Beatles, Robots, Weddings and More.... Oh My!

Steve Graham wrote that headline, not me, as he noted that Kacey Musgraves did very well at The Grammy's with two wins, while Taylor Swift walked away empty handed:  "It was an interesting night at the Grammy's.  Some are calling it the best in years while others are talking about the performance of Willie Nelson, Kris Kristoferson, Merle Haggard and Blake Shelton as the highlight of the night."

It was so good to see Paul McCartney and Ringo together too and it was a mix of new and old for sure.

It's hard to question, with 29 million folks watching, Darius Rucker as Best Country Solo Performance with "Wagon Wheel" and while fans of country music on the radio might have expected different "Best Country Song" winners than Musgraves' "Merry Go Round," Kacey's "Same Trailer Different Park" was certainly deserving of "Best Country Album" and is just the bill of fare those normally-eclectic-when-it-comes-to-country music Grammy voters usually choose over "hits." 

It's rewarding to see Kacey and her label get a nice spike in sales today after the TV appearance.

More of a head-scratcher for me was "From This Valley" by The Civil Wars for Best Country Duo/Group Performance in the wake of the year Florida Georgia Line just had.

Macklemore &  Ryan Lewis had to wait for Grammy to give them their due too and I join Duane Doobie in being amazed that they got the Grammy award for best new artist – "as if they just suddenly appeared magically overnight."

Perhaps FGL needs another year of multiple #1's before those strange Grammy voters - who always seem to dislike awarding commercial successes - take note?

Popularity

I don't know whether to blame this blog post on The New York Times or Taylor Swift.  Both are somewhat culpable.

They had to know that we'd all find their "Popular List" irresistible:

• 'I Gotta Feeling'
• Snickers
• 'Duck Dynasty'
• Behind the Best-Seller List
• Most-Stolen Author
• 'Finding Nemo'
• Top-Rated Shakespeare
• Most Pirated Movie
• Defending ‘Fifty Shades’
• Ten F-Train Reads
• Shockingly Popular Podcast
• Taylor Swift
• 'The Walking Dead'
• Most Visited Met Show Ever
• Top Pet Names in the USA
• Top Baby Names in NYC

And, I did.  Until I reached the ultimate point of the article:  "By one measure, no one watches “Girls.” By another, it’s fantastically popular. We already understand why this is: it’s a tenet of faith that we no longer experience culture as one hulking, homogeneous mass."

It suddenly started to sound a lot like one of the country programmers quoted by Country Aircheck as PPM ratings come out.  They want us to know that they are #1 in 20-23 year old boys who live on the south side of town and seem not to recognize that we can see their station's 6+ and 18-49 numbers, where the were beaten.

This game of demographics, of course, is not new to any of us in radio, who print new rankers every book with a different target where we hit it out of the park this time.

And, if we can't find a demo to brag about, we'll find you a psychographic or a flattering qualitative stat which proves how popular we are .. with somebody.

As Times writer Adam Sternbergh notes:  "Now, the concept of cultural popularity has been flayed, hung by its heels and drained of all meaning."

Let's stop bragging about meaningless rankers and begin to focus on the measure that really matters: 

• What proof do you have that your listeners are deeply engaged by your content and promotions?
• What can you show me that validates your advertisers get results exceeding their expectations?

How popular are you with the people who have money to spend on radio advertising?

Why'd You Have To Be So Mean (Again)?

I stopped paying attention to Bob Lefsetz long before Wired's Brian Raftery wrote last February that Lefsetz's music business career "legend" exists by and large only in his own mind.

The fact that he got into Taylor Swift's head three years ago to the point that she penned a song about him no doubt made the critical bully feel stronger and more powerful.

So, of course, now he's at it again, inferring that she somehow has "jumped the shark...by playing to everybody has she undermined her core country audience..."

Taylor Swift can work until she dies. She’s had that many hits.
But somehow, with the overhype and move to the middle, she’s torn away some of her underpinnings, she’s become unmoored, we’re no longer exactly sure who she is.  And if we don’t know who you are, it’s hard to stay in love with you.  The little girls may scream, ticket sales may be rampant. But if you don’t see it my way, if you don’t think her career now has more questions than answers, you’re not thinking at all.

 I see it very quite differently.

