Taylor Swift in New York

Taylor Swift never seems to slow down! Here she is in New York yesterday to help launch the new MySpace Music. She looks adorable and classy, as always!

Chart Update

It's time for your weekly Billboard country singles chart update!

- Darius Rucker glides into the No. 1 spot after 23 weeks on the chart! What an accomplishment with his very first country single...we think Darius is here to stay and that he's going to do well in the country format!

- Knocking hard at the door to that No. 1 spot is Kenny Chesney who takes over the No. 2 spot this week with his current hit, "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven." The song has only been on the charts for 8 weeks and is the lead single from Kenny's forthcoming album, "Lucky Old Sun."

- Toby Keith breaks into the top 5 at No. 5 this week with his hit, "She Never Cried In Front Of Me." This song is still climbing after 13 weeks on the charts.

- Three rising country stars hold steady this week at the same spot they were last week. Luke Bryan stays at No. 12 with "Country Man," Chuck Wicks stays at No. 14 with "All I Ever Wanted," and Jason Aldean holds place at No. 15 with "Relentless."

- Taylor Swift makes a big jump this week from No. 25 to No. 18 with "Love Story," the first single off her upcoming album, "Fearless." This is only the song's second week on the charts and it's moving fast!

- Our favorite new band, the Zac Brown Band, are still climbing with their single, "Chicken Fried." They land at No. 22 this week.

- Sugarland rounds out the top 25 landing at No. 25 with their new single "Already Gone." Their last release, "All I Want To Do" is still on the charts at No. 24 after climbing all the way to No. 1 for the duo!

Taylor Swift Planning "Fearless" Re-release Already??

So, word has it that the reason Taylor Swift's upcoming album, Fearless only has 11 tracks is because she's already planning two separate re-releases of the album with two additional songs each time! We're not sure if this is legit, but that's what we heard. But now Nashville Gab posted this yesterday and it looks like Team Taylor might have thought better of that idea and quickly added 2 more songs to the original release. Hmmmm...

How do you guys feel about this? Wouldn't you rather just buy ONE CD and get all of the music??

*UPDATE* Taylor posted a blog on her MySpace confirming that Fearless will have 13 songs and that the last 2 were added recently. She also talks about how excited she is for her song "White Horse" to be featured in tonight's 2 hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy!

New Kellie Pickler

Kellie Pickler recently added a few songs from her new self-titled album to her MySpace page. The album hits stores this coming Tuesday, September 30th. Check out "Rocks Instead of Rice," "Somebody To Love Me", and "Best Days of Your Life" HERE. Kellie teamed up with Taylor Swift to write "Best Days of Your Life." We could totally see this being a future single!

ALSO, we came across Kellie's CMT Loaded videos. They are a must see! Kellie is hilarious and SO BLONDE!

Click HERE for part 1, you will see parts 2 & 3 on the video prompt to the right.

Countdown to Chesney's "Lucky Old Sun"

Starting this week, fans will get a sneak peek at Kenny Chesney's new album! Kenny will release one song per week to iTunes.

This week, you can purchase, "Nowhere To Go, Nowhere To Be." Next Tuesday, "Key's in the Conch Shell" will be available, followed by "Spirit of a Storm" on October 7th. The full album, "Lucky Old Sun" is set to hit stores October 14th. This album leads Kenny back to his original love of song-writing, having written or co-written the songs "I'm Alive," "Way Down Here," "Boats," "Spirit Of A Storm," and "Nowhere To Go, Nowhere To Be."

Keep in mind, the purchase of each song on iTunes will count toward the total purchase of the entire CD by using the "complete my album" option after October 14th.

Kenny Chesney isn't the only artist releasing an album this way...Taylor Swift is also giving fans a sneak peek at her new album, Fearless, each week through November 11th.

Hear Taylor Swift On Grey's Anatomy

Remember how we told you that Taylor Swift LOVES Grey's Anatomy and that her dream is to co-star in an episode? Well now Taylor's getting her chance to be on Grey's...sort of! One of Taylor's new songs from her upcoming album will be featured in the Grey's season premiere this Thursday, September 25th on ABC. While Taylor is keeping quiet on which song it will be, she says "It's one of the songs that I am really proud of on the record because it's so sparse -- it's guitar, piano and cello. It talks about falling in love and the fairy tales that you are going to have with this person, and then there is that moment where you realize that it is not going to happen. That moment is the most earth-shattering moment."

