Country music has long been thought of as a genre for older people, but younger people are more likely to buy albums and attend concerts. As a result, Nashville has tried for decades to attract a younger audience, and it's had some success, particularly with artists such as Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift.

Taylor's viewpoint is particularly intriguing, because at 18 years of age, she's not only an artist, but part of the industry's target demo. And Taylor says the industry's biggest problem in attracting kids is it's simply "trying too hard."

"There are record labels that are admitting to the fact that they're trying to copy the 'model' that has worked for Taylor Swift and Big Machine Records," she told Billboard magazine. "The thing is, we just didn't know any better. I was 16 years old and wrote all these songs about being in high school and sophomore relationships, not thinking that people would relate to it, hoping they would, but there really was no business model to make it work for the younger demographic."

In hindsight, Taylor still doesn't think there's much the decision-makers on Music Row can do to increase sales to teens and college students other than simply make good music.

"If we can relate to lyrics, then we're going to buy the music, and I don't really think that's a hard formula to figure out," she said. "People my age are really, really honest about what they like and what they don't, and they know it when they hear it."

Clearly they like Taylor. To date, she's scored a gold single with "Tim McGraw" and nabbed platinum singles with "Teardrops On My Guitar" and "Our Song." Her self-titled debut album went double-platinum.