From Hank Sr., to Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and his brass section, Glen Campbell, The Urban Cowboy fad and its music, to Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Garth, Faith, Shania and may other crossover successes spawned over the years with country roots, they have all been in one way or another been rejected by the country music core audience as their stars ascended.

Yet, all of these artists brought far more fans to country music than the format has ever lost because of their innovations to our art form.

So, Taylor, please don't let the critics get to you.  Be Fearless.

Sure, this year's CMA Awards, as they always do, has moved on to spotlight the very latest, equally-deserving, hot, new artists in our fickle, fast-moving industry, which it seems has somehow gotten the attention again of Lefsetz, who wrote "not only did Taylor get shut out, going 0 for 3, they made jokes about her love life from the stage..."

Cherish those six Grammy Awards, ten American Music Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards, six Academy of Country Music Awards and thirteen BMI Awards along recognition from the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

There will be many more, Taylor.

Richly deserved awards, country music hits for you and jerks like Bob.

Passion

Bob Pittman is telling Wall Street in his usual cheer-leading style that it's time for "a new life for radio." 

Meanwhile, CBS' Les Moonves is bullish on radio as-is, it seems.  And, their stock price certainly makes it look like he knows what he's talking about.

There's no sense taking sides in the battle of publicly-traded companies in their efforts to tout their stocks.  That's a very profitable business in itself, and reinvention or not, it's not radio to me.

The great thing about talking to our clients, local radio people, every day is that I never seem to have time to dwell on that.

Instead, I am reminded every day how passionate worker bees in thousands of communities are, as they work with passionate creative artists, music promotion executives, advertisers and our equally passionate listeners.

For example, just today....

In telling Country Aircheck's Chuck Aly about next Friday’s Taylor Swift Worldwide Radio Remote (10/26), Big Machine's John Zarling said of Swift: 

“She’ll spend six hours on the 26th talking to radio. She’s spent 20 hours in the last two days doing national radio interviews. And there have been countless media days around the world in the last month. She works harder than anybody to make all this come together.  It just shows Taylor’s conviction and continued engagement with radio, and how much she believes in radio as a way to reach fans.”

KIRO/Seattle's Linda Thomas just blogged

"How could my dream job get any better? It just did.  Here's the funny thing about a new dream coming true. It's exciting and it's frightening.  Creating unique stories for Bonneville Seattle's traditional and new media platforms is my full-time job. A little fear is a good thing. All the interesting stuff happens when we step outside our comfort zones."

Catch me tomorrow and I'll have even more fresh, new stories about what happens when passionate content creators engage listeners.

If you're inside a radio station and not just a corporate office somewhere, I'll bet you can do the same.

Grab some passion and spread it around!

Taylor Swift Breaks All The Boundaries

When Time Magazine reports Taylor Swift Has a New Song—Ex-Boyfriends Beware, St. Louis' alternative weekly reports Taylor Swift Just Took Her Pop Queen Throne. All Hail! and the photo of her you get then you simply Google her name is from an Indonesian newspaper site, you know something big is happening.

Jakarta Post

 


No doubt you've heard that her new single is #1 in one day on iTunes.

Other quick "We Are Never Ever" factoids:

Mediabase reports the song has already been heard by nearly 42 million radio listeners on Country, Top 40, Rhythmic, Hot AC and AC stations.

BDS indicates how deep the penetration has already been in less than two full days across North America:

The average radio station in all these formats has spun it more than five times already.  That average is skewed by the Big Machine-Clear Channel shared revenue relationship, since most Clear Channel stations played it once per hour in the 29 hours from after her Monday night fan Google+/You Tube webinar until late last night.  One Clear Channel country station played it every 20 minutes in multiple hours between midnight and 5 am.

What impact will this have?  Is it possible that "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" will debut on next week's spin charts at #1?

Country fans, historically, have reacted negatively to crossover airplay, as both Faith Hill and Shania Twain can attest.  After their amazing success on multiple charts in the late-90's, they never again were as easy an add for country radio as they were before it.

My favorite head-scratcher example of the phenomenon is Dolly Parton.  After "Islands In The Stream" with Kenny Rogers and of course "Nine To Five," she has not had a big hit like her pre-crossover successes and movie stardom.

If the amazingly talented and prolific Dolly's not country enough for our listeners, who could possibly be??

Topping five radio format airplay charts in less than two days is an amazing achievement.  In my lifetime only Elvis was able to do anything even comparable.

