an acoustic version of “Teardrops On My Guitar“, the second single from the album, a radio edit of “Picture to Burn“, the fourth single from the album, and “I’m Only Me When I’m With You“, a promotional single from the album. The EP also features two original songs, “Beautiful Eyes” and “I Heart ?”, which she previously wrote in 2003. The EP’s DVD features music videos from the singles from Taylor Swift, as well as a music video made for “Beautiful Eyes” from footage from Taylor’s eighteenth birthday party.

Taylor did not want any misconceptions of Beautiful Eyes as her second album and therefore partnered with the American retail company Walmart to make the EP an exclusive release. Furthermore, it was made a limited release because Taylor only allowed Big Machine Records to manufacture a certain amount of copies of the EP.

«I’m only letting my record company make a small amount of these. The last thing I want any of you to think is that we are putting out too many releases.»

Taylor Swift

Promotion

“I Heart ?” was released as a promotional single from Beautiful Eyes on June 23, 2008. Taylor promoted Beautiful Eyes minimally for the reason being she did not want for misconceptions of the EP being her second album, although she did perform the title track at different venues. She first performed “Beautiful Eyes” on January 23, 2005 at the 2005 NAMM Show, an annual music product trade show held in Anaheim, California at the Anaheim Convention Center. “Beautiful Eyes” was later performed as part of Taylor’s set for Stripped on August 5, 2008.

Commercial Performance

Beautiful Eyes peaked at No. 9 on the US Billboard 200 and topped Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, succeeding her self-titled debut album. “I Heart ?” was released as a promotional single in June 2008. Though the EP was not heavily promoted, Taylor performed the title track at a few venues. As of July 2019, the EP has sold 359’000 copies in the US.