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

you guys, taylor swift is coming to hong kong!

guess I need to find someone to go with me so that it doesn't seem I'm being a perv by going alone

On the season premiere of The Simpsons, there was a gag where surly, misanthropic bartender Moe shows up at a coffeehouse open mic night. Taking the stage right after the Flight of the Conchords guys, he strolls out with a guitar and says, "If you have kids, you may want to take them out. I'm going to be getting into some very dark areas here." That's kind of what the songs I've heard here remind me of, not in a jokey way, but this young woman is clearly working through some very personal shit on this record, in ways that are sometimes profoundly uncomfortable to listen to! "Dear John" and "Never Grow Up," you almost need a double shot of whiskey while you're listening to those, because holy crap.

Title track, though, is -- to me, a very casual listener of her stuff prior to now -- a pretty great lyrical and musical leap for her! It's almost a Merseybeat song. I could see The Bangles circa 1984 doing that song.

But I took your matches before fire could catch me so don't look now.
I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town.

^^the drawing out of the last syllable & the rest of the song is the mot wrenching thing she's ever written

^^^^^^so otm. voice rising like a firework - aargh what is this device called, it's on the tip of my tongue. not quite onomatopoeia - where the voice mimics the meaning of the word. aargh.

noticed that the average song length on this album is a lot longer than on her previous albums - need to listen to it more to see if she's using the extra time effectively

what if she isn't. what then.

burn her at the stake I guess

you almost need a double shot of whiskey

lifted right now and this album sounds pretty damn fucking good tbh

this is making my day which was going badly feel a lot better. sure to be end of year top 5.

i haven't been able to listen to the whole album yet; keep hitting songs that just end up on repeat.

so finally listened to this thru. when this album is good, it's great (echo'ing other Dear John praises specifically), but sometimes it really feels same'y. more of the same from taylor swift is not necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely seems like the kind of album whose sound i'll get burnt out on in a few weeks.

trying to work up a coherent thought on the rhythm of her words. i think it's one of the hidden keys to her songs, why they hook and snag the way they do. she's very good at pacing and spacing and rhythmic dynamics, she does a lot of things like run a couple syllable-heavy lines together and then stretch out the melody over the next one or two lines. in the chorus of "back to december," there's this very deliberate dah-dah-dah/dah-dah-dah 16th-note rhythm in the first lines but then "back to de-cem-ber" is played as an 8th-note triplet that completely interrupts the flow and emphasizes the sadness of the lyric. anyway, i think it's something she does really well, it's one of the ways she builds tension and release in her songs.

in retrospect mine kinda blows, but all the songs after it are great

*thinks*

I still like "Mine," but I might like "Long Live" more

in retrospect mine kinda blows

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i never minded it before, heard it on the radio a bunch, acknowledged it was worse than previous singles but still good enough

now that the album is out and has really great songs that are way better its like, i just dont need it anymore

ice cold

i think it's her best single after "love story" & "teardrops on my guitar"

"Last Kiss" and "Long Live" are a stupendous finale.

yeah i'm warming up to "long live." it's hard to resist. and "last kiss" is going to be cried to in the dark all over america.

you can plan for a change in the weather and time / but i never planned on you changing your mind

and then that long, drawn-out pause

and no way is 'mine' her third-best single, j0rdan.

it's not bad, it's just such a throwback compared to the other stuff on here. it's kind of taylor-by-the-numbers, signs of maturity and drawers-at-his-place aside.

i think it's her best single after "love story" & "teardrops on my guitar"

Something is wrong with this statement.

fearless (with my challops)

yeah mine/speak now are definitely taylor-by-the-numbers songs.

that 'fighting dragons' line in long live - !!!!! taylor come date me

"mine" is a fantastic single! surely the most fearless-like song on the record but that's not such a bad thing - can't really wrap my head around loving tay but not caring for "mine" (xp: cf dayo "by the numbers" - we like this!)

this album is def very good i think - i think it sorta runs out of steam after "enchanted" (which might be my favorite song by her EVER - why are we not all flipping out about this?) but i've only listened all the way through once

also shocker this is great on the highway

lol it's AiM by-the-numbers, credit where credit's due

Enchanted is wonderful, and I initially thought it ran out of steam at the end too, but they grow on you quickly.

