Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Oct 2010) - hype, anticipation &c

because if we're going to start talking about taylor as a pop artist, then let's discuss the production.

no, you're right, it's not. that's what i meant by 'murky argument,' since plenty of non-girls w/ guitars play the role of auteur.

idk i think it's pretty obvious what separates taylor swift from colbie callait & sara barelies (too lazy to look up the spelling) let alone 'coffeehouse performers'

what are your beefs w/ the production

If she's a pop star, the production is what counts? Ridiculous.

lol never thought I'd see someone try to use rockism to argue against taylor

personally her lyrics are what make her for me - sure they're about bog standard things, but the way they play out in lockstep with the music, how she almost seems to write the music to fit the lyrics (instead of the other way around which is what I feel like happens most of the time), that's what's special.

lex (and anyone else who didn't hear it), here's the VMA song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF0x2_mXjM4

i've heard it now, she's still not good at hitting notes live, huh

Nope... not quite, haha.

She sounded much better at the live show I saw earlier this year than she does on live TV, fwiw.

I like the NYT line about the song being "an extremely savvy insult masquerading as the high road," totally OTM. But whatever she's a bland sucky simplistic writer, blahblah.

I'm w/ jordan, I think the song's great but wish it didn't specifically have to be about last year's VMAs. I love that it sounds like her open-hearted sweetheart thing but manages to also showcase her insanely petty side

Yep, the song would've been a hell of a lot better without the more explicit Kanye references ("32 years old" and whatever else) and NOT performed on the VMAs, just put onto the album. She should've played "Mine"!!!

taylor's songs aren't interesting enough for the lyrics to be bad.

― christopher dullan (Tape Store), Monday, September 13, 2010 4:12 AM (8 hours ago)

http://i52.tinypic.com/20p7fnk.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/2gydor6.jpg

http://theangryblackwoman.com/2010/09/13/white-women-tears-and-coded-images/

Except she’s not expressing those emotions in a vacuum, and she’s well aware of the racial subtext after a year of her fans using racial epithets about Kanye at every turn. She’s had a year to debut this song (especially since according to her camp she wrote it in her diary last year) but she held onto it for a publicity stunt last night. There’s some complicated historical and social subtext tangled up in the use of tears this way, and in the reaction to those tears. It’s a subtext that makes the phrase “White Woman’s Tears” a convenient shorthand for a situation that boils down to a white woman wielding her tears as a weapon against a POC. We’re back to intent and the question of whether those tears (genuine or otherwise) and their ability to derail and/or escalate a situation can be separated out from the emotions that may be prompting them.

I suppose when the two people involed are "innocent little white girl" and "angry black man" it's hard not to view the whole ordeal in a racial context, but honestly I don't really see it that way. Swift-gate had more to do with people being fed up with Kanye's antics over a prolonged period of time than it did with some sort of racialized, "know your place black man" thing. And I don't necessarily think Swift was playing on her race in last night's performance (at least not consciously anyway).So yeah, OFFTM

...than it did with some sort of racialized, "know your place black man" thing.

i read a whole shit-ton of stuff saying exactly this?

http://i54.tinypic.com/2vs5fgj.jpg

I think there's a difference here between "Know your place KANYE" and "know your place BLACK MAN," because Kanye had a history of acting like this. Obviously Kanye is a black man, but I don't think the backlash against him was racial (for the most part, I'm sure you can find examples of Swift fans saying racist shit, or Fox News commentators or something...)

ok well the exact wording wasn't "black man" either

i have a tough time saying that taylor was playing the victim when she was being so patronising

yeah true, but the way the performance was framed (the somber intro replaying the vid from last year and then *sad serious taylor face*) was very "HEY GUYS REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED FEEL SORRY FOR ME"

ok i just read the lyrics to the song and nowhere in it does she play the victim or express feeling even mildly wounded or hurt! not one line! she tries to present it as simpatico but the entire song is basically a slightly pitying "oh, grow up kanye".

This verse in the lyrics:

Wasn’t it easier in your firefly catching days?
And everything out of reach someone picked up and brought down to you
Wasn’t it beautiful running wild ‘til you fell asleep
Before the monsters caught up to you?

Super smart reference going on here?

totally noticed that! wonder how long it's been industry knowledge that kanye had a new song called "monster".

"the other side of the door" is awesome! haven't got mentioned on ILM.

Cosign!

