American Music Awards 2014

Tonight (Nov 23rd) the American Music Awards (AMAs) were held at the Nokia Theatre in LA.

Taylor opened the show with Blank Space and then was awarded the Dick Clark Award for Excellence.

Blank Space, well what a performance of the newly crowned Billboard Hot 100 No.1 track. Taylor opened the show for the first time. For the first time Taylor was not using her traditional handheld microphone, instead opting for a wireless headset microphone hooked up to her in earpieces. This allowed her to move around the stage freely and act out what I feel is the most dramatic song on 1989 regardless of its point of view.

Taylor started out her performance being high above the stage sitting at a table with a boy at the other end, while being lowered down during the start of the song. She then proceeded to play with fire (pyrotechnics) while 'burning" a rose. Taylor moved on to an outdoor setting and another boy before breaking up with him in rage and making him fly across the stage. In the process Taylor rips off her ankle length skirt to reveal a short play suit before more fire comes out behind her in time to the lyrics "Or it's gonna go down in flames". Taylor ends the performance with a boy walking through the door with a bunch of roses. Taylor received a standing ovation for the performance. A link to one of the many articles about the performance and a HD video HERE.

(I will update the video once I find a HD youtube version)

While Taylor wasn't nominated for any awards tonight, she did receive the biggest award of the night. The Dick Clark Award for Excellence was given to Taylor by Diana Ross and she was the first person to ever receive the award which made it even more special. A beautiful video montage outlining her outstanding career so far was played before she was awarded her trophy. A clip of Taylor's acceptance speech is below. Full video of Taylor receiving her award.

If tonights performance of Blank Space is anything to go by just like how her performance of I Knew You Were Trouble at the 2012 AMAs was just an insight into The RED Tour, The 1989 World Tour is going to be an epic concert experience. How Taylor takes and performs each song on tour is anyones guess until opening night. But until then, this performance just builds the excitement even further if that was possible.

All I know is that I can't wait to see Taylor live on this tour, How about you?

The 1989 World Tour Updates

Since the tour was announced on Monday Nov 3rd, the following dates have been added to the tour.

USA:
2nd show at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - June 12th
2nd show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey - July 10th
2nd show at Nationals Park in Washington, DC - July 14th
2nd show at Solider Field in Chicago, Illinois - July 19th
3rd/4th shows at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California - August 21st/22nd
3rd show at Xcel Energy Center in St.Paul, Minnesota - Sept 13th
5th show at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California - August 24th
1st show at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas - October 13th
1st show at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri - Moved to Sept 28th
2nd show at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri - Initially dropped from tour but added due to demand for Sept 29th

Europe:
2nd show in Cologne, Germany - June 19th,
1st show in Dublin, Ireland - June 29th
2nd show in Dublin, Ireland - June 30th

Australia/New Zealand:
Back to back stadium tour visiting
ANZ Stadium in Sydney - Nov 28th
Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane - Dec 5th
Entertainment Center in Adelaide - Dec 7th
AAMI Park in Melbourne - Dec 11th

On Jan 19th, It was announced that Vance Joy would be supporting Taylor in the UK as well as USA and Australia while James Bay would be supporting in Germany and the Netherlands.

On June 24th, It was announced that Taylor would be returning to Shanghai and Singapore with 2 dates in each city in November 2015.
Singapore - Nov 7th/8th
Shanghai - Nov 10th/11th

"Blank Space" 1989 2nd Single

Blank Space, the 2nd single to be released of Taylor's 5th studio album 1989

Blank Space was officially released to radio across the world on Nov 10th along with the music video and a funky and exciting playable app for both apple and android (more about that later). Blank Space also tops Billboard charts and breaking records along the way.

Blank Space is a song Taylor wrote in response to what the media has been portraying her as over the last few years. This song was written as a joke initially when she went into the studio and since became something so much more. The media as Taylor puts it, has been saying that she hooks up with these guys and then has a 'psychotic' breakdown and goes into a jealous rage when the guy leaves her before moving on to another guy. Blank Space is written in such a way that if this was who Taylor was this is the kind of song she would write.

Being the complete opposite to the media portrait of her and choosing what currently makes her happy which is not dating and just living life on her own terms, The shoot for this video was something very different and the final video is something very different to anything Taylor has done before.

The filming for Blank Space took place over 2 days at Oheka Castle and Woolworth Mansion in Long Island, New York. The production took a total of 30 hours to complete. 12 hours on day one, 18 hours on day two and 10 hours total for the Blank Space app.