Clearly, Taylor is now much bigger than "country," which is terrific for her, because most likely she's going to have a very difficult time when it comes to listener research on her music if history is a reliable guide to the future.

So, Taylor, don't blame country music radio if we're slower to add your music in the future as we work hard to reflect the always-fickle tastes of country listeners.

You're in very good company.

Be Like Taylor

As the size of the generational cohorts comprising the age group which has already started hitting retirement now won't peak and start downward in proportion of the population until the 4.3 million babies born in 1957 during the baby boom have fast forwarded 65 years to 2022, it's inevitable that many country stations which once prided themselves on having a mean age right in the middle of 25-54, now find themselves with an audience whose average age is moving up into the mid-to-high 40's.

Last week's New Yorker offers a wonderfully-flattering in-depth profile of the woman who may have changed that course for us, Taylor Swift. Writer Lizzie Widdicombe makes it clear that Taylor wasn't trying to do anything so calculated as target the nation's next very, very large emerging generation of country fans - today's teen age girls and 18-28 females - in the article titled "You Belong With Me: How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire." She's just being herself.

For those of us who hope to remain relevant from a perspective of several decades older, clearly we have some learning to do and even the descriptive phrases Widdicombe uses provide a list of traits not normal to an X'er or Boomer that we need to incorporate as we work to hold not only the Swift generation, as their values impact the entire culture.

• Radiates unjaded sincerity no matter how contrived the situation
• Writes her own material
• Like Dolly Parton, writes autobiographical story songs that relate to her target audience
• In the Internet era, (that) is also a clever marketing device
• Doesn’t drink or go to clubs. More "wholesome" than her parents' generation was at her age
  
• Emotional and personal in universal ways
  
• Her mother and father remain a big part of her life
• Spends most of her off time with band members, friends, and family
• Approaches her career with the seriousness of a C.E.O

Anyone who opens a microphone on a country radio station would do well to run through that checklist each time they prep and deliver.

If "It Hasn't Happened Until The New York Times Reports It"...

.. then Scott Borchetta IS "The Boss!

I was fired from one job when I got too involved in the creative end. I was spending time on the road with the artists while the executives were staying in their offices. But you can’t stay in an office and know what’s going on in this industry; you have to be on the street and see what moves people.

I started Big Machine Records in 2005 because I thought I could run a record label more efficiently than I’d see others do. If you look at the people who started the big labels, they all gambled. The first artist I signed was Taylor Swift. I met her in 2004 when I was still at Universal. The Swift family sent me a package with a demo record, and I was fascinated. Shortly afterward, I signed Danielle Peck, who had been dropped by another label, and Jack Ingram, a Texas artist.

Not everyone in the industry would have taken a chance on a young female artist like Taylor. I was not getting calls from country radio stations saying, “Do you have any teenage female singers?” But I felt there was opportunity in country music for talented young women.

Congrats, Scott. A wonderful profile.

Country music is blessed to have you helping to guide us through these exciting times in our business.

"There's No Rules"

That is what Show Dog-Universal president Mark Wright told Tom Roland in this week’s Billboard Country Update about the current music business landscape in terms of the "Wild West" frontiers that other artists might shy away from.

The label’s marquee act, Toby Keith, who has the #16 song on the new Billboard country chart remains a minority investor in Taylor Swift’s label Big Machine as well, which had the week’s greatest gainer and was the top most-added song to the airplay chart as an ad touting her new hair style touts, so TK and Show Dog include hedging their bets in that “ no rules” approach.

Even with the growth of the Internet and the increased ability of country acts to gain exposure on TV, Wright still views country radio as the key piece of the puzzle in building careers.

New artists may get a foot in the door in other media, but they still need a song that finds its way to drive-time commutes. “You’ve got to have radio hits,” he told Roland.

But not exclusively, he claims. Show Dog-Universal is working with Universal- affiliated Sanctuary Management on a multi-artist rock tribute album with an international audience, Wright says. And the company is hopeful that a movie soundtrack project will come together.

“You can only work four to five singles at a time in country radio, which is pretty much what a promotion staff is maxed out at,” Wright says. “You’ve got to have what I call non-radio revenue—other projects that you don’t have to just necessarily drive up the charts for 30 weeks to sell an album. We’ve got a couple of those in play.”

