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

the album's definitely a LOT denser than she's done before

You come out the other side of that song really exhausted and tore up but softly euphoric. It's a motherfucker.

xpost, I was talking about "Dear John"

Ann Powers on "Mean" -- and Taylor in general:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/10/taylor-swift-lessons-in-being-mean.html

Also "Mean" is fucking awesome in the context of the record. Do you still dislike it, lex?

yes that powers piece is really great

do people seriously think "mean" is about rock critics though? i mean really. she couldn't situate it more obviously in her pre-fame days. hey egomaniac critics, you're almost certainly not the only people to have told taylor swift she can't sing in her life.

and a second listen to "mean" didn't warm me up to it, it's just so gauche

Oh my god "Enchanted."

Hard not to read synth-pop into the keyboard work here but it sure kills me.

Yeah Mean is a pretty perfect fit in this context and sound-wise it breaks up a couple of heavier tunes really nicely. I think it's too successfully humorous to be gauche.

this album feels a lot less country than her previous work.

All right, this record's a little long. Which is fine, I'm just emotionally spent after every other song.

Love how effectively she uses breaks, pauses in 'Last Kiss'. Whatever your position, you can't say this is a Fearless retread, that she makes use of the same tricks.

so which of these songs are the terrible non-US ones? "mine" & what else?

back to december & the story of us.

so i guess they want to make them the singles.

'Dear John' is on some next level.

OFL, this is her best album.

I thought of the Corrs' great "Breathless" upon hearing the intro to "The Story of Us."

I agree that "Dear John" is a pretty great point of maturation, but the lyrics are incredibly cliché.

"Mean" is the standout for me after a couple listens--glad to hear her stick to her roots when she could have made a Kelly Clarkson album. Without a doubt, this is an excellent record, and maybe her best. Certainly not a disappointment.

"sparks fly" is a banger

firing this up now, kinda excited

mine still sucks
sparks fly is nice
Back to December is great!

wow back to december is really great

so, so in love with "enchanted".

swag me out

http://i54.tinypic.com/qyzsyc.jpg

fucker! How'd you get it?

ha, i don't actually have it :(

that's my record store employee friend's copy

Took me a while to notice the banjos in 'Story of Us'.

they think people outside the US are unable to listen to banjos

Bangos are not sexy.

record of the year! luv this 4eva!!

"Back to December" and "Dear John" are both jawdropping, perhaps her best attempts at ballads yet (the latter in particular being like a much much better version of "White Horse" - as a general rule she is so much better working in specifics rather than archetypes).

"Back to December" in particular though is just... A++ songwriting. Like (and it may be counter-productive to break it down) the shift between "I go back to December..." and "I'd go back to December" is so subtle and yet so important to the narrative arc of the song, and she's so good at picking up on things like that.

dear john is fucking DEVASTATING

Been writing essays and haven't found time to listen to this properly yet, but on background listens...initial thought:

Back to December took some time to hit me, but once it did it was completely devastating. Dear John is a tad overlong, but equally affecting. The Story of Us is wonderful - all backbeat and sass, and Better Than Revenge....wow. Didn't know she had it in her. It's like some Kelly Clarkson 'My December' shit but with a proper dancebeat and that random hip hop drum bit at 2:20 or so.

has the us version leaked yet?

the deluxe has the US versions on it

eh, think I'll just wait a day for the retail.torrent

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/arts/music/24swift.html?pagewanted=all

I love this.

but Caramanica's insistence on autobiographical parallels is bullshit.

so, so in love with "enchanted".

― prolego, Saturday, October 23, 2010 6:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

All those songs with one-word titles in the back half blur together.

The back half is surprisingly intense! Rock opera-ish.

"Better Than Revenge" is terrific though.

All those songs with one-word titles in the back half blur together.

"Enchanted" and "Haunted" are my two favorite songs on the record!

on a couple of listens, the ones that really impressed me were the last two - pretty incredible double-header to close the album with.

("back to december" was already a favourite, love that track)

"Better Than Revenge" is like Paramore (or second album Ashlee) rewriting Madonna's "Thief of Hearts". Love it, but def. was not expecting it!

"no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity" <3

on a couple of listens, the ones that really impressed me were the last two - pretty incredible double-header to close the album with.

Which ones? The deluxe edition is replete with songs.

Assume lex means "last kiss" and "long live" - both great, I was dubious of "long live" at first but loved it by the end.

Yes, I like "Last Kiss" a lot. I'm impressed by how she sustains these five-minute-plus song lengths.

yeah, the ones that close the album proper - haven't actually got round to the bonus tracks yet. the only ones i'm actively dubious about are "mean" and "never grow up". i'm hungover and have no further thoughts about anything though.

Mixed review from Slant, perhaps raises some interesting points:

She often comes up with a great, revealing line, but there isn't much in the way of emotional depth or maturity to these songs. If there's something of the modern "No, I'm right, and you should just shut up" zeitgeist reflected in Swift's perspective, it's also easy to wish that a writer of her obvious smarts delved into more substance and developed a more fully informed take on matters of life and love.

To that end, it's also troubling that Swift's songs still uniformly build an artistic persona that is defined exclusively by her relationships with men. A song like "Enchanted" or "Speak Now" may work brilliantly on its own merits, but over the course of three albums, Swift hasn't shown that she can write authoritatively about anything other than how great boys are or how much boys suck or how dreams about boys will take her somewhere better than where she is now.