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

deadspin and jezebel find common ground at last!

destroy: "enchanted" (chorus hits the mark, but the rest is a chore to listen to)... the rest's almost universally great.

― in a merzbow world, how is kanye ambitious?? (ilxor), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:21 AM (6 days ago

destroy u

this thread is sparkling, don't you let it go

http://i52.tinypic.com/fb9o43.jpg

nagl

ban dayo

nagl seconded =/

ws

idg nagl, ws imho A+

idg nagl either tbh

Creepy tux. Johnny Depp hat.

taylor scissorhands

captain taylor sparrow

taylor wonka

sweeney taylor

jean shrimpton rocked a top hat better.

http://www.retrosellers.com/images/sh6.jpg

Creepy tux. Johnny Depp hat.

― Julian Osage Orange (kkvgz), Friday, December 3, 2010 12:59 PM (1 hour ago)

vs. hot chick inside

just reposting this to remind yall of what t-swift looks like at her best

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8ev6sgsnD1qb6b1k.png

there is no top hat there

daaaamn.jpg

that's also the front cover of her putative witch house album

he say im down with him, i say youre the best thing thats ever been mine

*hits electronic drum pad arrhythmically*

ws

hoooooly shit this performance of "haunted" from the thanksgiving tv special is WOWOWOWOW O_O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92isX62fv1g

ws expecting 'chonkyfire' 2 start up after the first coupla violin notes

idgi

She is 21 years old. No disrespect, but Hanson were better than she was. There is something phony about the way establishment liberals embrace someone whose lyrics are so teenagey. Like, these are the people who hated Tom Petty thirty years ago and now they think he is a distinguished folksinger or something.

ilxor, you know they're just playing the album track over some footage, right?

I always appreciate trolling that starts out with "No disrespect". A+ dude

xxp wait, was that a youtube comment or are you really talkin' there?

i mean, someone can tell me if im wrong, but even just "fast forwarding" through that thing, i cant hear a difference

I know it sounds mean, but this is music for young people, not people in their fifties who listen to NPR.

Yep, there are TONS of people in this thread in their fifties.

I still maintain that Speak Now is a pretty marginal affair, but Fearless was an instant classic.

ilxor, you know they're just playing the album track over some footage, right?

too busy rockin out to notice ;_;

still enjoying this lots. probably too long though; when the songs are this good cutting it down to 10 tracks would be better methinks. sort of wish there was maybe one faster track in the second half?

title track so great.

also December and Dear John are too close to each other near the start and slow things down a bit much. basically they need to let me sequence the next one.

These may have already been linked somewhere on here, but I just got around to the live clips from her Ed Sullivan Theater gig. They're good.

http://www.vevo.com/watch/taylor-swift/back-to-december-live-on-letterman/USCJY1003821

This is an honest, innocently curious question- what sets her apart from every other country pop star out there? I'm having trouble seeing why she stands out.

serious answer: you should listen to some more country pop. she barely fits the genre.

haunted sounds like an evanescence song

Well, it mostly sounds like just pop to me, but isn't she branded as at least country-ish pop? I know there is banjo and steel guitar throughout.

Which is usually enough.

there's def some country branding going on, but you asked what makes her stand out from other country pop which isn't the right question (bc outside branding she really doesn't sound like any other country pop music).

Alright, then what makes her stand out among other top 40 singer-songwriter radio friendly pop?

i think that's a better question. i find her songwriting a bit more um natural sounding? stripped down compared to other big female pop acts this year (kesha, katy perry, etc) + that def stands out to me. this is, i think, even clearer on the first two albums (and particularly the first one). obv she has a compelling backstory/pop culture presence too and fits into this weird cultural place between the entire vulgar and this christian (country) niche, not to mention all the kanye west, john mayer stuff that people seem to enjoy thinking about

but like, what makes X artist stand out from Y context is always a tricky question, right? if you're really into Y context you can always point out small differences that might make something more or less interesting and if you're not into the context then everything sounds the same. it's the same if you're talking about Bollywood soundtrack, eastern european fiddle music or american pop music.

In the beginning, when she was def. more country-pop-proper, what made Taylor "stand out" was the intermittent clarity of her songwriting - the way she tosses off so casually as her very first line on her debut "You said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night / I said, that's a lie", or the accumulation of little details in "Our Song". But mostly she didn't "stand out" so much as just seem really winning and charismatic and tuneful and sympathetic, so that there's really nothing to say about "You're Beautiful" in this regard except that it's charming.

Now that the country-signifiers have been so heavily reduced, Mordy is right, there's simply no mistaking her for country-pop, and it's better to ask what makes her stand out from pop generally. Ironically at this point it's in part the remaining country signifiers, but also simply her deft songwriting and her knack for structuring her songs around metaphors (extended and one offs), which I think she inherits from country somewhat but then applies to a kind of teen-pop-rock confessionalism, the consequent mixture feeling pretty novel. I think a lot of the intensity of her success among young girls is based on songs like "Fifteen", which are unusual in applying the tropes of confessionalism to (early-to-mid) adolescence. Lyrically she's comparable to, say, Vanessa Carlton, but Vanessa's confessionalism pitched slightly older (though she maybe sounded younger?), which is the norm I think.

Thanks! Seeing this thread kind of baffled me. I've heard this album and the one prior multiple times and it just sounded so slick and generic to me that I wouldn't be able to pick it out among anything other female pop stars (that are less dance-oriented currently). I'm not here to bash her or make anyone upset I'm really just trying to get in touch with the appeal of this type of music.

I guess I am too concerned with sonics here and her appeal comes lyrically.

any other*