I keep hoping that some of the many new artists on small labels which seem to languish for weeks and weeks in the bottom half of the airplay charts, ultimately failing time after time to make it into the top 20, are spending their money productively and (even better!) are making a buck along the way, but I have my doubts.

Wouldn't a larger panel of monitored/reporting stations provide more play list diversity, opening up room for perhaps another ten potential national 'hits?'

Of course it would, but I don't know of anyone who thinks that is on the horizon anytime soon given the economics of the music business.

So, rule #1 in this "no rules" time: don't give up your day job!

Is Lefsetz Mean? Is Lefsetz Famous?

Does Taylor Swift think so? Is that bald guy down below to the left really the subject of her new song?

All I have is fun questions today, and some fascinating links for you to click on and mull over (click to read the exchange which "may" have started it all - or maybe not).

"Mean" isn’t quite "You’re So Vain" and I’m not quite Warren Beatty, not by a long shot. Then again, people thought the song was about Mick Jagger, when everybody on the inside knew that was wrong, hell, he even sang on it. And only insiders would know who I am.

So here I am giving Taylor Swift the publicity she desires. She won.

But she still can’t sing and isn’t it time to start acting like an adult? To cast off the high school persona and fly as a woman instead of darting around like a little girl? That’s what’s got everybody’s eyes rolling, her aw shucks/ohmygod! look when she strides onto the stage to earsplitting applause.

Taylor got to live out her adolescent fantasy. Can she now be a woman singing about womanly issues? -- Bob Lefsetz (click his name to read his entire post!)

Are You A LeBron? Or A Taylor?

Generations ("turnings") and birth dates do a lot to define us. For example, both Gen-Xer LeBron James and Millennial Taylor Swift are December's children.

This year, he celebrates his 26th birthday and she will be 21.

"X" seemingly marks the spot for folks born prior to 1981. Don't ask "Y," but the defining culture changed after that year, even though a mere five years separates their ages.

• Gen X = Good of the me.
• Millennial = Good of the team?
• Or, not?

Questions are being asked about why James felt the need to make such a major media opera of his decision to leave Cleveland and move to Miami.

Maybe there's a bit of "Y" in him too, since Taylor spent an hour online with 60,000 fans and media to simply say that she has a new single coming soon.

Or, is there a little "X" in her?

One thing for sure. You won't be seeing a "LeBron Connect" social network with him anytime soon.

What about you? When were you born? What age do you target? Do you have some homework to do?

Crossing Over

Before radio formats were invented every song on the radio was a crossover. Long before country music emerged as a full time "format," country music and its artists were charting and thus 'crossing over.'

Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On" was in the Billboard "Top 40" chart in the top ten for 44 weeks and held onto the #1 slot for 21 weeks in 1950.

Historically, when country music gets airplay on other formats (thank you, Taylor, Lady Antebellum and all of the others who count themselves among the hundreds of country acts who have achieved crossover success over the history of recorded music) that improves our image and bodes well for the overall growth of the genre and country radio's format ratings/rank.

When country radio starts looking outside its traditional boundaries for new music from other formats, is that a sign of desperate times or just another turn of the wheel of pop culture?

For example, Train, just back from a tour of Australia and Asia, has watched their hit from last year "Hey Soul Sister," move from AAA to Top 40 to Hot AC to Rhythmic to AC, even Adult Hits and this morning it hits #57 on the BDS Real Time COUNTRY chart with BNA's release of a country mix.

To add to the multi-formatic irony, this happened just as they learned that the song is up for a Teen Choice Award as "Best Rock Track."

So, what format IS it? Does it matter?

I started this post with the Hank Snow factoid to place all of this into context. Music has always crossed boundaries and its power to mash cultures and bring people together has been well-documented.

One of CMT's most popular and enduring benchmarks is Crossroads as country fans relish the magic that emerges as stars jam together, playing one another's songs.

Uncle Kracker seems to visit our playlists every year or so, receiving a warm research welcome, as some of country's most "country" current songs come from performers from other formats, who for all appearances came to country for the sheer love of their roots, like Darius Rucker (also up for a Teen Choice prize), Jewel (who finds herself on both NPR and working country radio at the same time) and LeAnn Rimes (I'll save a riff on the pro's and con's of cover tunes for another day).