Hmmmm...Taylor's comments make us REALLY curious as to what's going to happen on the season opener! Tune in Thursday to find out and to hear Taylor's debut on Grey's Anatomy!

Chart Update

An interesting week as far as the No. 1 spot on the charts this week! Also a lot of slow and steady climbers, and finally some female action in the top 10!

- After reaching the top of the charts with "Do You Believe Me Now," Jimmy Wayne slipped back to the No. 2 spot last week. Well apparently he wasn't content with that spot, since he once again regains the No. 1 with his current hit!

- It seems like plenty of folks are hanging onto summer as long as they can with Kid Rock's hit "All Summer Long." That one moves into the top 5 this week landing at No. 5 from No. 6 last week.

- Carrie Underwood finally brings the female edge to the top 10 with "Just A Dream." That single moves up to No. 8 from No. 11 last week.

- Chuck Wicks makes a good jump from No. 18 to No. 14 with his current single "All I Ever Wanted."

- Lady Antebellum is still climbing with good momentum as they move up from No. 24 to No. 19 with their feel good song "Lookin' For A Good Time."

- Taylor Swift bursts onto the chart with "Love Story" which is the first release from her upcoming album, "Fearless." "Love Story" lands at No. 25 in it's very first week on the charts!

Win Tickets To 20 Country Concerts!

Click here to enter for your chance to win tickets to 20 different country concerts! If you win, you'll get tickets to a concert of every artist featured on the "Now That's What I Call Country" album including Dierks Bentley, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland, Chris Cagle, Trace Adkins, Gary Allan, Sara Evans and MANY more!

Taylor Swift ~ Music Release Schedule

As you know, Taylor Swift has a new album coming out on November 11th, but what you may not know is that you'll be able to purchase some of the songs ahead of the release date on iTunes. The album's title track, "Fearless," will be release on October 14th, "Hey Stephen" will be released on October 23rd, followed by "You Belong To Me" on November 4th. Taylor's current radio release, "Love Story," is available for purchase now. After November 11th, you can go back to iTunes and complete the CD at a discounted price by clicking the "Complete My Album" option...that way you're not buying the same songs twice. We bet Taylor fans are excited to get some of the new tunes early!

New Taylor Swift Video: Love Story

Taylor Swift just released her new video for "Love Story." It's a cute video- almost too cute... but we like it.

Viewable NOW at CMT.com!!!

We also think the song doesn't sound very country...What do you think?

Rascal Flatts ~ Giving Back

Rascal Flatts is using their upcoming Nashville concert for the greater good of their own community. The proceeds from this show, which also features Taylor Swift, are being donated to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. The guys are making it a tradition of donating money from their Nashville shows having donated over $2,200,000 the last 3 years! That's awesome! Lead singer Gary LeVox says "It matters to us to give back, and we can't think of a better way to do that than to help right here in our own community. We have our fans and friends in Nashville to thank for being so generous."

The show will be held on October 17th at the Sommet Center...tickets go on sale this Saturday through Ticketmaster.

WE LOVE IT!!!

We're pretty sure that we have to have this! Next month Sony Computer Entertainment America is releasing a new game for PS2 called SingStar Country! You get to sing along to music videos from your favorite artists including Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley and more! How cool is that?! There is also a radio promotion being held by Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony/BMG Nashville that encourages listeners to sing their way to the CMA awards. If you think you're good enough, you can attend a SingStar competition in your area with the grand prize winner getting a trip to the awards show in November!

DON'T FORGET!

Tune in this morning to Good Morning America to see Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift announce the nominees for the 42nd annual CMA awards that will be held in November. Once that is over, switch over to CMT where Lady Antebellum and James Otto will announce additional nominees. Very exciting!

If you're at work and can't tune in, don't worry...we will post the nominees AS SOON as they're announced!

VMA Recap

Taylor & Britney Spears (above) (yay, how good does Britney look?! - AWESOME!)

Taylor and the Jonas Brothers (below)
Taylor Swift shined on the MTV red carpet last night at the VMAs. Although she did not win the Best New Artist award, we're pretty sure Taylor has the time of her life at the show!

Here's a video of Taylor courtesy of MTV.

