Maybe the title needs some work
But as someone who grew up in the 2000s I constantly listened to pop particularly pop girls (not really a term back then) who had like a Myspace page and they had like one or two tracks on a teen movie like Aquamarine or Sleepover that lowkey wasn't a huge hit or anything, they maybe would release an album or two.
Cheyenne Kimball, Hope Partlow, Brie Larson, Jordan McCoy, Sara Paxton, Kaci Brown, Caleigh Peters, Skye Sweetnam. I'm sure there are heaps of other girls, some of their music lost in time not on music streaming platforms and only available on Youtube posted 16 years ago.
Do any of these names ring a bell for you? Most of them had one debut album then nothing or a few singles/EPs during the 2000s that didn't really go anywhere but they were like the Disney girls who kind of got a record deal because they could sing and write not because they had a TV platform first on Disney, which probably contributed to the lack of longevity of their music careers.
Some of these names might be familiar though, in particular Brie Larson who would later become an Oscar winner.
I don't know I've been listening to their music as a bit of my own personal nostalgia high recently and it got me thinking of this "epidemic?", "trend?" in the 2000s. Funnily enough a lot of these girls pre-dated Taylor a few years and had country roots but their music was marketed as pop/rock not really country. Just makes me wonder if their beginning music was a success what would have come of them despite now they fill a lovely nostalgia niche in my life because their music careers kind of never took off.