1. Mine 03:49
2. Sparks 04:20
3. Back To December 04:53
4. Speak Now 04:00
5. Dear John 06:43
6. Mean 03:57
7. The Story Of Us 04:25
8. Never Grow Up 04:50
9. Enchanted 05:52
10. Better Than Revenge 03:37
11. Innocent 05:02
12. Haunted 04:02
13. Last Kiss 06:07
14. Long Live 05:17

kinda excited by these long songs

i hope this album will be her tusk

"Mine" holds up very well indeed. Like the tracks on 'Fearless' that seemed slightly anonymous to me at first it's revealed its power gradually. Never going to doubt her again.

And here is her 'Mine' performance at the All for the Hall thing with Kris and Emmylou & Co, proving again how much better her vocals are when she's just on stage with her guitar and not in an award show setting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFnO4NaMh3Y

Yeah, my issue with Taylor Swift has always been this over-eager effort to craft her into some sort of young Faith Hill crossover monster, when she seems to be at her best at her most comfortable, which is to say, at her most low-key. Getting caught up in this awards show/what-is-she-wearing frenzy is doing her no favors.

if I may speak now about the debut briefly, I bought a karaoke video game last week with "I'm Only Me When I'm With You", which is from the "deluxe" version of the debut & thus I'd never heard it before. & it's great! It's a bridge between the twangier material of the debut & the streamlined pop of Fearless: it has the quiet/loud dynamics of "Love Story" & "You Belong With Me", but the pedal steel is more prominent than's typical on Fearless as is the fiddle riff after the burst of the chorus. I can see why she left it off the debut: the lyric is more trite than anything on the album (or on Fearless). But it's still a great rush.

in a similar vein, I have been really jamming 'untouchable' which is off the deluxe edition of Fearless

Seconding the love for "I'm Only Me When I'm with You" which is fantaaaaaaaaaaassticcc!

Also that performance of "Mine" upthread a bit is frickin' awesome.

From the same show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg556inyAFw

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhXUQg1_qe4

So..."Speak Now"

Not sure what I was expecting after 'Mine', but it wasn't this? There's something about this that feels quite different from her other stuff - not sure if it's a production touch, or vocals or something, but there's something kind of demo-ish or live about this. It's a nice sound for her.

LINK

the fuck is wrong with you

iTunes.

It's the single, not the album, to clarify.

They are doing the same sort of countdown to the LP they did w/ fearless. one song a week until the release date

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnalIapimec

word thankig u

(i wouldn't ask for a link to an album link btw -- not on the board at least)

this does sound like a demo!

i'm not sure what i think of it

Lyrics:

I am not the kind of girl
Who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion
But you are not the kind of boy
Who should be marrying the wrong girl

I sneak in and see your friends
And her snotty little family all dressed in pastel
And she is yelling at a bridesmaid
Somewhere back inside a room wearing a gown shaped like a pastry

This is surely not what you thought it would be
I lose myself in a daydream
Where I stand and say

Don't say, "Yes"; run away now
I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door
Don't wait, or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said, "Speak Now"

Fond gestures are exchanged
And the organ starts to play a song that sounds like a death march
And I am hiding in the curtains
It seems that I was uninvited by your lovely bride-to-be

She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen
But I know you wish it was me,
You wish it was me, don't you?

Don't say, "Yes"; run away now
I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door
Don't wait, or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said, "Speak Now"

Don't say, "Yes"; run away now
I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door
Don't wait, or say a single vow
Your time is running out
And they said, "Speak Now"

I hear the preacher say speak now or forever hold your peace
There's a silence
There's my last chance
I stand up with shaking hands
All eyes on me.

Horrified looks from everyone in the room
But I'm only looking at you

I am not the kind of girl
Who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion
But you are not the kind of boy
Who should be marrying the wrong girl

So don't say, "Yes"; run away now
I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door
Don't wait, or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said, "Speak Now"

And you say, "Let's run away now;
I'll meet you when I'm out of my tux at the back door.
Baby, I didn't say the vow
So glad you were around
When they said, "Speak Now"

I like the live feel. The melody seems sort of blah at first, but like Mine is grows on you. This is far more awkward charm of Taylor 1.0 than polished Taylor of Fearless - I like this look for her. Also, while some lines are wordier than they might have been with a pro backing her up on songwriting, I quite like "rudely barging in on a white veil occasion."

*but like "Mine", IT grows on you.

is it feminist to steal another chick's dude?