The Blank Space Experience App hosted by American Express Unstaged allows viewers to get a 360-degree view of the rooms used in the filming of the video while also seeing Taylor and Sean O'Pry who stars as the male lead in the music video move through the rooms and again act out the song once again in a similar but different way to the actual video. You are able to move through the rooms in the video at your own pace or move through the rooms while following Taylor and Sean around.

In the video there are also what are known as collectibles to be found which are both related to the video and Taylor's personal life. As you move through the rooms you tap on anything and everything to uncover these hidden gems. Collectibles feature Taylor, Sean, Meredith and Olivia (her cats), her family, unseen photos from Taylor's childhood and more. Some collectibles are only able to be found during certain parts of the song so take a good look around.
The full Billboard article about the app is available here.

Announced today, Blank Space has just become Taylor's 3rd No.1 on the Hot 100 chart making it the 2nd song off 1989 to do so while making further history becoming the only song by a female artist to knock their own song off the No.1 spot with Shake It Off dropping back to  No.3 this week. Taylor is only the 10th artist to ever succeed herself on top of being the only female artist to do so. Blank Space jumped from No. 13 last week to No. 1 this week to atop the chart. Article here.

Meanwhile, 1989 is currently at just under 2Mil in sales in the US alone while also selling over 1 Mil copies outside of the US in the first 3 weeks. 1989 has logged its 3rd consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, the second highest charting album behind the Frozen soundtrack. Full article here.

1.28 Million Copies For Opening Week Sales

I know I'm a bit slow at posting this but here goes anyway.

On Oct 27th, Taylor released her 5th studio album and on the week ending Nov 2. Taylor sold 1.287 Million copies of her album 1989 making it the highest selling debut album since well her previous album RED came out in 2012.

Actually its the highest sales week since 2002 when Eminem's album "The Eminem Show" sold 1.322 million copies in its second charting week.

1989 gives Taylor her 4th No.1 album behind Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010) and Red (2012) and 3rd album to go platinum in its first week behind Speak Now (1.047Mil) and Red (1.208Mil).
This gives Taylor the crown of being the first artist ever to have 3 consecutive albums all go platinum in first week sales.

With 1989, Taylor is the first person to top the Billboard 200 and  Hot 100 at the same time.

Full article of first week sales can be found below
1989 Debut numbers

The 1989 World Tour

On Monday November 3, Taylor announced the 1989 World Tour 2015.

The North American dates start on May 20th in Louisiana. This makes a change after both RED and Speak Now tours were both started in Omaha Nebraska.
In June 2015, Taylor hits The Netherlands, Germany, Scotland and England before returning to the US for more tour dates currently slated until the end of October 2015.

On November 8th at a press conference in Tokyo Japan, Taylor announced further dates starting with 2 concerts on May 5th/6th in Tokyo.

This time around there are multiple different packages available for purchase which come with merchandise and get you either a seat near the front on the floor, lower level tiered seating, front pit tickets or B stage pit tickets. The prices of these packages range from $150-$500 depending on both the concert date you are buying for and whether it is a stadium or arena date.

B stage pit tickets you ask? Yes that's right. There is still a B Stage this tour but it also has a pit. As shown by the stage layout below, depending on if you are seeing the tour in an arena or a stadium, the stage layout varies slightly. In an arena, it appears that Taylor will have a catwalk right down the center of the arena to the B stage. Where as in a stadium, the catwalk will come out a bit then T-off and a separate B stage will be further out in the middle of the stadium.
The first picture below is from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, While the second picture is from PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.

When you look closely at the tour dates provided/announced so far, you can see gaps sprinkled throughout the list. To me that means there will be more dates announced as tickets go on sale and start to sell out within minutes regardless of the prices of tickets. People may say the high ticket prices might make the concerts not sell out but have you looked at who your dealing with here? Its Taylor Swift for crying out loud, The person who sold the first million selling week since her previous album RED came out 2 years ago.
Los Angeles Staples Center will sell out 2 shows within 5 minutes and another 2 shows at the venue will be announced. Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia hosted 2 shows on The RED Tour and I would expect it to do so again in 2015 even though only one is currently announced. The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey is not currently slated for any shows having hosted 3 for RED and 4 for Speak Now. I expect dates to be added here and at Madison Square Garden in New York City as well. Places like Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts which have always hosted 2 shows on tour have already had 2 shows announced so I don't see any additional showing being announced there.

The 1989 World tour is seeing lots of new stadiums as performance venues for this tour as well as returning to places like Montreal and Ottawa Canada after not stopping there for RED. Some other cities who are seeing Taylor after not seeing her for RED are Glasgow, Amsterdam and Santa Clara.

All in All, I see alot more that what is currently announced to come from this 1989 world tour.

To all those still to get tickets, good luck and to all those with tickets already, have the best time yet and I might see you there? whether it is in America or abroad, who knows?