Swift, Taylor: Taylor Swift (2LP) [Big Machine Records]

Taylor Swift was still a teenager freshly relocated from her native Pennsylvania to Nashville when her self-titled debut album was released in October of 2006 and ... well ... none of us had any idea what was gonna happen down the road at that point. 

Taylor Swift, the album, is a likably breezy slab of heart-on-sleeve pop country and far removed from the armour-plated superstar gestures to come on later albums such as 1989 and Reputation. Swift's charm, ear for a good melody and gift for relatable, sometimes confessional "everygirl" lyrics were already on full display here, however, even if the record didn't quite foreshadow the all-consuming Swiftmania that would take over the planet a little more than a decade later. It did get a nomination for Album of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards, though, and lingered quietly on the Billboard 200 long enough to go platinum and qualify as the longest-charting album of the first decade of the 2000s. Swift also made history as the first female country artist ever to write or co-write every song on a platinum-certified debut album. Clearly she was in it for the long haul from the beginning.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Tim McGraw
2. Picture To Burn
3. Teardrops On My Guitar
4. A Place In This World
5. Cold As You
6. The Outside
7. Tied Together With A Smile
8. Stay Beautiful
9. Should've Said No
10. Mary's Song (Oh My My My)
11. Our Song
12. I'm Only Me When I'm With You
13. Invisible
14. A Perfectly Good Heart
15. Teardrops On My Guitar (Pop Version)