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

xpost Apart from the Dixie Chicks in 98, I haven't seen another mainstream country show but for me the Taylor one was all about her songs and persona rather than the staging - the set-up seemed pretty formulaic, but then so do the structures of her songs - it's what she does inside the formula that counts.

The back-and-forth, re-tweeting and referencing between Roger Ebert and Taylor Swift since they started following eachother is pretty funny, and should lay to rest any belief that hers is a world of conservative ideas (because no one would be able to sit through Ebert's 186 anti-republican tweets a day if they were inclined to vote for them).

but he doesn't follow her? i can only find one actual communication between them. i'm fairly sure taylor (and most slebs) don't actually read their timelines that much.

the last two minutes of that mean performance are great. her facial expressions.

back to listening to 'speak now' each teatime, since the concert. and two songs that i wasn't sure about before the concert have become huge stayers: 'sparks fly' and 'long live'.

Liked it. Screw the Mean naysayers.

― abcfsk, Monday, April 4, 2011 9:14 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thanks for the link, thats a belter.

long live is noticeably cheesier than the rest of the album but i like it too. a good friend called the line "AND THE CYNICS WERE OUTRAGED / SCREAMING 'THIS IS ABSURD'" "unfortunate" and he's right but i can dig the song's prideful excess. it's kind of like "juicy" for someone who grew up with disney princesses.

xp Ah, he did follow her, though, and even made a blog 'page' on her birthday http://twitter.com/#!/ebertchicago/status/14455108200824833. She must read his tweets since she's retweeted stuff not directed at her.

ebert: america's uncle

fantastic song, but the worst line's gotta be when she calls her touring band & herself "a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans" o_O

xp re: "long live"

yes some of the lyrics might have been better written but she turned the song from one about her band into one about everyone else in front of her. i looked down the row of seats and my daughter was clapping and crying. and it was happy and sad for me in the same instant.

and i wished i were her age again.

i like the thieves/jeans rhyme fwiw

"Long Live" is my least favorite track; the chorus sounds like it could have blasted over the end credits of an Ann Hathaway vehicle from 2001.

"long live" rules

I've warmed up to "Long Live" a lot, didn't care for it much at first. I like how it plugs into her obsession with recognizing, cataloging and holding onto specific emotions and experiences because she knows they won't last -- it goes from "Remember this moment" in the first verse to imagining some future when she's not even in touch with any of these people any more and they're showing their hypothetical kids pictures of it all.

The song it reminds me of most, thematically and in its embrace/effective deployment of clichés is Springsteen's "No Surrender."

That's a great way to put it, tipsy. It's def. a highlight of the album for me---my attention lags a bit (a bit!) after "Mean" but peaks again with the last two songs.

and each night she plays it she's with another crowd/moment telling herself and them to hold onto it.

it's cheesy in a stagey way, but it works.

like elvis doing 'can't help falling in love' in ever more cabaret-esque stylings at the end of each show.

"long live" has always been a favourite of mine - you don't need to think about who she wrote it about (just like the love songs), but she totally nails that one moment of being at your absolute best - at the absolute height of that thrill, when you feel invulnerable and 73 feet tall (cf t.i.'s "what you know"). i listened to it a lot around the time of the london protests in december and last week.

a protest song without the protest?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnWDtQUd9Dk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bS7BoavLMM

very nice! I'm interested in seeing how big it can get on the country charts, because dreaming of big cities isn't the usual country trope in 2011.

I'm impressed with the fashion designer in the video; seems like a ~message~, no?

AWESOME

Yeah, it's like the ne plus ultra of "it gets better" videos. Fantastic!

was not aware she was the banjo player on this? or is that slight of hand so to speak

did taylor at karaoke yesterday, was great!

what song dogg!!!

you belong with me (but we had to cut it short)

\(^o^)/

just showed the "mean" video to my little one, around the first chorus she goes: "aren't they gonna show her on the railroad tracks like in the cd paper?" and then beginning of second verse video cuts to taylor tied on the tracks and she goes: "aaaaaaahhhh!!!!" totally made my night

great video/song!

Great video for "Mean". Uses some country tropes but still very pop glam, you can tell she loves Shania.

Still wish "Sparks Fly" were going to be a single, not just for my sake but for radio's.

Yeah, it's like the ne plus ultra of "it gets better" videos.

was so happy about this too cuz i was pushing this song hard last year as the frontrunner in this sudden mini-genre, even though it didn't seem to have occurred to taylor's marketing people.

also i did you belong with me at karaoke a few months ago with a bunch of people including jaymc and thoroughly humiliated myself on the chorus, which is wholly impossible for me

was so happy about this too cuz i was pushing this song hard last year as the frontrunner in this sudden mini-genre, even though it didn't seem to have occurred to taylor's marketing people.

maybe they (sensibly) didn't want to associate themselves with katy perry and ke$ha.

"sparks fly" does seem like a natural single, surprised that hasn't happened yet. i think they just gave up in the UK after "mine", though.

ke$ha has an "it gets better" song? I didn't think ke$ha was able to grasp concepts like "change".

iirc she tried to graft "we r who we r" on to it all

i wish 'the story of us' had been the first single. that would've been cool

"Mean" is the country radio single, and she released "Story of Us" to pop radio. She shot both videos a few weeks ago, so a "Story of Us" video should be coming soon.

i still don't get "the story of us"

by get i mean remember

Story of Us is still one of my favourites on the album, but 'Mean' could potentially be a killer single, if it catches on. Video is fun, and simultaneously less and more hamfisted in its approach to IGB type stuff than Firework and Beautiful and Fuckin' Perfect etc. etc. etc.

there's not a single song on the album that i think is less than great. however the sequencing of better than revenge => innocent => haunted => last kiss has never worked for me.

aw the "mean" video is great

the story of us video's coming out tomorrow

Yes! So glad it's a single. Stellar choice.

website says the video's out at 8 PM tonight

i assume that's usa time. i've got bed to go to in uk. ho hum.

yes, 8 PM EDT

here we go: http://www.mtv.com/videos/taylor-swift/654729/the-story-of-us.jhtml#id=1664460