Taylor Swift Arrives at the VMAs

Wireimage just released photos of Taylor Swift arriving at MTV's VMAs! She looks gorgeous as always! We wish her luck tonight!

Taylor Swift & the VMAs

As we have previously mentioned, Taylor Swift is up for an MTV VMA for Best New Artist.

We have just learned a few more details on what Taylor will be doing at the award show tonight. According to US Weekly, Taylor will be introducing the Jonas Brothers' performace-at the request of the Jonas Brothers themselves- we wonder why?! Taylor will also be an MTV red carpet correspondent for the show, so if you tune in an hour early, you can catch that!

Taylor just returned from her first performance over-seas- she just posted this video on her MySpace, documenting the special event! PS: It's really funny! She's great!

London!!!

The VMAs will air tonight at 9pm (EST), but to catch all of the red carpet action, you can tune in at 8pm.

Nashville Going A Little Bit Hollywood?!

Have you guys noticed that country music stars are getting more and more publicity on the Hollywood magazine sites lately? Both OK! Magazine and People Magazine have had a lot of coverage in recent weeks...both online and in print. Maybe Hollywood is catching on that Nashville really is the place to be!

-Here's a video from Kellie, Taylor, & Julianne from People.com.

-Here's a new Taylor article (but not really anything we didn't already know!)

-Taylor, Kellie, & Julianne have a small photo on this week's cover of People.

And just today, People had these two pics on their website...the 1st one of Keith Urban (w/ Natasha Bedingfield and Usher in conjunction with the NFL Football Kickoff) and the 2nd one of LeAnn Rimes and her husband, Dean Sheremet.
Over at OK! Magazine's website, you can find these country articles on their home page right now...

-Carrie calls Jessica fat (according to THEM - we're plugging our ears and screaming LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA so we don't have to listen to it - enough already!)

-They caught up with Miranda Lambert and chatted all about her ever growing farm and all of her animals in this article.

-And then they had this piece about Carrie being involved in the "Stand Up For Cancer" benefit.

So, it's exciting for country stars to be getting the recognition they deserve...as long as we don't have the paparazzi showing up all over Nashville!!

Taylor Swift Heads to London & More...

Taylor Swift made her first overseas concert appearance yesterday. She headlined a sold-out show in London! How awesome is that? We love that country artists have the chance to see their fans in other parts of the world!

In other Taylor news, be sure to watch MTV's VMAs this Sunday. Taylor is up for Best New Artist. You can still vote for Taylor HERE! Taylor recently reminisced about the moment she found out that she was nominated- she said, "I get to go to the VMAs! I didn't think I'd get to go to the VMAs. I'm not that cool. As a country artist, I've been pretty unapologetic about it. [But] it's cool to be included."

We wish her luck! She is up against artists such as Miley Cyrus and American Idol's Jordin Sparks. Here's the full article from MTV.com- Taylor Talks about the story behind the song "Teardrops on My Guitar" and even mentions Joe Jonas.

AND......ABC just posted this behind the scenes video from the CMA Fest. Check it out! Taylor is really funny!

Grand Opening ~ BOK Center

Saturday marked the grand opening of Tulsa, OK's newest arena, the BOK Center. The grand opening was attended by 20,000 people...including Oklahoma's own, Garth Brooks. The new state of the art facility is said to be a great asset to the city, with not a bad seat in the house. Brooks spoke of the new facility, "Some of the greatest artists in the world will be coming through here, and I can only hope that I will be one of them."

Country music will help break in the new venue this fall with performances by Taylor Swift, LeAnn Rimes, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, and Kenny Chesney.

Kellie Pickler: Simple Woman

Kellie Pickler recently sat down with OK! Magazine to discuss everything from makeup and fashion to relationships and gossip.

Kellie admits that she'd rather go without makeup. She told OK!, "I hate wearing makeup anyway – I don’t ever wear it unless I have to." After the interview, Kellie did a photo shoot and even had one of her best friends, Taylor Swift stop by for a few pics.

Kellie also told the mag that she is dating musician Kyle Jacobs and that she likes to lay low with him when she's at home. "When I come in off the road, I like to crash and be a bum and sit at home on the couch and just talk," says Kellie. "We don’t really have to be doing anything. We usually just enjoy each other’s company and make each other laugh." So we guess Kellie is off the market now too!

To read the full interview, and to see more pics, click HERE.