Broadway star Laura Bell Bundy certainly doesn't need to prove anything by going country, yet here she is.

Adding to the goulash, with - it seems - the mission of defying categorization, counting on talent to win out: Gretchen Wilson, John Rich, Colt Ford, Brantley Gilbert and many others who seem to agree that what we need is a little more fun, edge and variety in our lives.

Bring 'em on. Forget about labels. If the people who listen to country radio love them, that's country enough for me.

May the best songs win!

Another Sign It's 1988 Or 1998 All Over Again For Country Music Radio

I voted this morning in RBR/Harker Research's latest opinion poll and realized that for many of us the best prize of 2010 hasn't been about money at all.

It's been concert tickets targeting Boomers and X'ers on one hand and Millennial girls on the other: Garth Brooks in Las Vegas for our upper demos and Taylor Swift's arena show for teens and their parents.

One demo isn't all that interested in the prize that the other one is extremely rabid about.

Hopefully, someone is working in a garage right now with a band, an amp or two, perfecting some exciting new sounds and songs that will bridge that gap for us, soon.

What To Do When A Label Promotes Radio On NOT Playing A Song?

Music discovery still drives a lot of radio usage, so smart programmers aggressively play defense anytime another station or medium grabs a hot, new buzz track. Of course, you want your listeners to feel that they hear everything they might possibly love from your station, so they never need to worry that they might be missing anything during the time they spend with you.

Playing everything, obviously, isn't the way to do that. Judgment is part of a smart programmer's daily toolkit and choices must be made.

As record labels lose the highly-profitable CD album as their revenue source, they are trying alternative marketing techniques, many flying below the radar so as to avoid fan confusion on which of multiple current releases is "the hit."

Joe Nichols' label has been asking radio to play one song, an upbeat novelty, while Joe has been on TV talk shows, the video channels, online and in his concerts performing a very moving personal narrative which his fans have been calling radio, requesting.

Kenny Chesney cut a hot, fun tune for ESPN last fall that was released as a single to iTunes and other music download sites in December, just as his label is imploring radio to wait until Monday, February 8, for the release to radio of "Ain't Back Yet", which is from his 3D movie retrospective of last summer's arena tour. What listener wouldn't expect to hear both of them on their favorite country station?

Not to be outdone, with her benefit telethon performance last night, Taylor Swift added a critically-acclaimed possible third new song for radio to be playing today "Breathless," originally recorded by Better Than Ezra (and of course every song on the Haiti fund raiser is also available on iTunes too).

Add that to her new album's title cut, which is being promoted to radio and also her song from a new movie which she's doing on TV trailers and appearances, and just debuted at #1 on iTunes only last week.

Whew!

When does "music discovery defense" end and total confusion begin?

With radio playing 20 to 30 currents these days (except for the first hour of the four hour countdown shows), certainly we can't expose half of them by just three or four superstars (or can we? You'd probably lose your reporting status if you did try that, a fate - some seem to feel - that is the same thing as becoming completely invisible).

Programming has always been about figuring out what listeners care most about right now and prioritizing/reflecting those values in the most entertaining ways. There's too much going on every day to expose and talk about, let alone play, everything.

Great radio makes life simpler for listeners by filtering what they want and need to know about.

Winning radio makes the right choices.

Seemingly, never more so than right now.

Taylor Swift = High Burn

Small wonder; big exposure!

Thanksgiving

The relationship between the music business and radio is (and always has been) very complex.

Are we in business together?
Are we in competing businesses?
Are we friends?
Are we using each other?
Are we unreasonable in our demands?
Do we all want the same things?

This week of giving thanks is not a week for those questions, especially as Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Gloriana so clearly "get" the power of radio relationships to a successful artist, plus demonstrating how an attitude of gratitude has positive and immediate impact.

Keep the great music coming, folks.

Thank you for remembering radio as you accept your awards, but especially for also continuing to provide a constant source of creative, high quality fuel which grows our businesses.

I know that it gets frustrating at times, and may not always seem like it, but radio thanks you right back!

Props To Fred Jacobs

"Our story starts with the CMAs. If you saw the show or read the news reports about last week's mega Country show, the big headline was 19-year old Taylor Swift, who took four major awards, including the coveted Entertainer of the Year honor.