But 'Better Than Revenge' and 'Last Kiss' kill. Innocent sort of saps all the energy out, though. I know it's her Kanye-response or whatever, and it's good for what it is, but it doesn't really do anything for me.

xp Oh, I mean...I like 'Mine' and I love 'Speak Now'. It's possible I just played them to death before the album came out and ruined them for myself? That could be it.

But I maintain that there's no way "Mine" is as much of an earworm as Our Song or You Belong With Me, or as affecting as Tim McGraw or Teardrops or Fifteen. And it's certainly not as well crafted as any of those five.

This is a silly argument. But it is 12:30 and I am reading about Faberge eggs and the legalities of art dealerships, so \(o O)/

"you belong with me" is her most overrated single, easily

j0rdan grillin some schallops tonight

Overrated, perhaps, but still good enough to squeak into my top five. Or it was until wikipedia informed me that 'White Horse' and 'Fearless' were both official singles.

Also, I could have sworn that "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" was a single, but wikipedia doesn't acknowledge it, and iTunes/etc. don't even seem to sell the Deluxe Edition of the debut anymore. Go figure.

she's on letterman right now and really zooey deschanel-ing it up afaict

"you belong with me" is her most overrated single, easily

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, October 27, 2010 12:24 AM (6 minutes ago)

http://i37.tinypic.com/vqqo8z.jpg

Innocent sort of saps all the energy out, though. I know it's her Kanye-response or whatever, and it's good for what it is, but it doesn't really do anything for me.

I didn't hear this until the album and kinda missed all the debate on it previously, it wouldn't occur to me just from listening to the tune that it's about Kanye, and I think I like it a bit less as a result. It makes more sense being sung to an older woman IMO, like "Coming Undone" 15 years on.

Re Taylor singles, I think objectively the answer is:

"Tim McGraw" = "Love Story" = "Our Song" > "You Belong With Me" > "Should've Said No" = "Fifteen" = "Mine" = "Fearless" > UP UNTIL NOW EVERYTHING BASICALLY HAS BEEN AWESOME > "Teardrops on My Guitar" = "Today Was a Fairytale" = "White Horse".

i wanna do a taylor singles poll v badly but i imagine they'll be putting singles out from this one for another year or so

btw

The Taylor Swift set-up—and it’s hard to get away from—has been a massive success.

Her new album, Speak Now, on Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine and the Lipmans’ Universal Republic labels, is exploding at retail in a way that has initial first-week sales estimates between 800-900k and could go higher.

Insiders are even giving it a shot at approaching the first-week numbers generated by Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III album two years ago.

And it couldn’t come at a better time for the record industry as it heads into the all-importhat fourth quarter.

Swift appears a lock to turn back the year’s previous first-week sales record, set by Eminem’s Shady/Aftermath/Interscope album, Recovery, in June, with 742k.

im enjoying this stuff on a level of like, a rando country/rock/folk record scott seward recommends me (aka A LOT) but i wd get put off if i realized how popular it is or dealt w/ it like its anything but headphones / private headspace-type music. dont see it as social music the way i think a lot of ppl do

idk im just listening on youtube tho

i dont really like that 'you belong w me' much though ... prefer the stuff where i could actual experience those feelings now vs. the hey im so obviously a teenager

i can't believe she's dating jake gyllenhaal.

not sure how well this'll do on country radio; as noted above, there's not a lot of the signifiers. programming this on country would be more out of allegiance and inertia and public interest and market share than it being country

i think "mean" is the most country-friendly song here?

that's my initial take. and maybe the one about how she wishes that cute baby would stay forever young that i couldn't quite finish.

not sure how well this'll do on country radio; as noted above, there's not a lot of the signifiers. programming this on country would be more out of allegiance and inertia and public interest and market share than it being country

I don't think there's any less country signifiers than on Fearless - how did that fare in terms of country radio play?

maybe less steel guitar/banjos, more rock opera sweep
i should probably not talk about this album until i can finish it