Taylor Swift came out with her breakout hit, Tim McGraw, in June of 2006. Four months later, she found herself opening for rascal flats on the me and my gang tour in Omaha, Nebraska at the Quest center. Imagine Taylor at 15 years old, liking the things a kid that age would like, who may also have been open to the idea of signs. What would she have said when she found out that her quest for stardom or a quest for a singing career began in a place in this world called quest arena in Omaha, Nebraska? Speaking of Omaha, Nebraska. Did you know that legend has it, that the land of Oz from the wizard of Oz series? Is Omaha. If you ever watched the movie version with Judy Garland and the Ruby slippers, you might know that the hot air balloon at the end meant to return dorothy to Kansas has the logo of the Omaha state fair. That detail harken back to the belief that had Dorothy been swept up into a twister in Kansas, she would have most likely landed in Nebraska. Hi there and welcome to another episode of decoding Taylor swift. I am your host, Shauna guiding you through another extreme episode where we hunt for the eggs so you don't have to. If you like putting together the puzzle left for her, Swifties please hit the follow subscribe or whatever else you need to do in order to not miss out on any future podcast episodes. For now sit back and relax. As we talk about Taylor's rise to fame. Returning to Oz, we can't help but think an intelligent Taylor studying the classics, like the Oz series would have thought it's serendipitous that her first foray into touring happened at a place called the Quest arena and what she could have seen as Oz. With just one song on the radio, tim McGraw, Taylor found herself opening for rascal flats for the first time on October 19th, 2006. Five days later on October 24th, her self-titled album debuted with a lot of fanfare. She appeared on both good morning, America and Megan Malaney show to promote her record before finishing her appearances as an opening act until November 3rd. 10 days later. For the next couple of years, Taylor swift had the career of a lifetime. Opening for legends like George Strait, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and faith hill and Keith urban. While touring with the greats, Taylor swift managed to find the time to record too mini albums. One, a collection of holiday songs and the other, a double album that included both a CD and DVD. The holiday album clocked in at just under 20 minutes and included one Christmas song taylor wrote herself, christmas must be something more, and another song she wrote with Liz rose and Nathan Chapman. While she dropped her Christmas album in October of 2007, she dropped her extended play album in 2008. This album ended up being a doubled CD and DVD drop. As many Swifties have noticed that Taylor swift keeps hinting at a double job coming soon. We must spend some time talking about the double drop of the CD and DVD that happened in 2008, Taylor, working on fearless heard fans getting impatient for new music. To feed her fans taylor dropped an exclusive collector's edition album that included a CD and DVD with new music. The CD had the song, beautiful eyes and I heart question mark, along with five other songs that had a music video. The DVD had the music video for beautiful eyes, along with all the other music videos from her debut album. This collector's item DVD also included in making of the picture to burn music video. When she dropped a beautiful eyes, double album with the orange and pink cover, she made sure her fans knew this wasn't an album, but only an extended play edition. She also let her fans know that she would turn this into a collector's item as her record label only printed a certain amount of copies of this album. This album came out on July 15th, 2008. while fearless dropped on November 11th, a mere, four months later. It seems interesting that she didn't wait and put the song on the fearless album though. We wondered if another reason existed, like maybe beautiful eyes marked a transition from one pop sound to another. Therefore, we listened to all of the songs and felt that beautiful eyes didn't have the same sound as the rest of the fearless songs. When we listened to fearless the original version, we feel it leans more into country than Taylor's debut album. That begs the question if her record label pushed her into that direction so she could be more easily categorized by the radio stations in the United States. While Taylor dropped her debut album in the USA and Canada, she didn't release that album overseas. Rather than rereleasing her debut album at the same time as our fearless album her team decided the international version should contain all of the songs on fearless plus an international mix of love story and three of her more popular songs off of her debut album; our song teardrops on my guitar and should have said no. Taylor followed up the international version with the platinum edition of fearless, that included six new songs that she chose to put before the songs from the original album. Normally singers would keep the same order of their record and then will add the songs to the end of the album. But she went the other way and put it at the beginning. Why? We think she did this because she felt beautiful eyes I heard question mark and the six songs she added could have been its own album. It's possible she didn't release those eight songs as their sophomore album because like her debut album, these songs leaned into pop and rock more than they did country. While the fearless original version seems to lean more country than pop and rock. These eight songs and their sound essentially were seen as, too risky for her sophomore album. Therefore they released what was more palatable. Once the fearless, original proved successful though, taylor could put out the album she wanted to from the start. In essence, we think that her fearless era came with a lot of negotiation and compromise. What Taylor wanted to say, didn't matter as much as what her label thought her fans wanted to hear. At this point, we think Taylor and the Swifts realize they're in a trap. They signed a contract. So Taylor must deliver the albums they want, whether she likes it or not. While she has artistic freedom, the label still needs to make sure they make money on this album and they think they'll be able to do that provided the critics, see her as fitting into the country genre much better. The music industry is a messy one. And we think that by following Taylor Swift's career, you'll be able to see the part of the music industry that they try to keep hidden. The clues or eggs is they're called are all there. If you just put them together on our next episode, we will start going through the songs on this album to see if we spot anything. Don't forget about our egg stream series on Amazon those are the workbooks that will lead you through the web of eggs that Taylor left for us. This is Shauna of decoding Taylor swift, wishing you a great day. Meet you back here soon.