But perhaps the more significant news below the fold was the award for "Best New Artist of the Year" - Darius Rucker. Yup, the same guy who fronted Hootie & the Blowfish back in the '90s, whose fortunes sank quickly and deeply - just like Men At Work, INXS, and so many others.

The difference is that after a decade of obscurity, Rucker turned his career around, addresessed his negatives and his opportunities, and created a Second Life in country music. In thanking the CMA, he commented, "To the fans, thank y'all for accepting me. And I think most importantly, to country radio, you took a chance on a pop singer from Charleston, South Carolina. Thank you so much for that!"

"Y'all???!!!"

Rucker has learned how to adjust his act for a new market, making him one of the few African-American artists to make it big in Country. And all of this, after everyone was convinced he was a total washout back in the late '90s."

-- Fred Jacobs gets it right and if you don't normally check out JacoBLOG, this is a post I commend to your attention

Taylor Swift SensatioNaL on SNL

A&O asked Nashville Answer Man Neil Haislop to review Swift's hosting of SNL (Saturday Night Live) Saturday: (click to watch her opening)

She was everything she wanted to be before the show, she helped create some genuinely funny gags, like the teenager with monster braces who established a hotline to protect children from bad parent drivers.

In her terrific opening "musical monologue" she took a shot at Kanye West, and her ex boyfriend, Joe Jonas,

"You might be expecting me to say something about Kanye and how he ran up on the stage at the VMAs," she sang. "But there's nothing more to say, 'cause everything's OK. I've got security lining the stage."

She also referenced her nasty breakup with Joe Jonas:

"You might think I'd bring up Joe Jonas, that guy who broke up with me on the phone, but I'm not gonna mention him in my monologue. Hey Joe, I'm doing real well. Tonight, I'm hosting SNL but I'm not gonna brag about that in my monologue. La la la. Ha ha ha. La la la."

Later she spoofed Kate Gosselin, complete with reverse mullet, on 'The View.'

Plus her hip swinging performance of 'You Belong With Me," reminds us that the 16 year old we all grew to marvel at, is now an adult 19 year-old adult that we marvel at...especially, Taylor with a goatee playing a scare-them-straight-inmate putting the fear of God into juvenile delinquents.

One of her best moments was singing "Untouchable."

Loose Ends

Mental folders I opened recently, which deserve at least a mini-post to tie them up:

1. The 2009 Radio Mercury Award winners are indeed very impressive uses of the creative potential of the audio medium, worth listening to and learning from. Let's bury them in great radio entries next year.

2. Watch and listen to Taylor Swift to understand how Gen Y is changing country music and radio. What kid doesn't want to date her?

3. Krash Bassett's clever blog on an iPhone app for country imaging poses an only slightly terrifying question: why do we all use the same voices and stationality techniques? Resolve to challenge yourself to be different. I'd love to come into a market, scan across the dial, recognize all the usual suspects .. until I get to your station. Can we please stop leaning on "professional voices" so much and put the job of branding our stations into the hands of real people, our listeners?

Sound Matters As CMA Fest Ends

Nashville's Tennessean has complete recaps of each day of the amazing 2009 festival.

Behind the scenes, a team of Starkey Hearing Foundation staff, Nashville area volunteers, celebrities and sponsors from Big Machine Records and Music City Merchandise brought the Gift of Hearing to Nashville children in need during the CMA Music Festival yesterday (6/14), who then went to the closing performances.

More than 100 children and adults were fitted - at no cost - with digital hearing instruments at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel Ballroom.

CMA CEO Tammy Genovese, Big Machine Records President/CEP Scott Borchetta, and artists including Chuck Wicks, Sunny Sweeney, and Kate & Kacey were on-hand to encourage these children as they were fitted with digital hearing instruments and began hearing clearly, some for the very first time. (thanks to Big Machine's John Zarling for the photos)

Starkey partners with local hearing professionals, school districts, and special education centers to identify and aid local children with hearing loss. Since 2000, the Foundation has distributed nearly 340,000 hearing instruments to those in need around the world.

Taylor's Pink Truck Is Doing "Victory" Laps

When Taylor Swift was presented the infamous ‘pink truck’ for her 18th birthday, fans may recall she donated the truck to NASCAR’s Victory Junction, a special camp for special kids with health care needs. As you can see from the photo above, Taylor’s gift is going to great use, bringing smiles and attention to the North Carolina-based charity.