The genius of Taylor Swift is her song writing. She creates little short stories about her characters who are both innocent and insightful. Swift has made a point of saying the songs are extremely biographical and likes to include hints on the liner notes about who the songs are about. This played well at 16 on her first album, and even worked at 18, but at 21 I find this component of the presentation a bit cumbersome. If you are completely disconnected from the media then you wouldn't be affected by this, but if you aren't then your enjoyment of this record can't help but be affected by all the media over trying to figure out which song is about John Meyer. So my little bit of advice to Taylor Swift would be to let go of that aspect of her character. Truth is she is a very good writer, who's lyrics and insights are aging with her, and the need to make this some kind of cutesy autobiographical piece isn't necessary. My thought has always been that this is a load of rubbish anyhow and in truth she's just very good at creating these little story songs from her own experiences and observations of others.
OK that's off of my chest, now I can get on to the album. First off it's a bit long for me, and it could definitely be shorter as there are a few weak songs here. But she has once again put together a very solid collection of country pop songs and has not lost her writing abilities. In fact her songs are maturing along with her and I think that is a good sign for her future.
She's also growing as a singer. I think her delivery is a bit more complex on this album and she shows some more depth on songs like "Dear John" than I've heard from her before.
All in all it's another solid album and if you like Taylor Swift you'll like this album. Personally I am more interested to see where she goes from here. It will be sad if this is her musical peak as she turns to acting and is devoured by her own fame. Musically the songs are still very mainstream Nashville and I think it would be interesting to hear her move her songs into different areas of sound as she matures.
I could see playing this while cleaning the house or cooking dinner.
Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.
My 10 song version of the album is as follows.
1. Mine
2. Sparks Fly
3. Back to December
4. Dear John
5. The Story of Us
6. Never Grow Up
7. Enchanted
8. Innocent
9. Haunted
10. Last Kiss
An excellent review. I do think one of the problems with Nashville is that country singers are not really challenged to break the boundaries of their art. Brad Paisley, for example, has made the same album about six times in a row. The upside of this approach is that you don't have to put up with experiments that fail. The downside is that there are few if any country albums that can be stacked up against "Born to Run" or "Quadrophenia."
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see what Taylor Swift could do if she made a sincere effort to become the Bruce Springsteen of her generation -- but my guess is that won't happen.
You nailed it. The sad thing to me is that in many ways country music, as shown by people like Willie Nelson, has a great ability to be experimental and flexible. On top of that her writing would allow her to produce some really solid concept albums as she gets older. I'm just not sure she'll want to ever take those steps as an artist.
ReplyDeletei think Alan Jackson tried to do a concept album 10 or 15 years ago.
ReplyDeleteGarth Brooks did.
ReplyDeletethat was an excellent review, by the way.
ReplyDeleteyou have plenty of records lined up for house cleaning. that's a lot of cleaning house.
I woke up this morning thinking about the fact that I should have mentioned that part of growing up means she has to start departing from just writing songs about love. Let's say she's 24 when her next album comes out. By then she'll have fans who have children, who have gone through a divorce, who are out of college and working but unhappy in their lives. There will be so much more to write about at 24 than at 16, 18, or 21.
ReplyDeleteSmart Girl wanted me to say that "Dear John," "Last Kiss," and "Innocent" are the worst songs on the album. She also pointed out that you would have to rename the album, because you've eliminated the song "Speak Now." Finally, she thinks that "Mean" is one of the best songs on the album.
ReplyDelete