Taylor Swift's 2009 Rolling Stone magazine photo shoot. Photo by Peggy Sirota, courtesy of rollingstone.com.
March 23, 2009 — Taylor Swift earned huge amounts of attention with her recent cover piece in Rolling Stone magazine, but one of the most stunning parts about the story had nothing to do with what she said. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the whole package was a pair of photos inside the magazine, in which she looked like a completely different person.
The look was achieved rather simply: "They straightened my hair," she told the national radio show GAC Nights: Live From Nashville. "It takes a lot of effort to do that, so I was very grateful for that."
For most of the world, that style was a new one for Taylor, though some of her former classmates in Hendersonville, Tenn., might have found it familiar. Before she was famous, she made a vaunted effort on her own to straighten out her 'do.
"I used to do it in middle school to try to be cool," she said. "I definitely didn't look as good it looked in Rolling Stone, 'cause they had these professionals like ironing my hair with like a steamroller to get the curls out of it."
Taylor was pleased with the hair and makeup people in the photo shoot, but she bonded even more with Vanessa Grigoriadis, the writer Rolling Stone assigned to the piece.
Taylor was pleased with the hair and makeup people in the photo shoot, but she bonded even more with Vanessa Grigoriadis, the writer Rolling Stone assigned to the piece.
"She was with me for a long time, so we kinda got close," Taylor said. "So I was kinda looking forward to her coming into the rehearsals and getting to hang out because she's very smart and I love being around people who are educated."
Vanessa grew up in urban New York City, while Taylor spent her early years in a small Pennsylvania town before moving to Hendersonville, a conservative suburb north of Nashville. Taylor found their differences amusing.
"I was driving her around my hometown," Taylor recalled, "and I'm like, 'Oh, that's the Methodist Church where everyone hangs out.' She's like, 'What?' I was like, 'You know, the parking lot, the church parking lot. It's in the middle of town, so you just park there in the parking lot and you wait for your friends to drive by and then you call 'em and you find something to do that night.' And she's like, 'I don't understand that.' 'Cause they would hang out at cool places like, you know, the steps of the [Metropolitan Museum] in New York City and places like that. It was really cool gettin' to hang out with her."
Taylor had phenomenal success when her Fearless CD spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 album chart, and she's still hanging in there. Fearless remains at No. 5 on the list, while Taylor Swift is at No. 36, one notch ahead of the Jonas Brothers' The 3D Concert Experience, which includes Taylor's live performance of "Should've Said No." As if that's not enough, Taylor also has a song on the soundtrack to Hannah Montana: The Movie, which gets released Tuesday. The film hits theaters April 10.
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