Taylor Swift: Fearless Poll

I've tried so long to find a default answer when asked this and it's just impossible. A different favourite literally every time I listen to it. And so my pick here will be fairly random.

"Forever and Always" forever and always. That song is just so fucking dope.

Hey Stephen

One more for Forever and Always.

love story

^

still dont get u dudes jizzing all over the one tree hill of pop

"Change"

i don't think i've ever even listened to the second half of this album

That's crazy because Forever and Always is her Stairway To Heaven

i'll never know

1 love story
2 breathe
3 hey stephen
4 you belong w me
5 you're not sorry

I think maybe it's "The Way I Loved You" for me right now. Love her singing on the hushed part of the last chorus.

I think that "Stairway to Heaven" is kind of a mischarachtization, but it is a BEAST of a pop song.

I think beast is a mischariterizization, but it is a colossal monster of a stairway to heaven

man, both of us fucked up spelling mischaracterization, though.

hey stephen

the one tree hill of pop

Taylor's more like Friday Night Lights season 3. One Tree Hill would be like Colbie Caillat.

1. Fifteen
2. You Belong With Me
3. The Best Day
4. White Horse
5. Love Story

i don't think i've ever even listened to the second half of this album

i didn't listen to it for the longest time because i had to play the first five tracks on loop like crack, but they're all as amazing tbh, and it was a real treat when i finally got to them - love it when an album keeps giving like that.

this poll is so hard. "fearless" vs "white horse" vs "breathe" vs "hey stephen"

You're Not Fucking Sorry.

I voted for The Best Day. It was down to that, Fearless or You Belong to Me, though there's no song on here I don't like.

So......people genuinely like T Squinty Swift's fair to middling dear diary lyrics and bland production? To each it's own I guess...

no, this is a parody thread, if such people existed (which they don't)

thank heathus christ. I was legit getting worried.

i could vote for any of a bunch of songs -- "love story," "hey stephen," "white horse," "you belong with me," "the way i loved you," "forever and always," "the best day," it's a hard call. tempted by "the way i loved you" because it's a great case study in crescendo -- the whole song is a series of build-build-release, over and over, from the intro thru to the bridge, and the chorus is a monster. also by "the best day," because it is honest-to-god lump-in-the-throat material. it's hard to do that kind of "i luv u mom'n'dad" family stuff well.

love the rhythm of the words at the end of the "way i loved you bridge": "you were wild and crazy/just so frustrating/intoxicating, complicated/got away, my sole mistake" -- it's a great tumble that mixes up all the residual anger and lust and shows that they're basically inextricable.

i mean, the "way i loved you" bridge.

the "way i loved you bridge," i don't think they've started naming infrastructure after her yet.

also, the video for 'the best day' is pretty great.

Love them all, would pick a different one every day, but the first one I loved most was the title track, so Imma go with that.

So......people genuinely like T Squinty Swift's fair to middling dear diary lyrics and bland production? To each it's own I guess...

― RubyNoir, Sunday, February 28, 2010 10:23 PM (1 hour ago)

to each, it is OWNED

the album

each of us

anyway this is impossible but

1) you belong with me
2) fearless
3) forever and always? i basically love them all the same after this

voting 'the best day'.

The lobby at my dentist's office is the best place to discover new music!

is that where you go after you're suggest banned?

if it wasn't for my dentist, i never would've discovered gucci mane

1 you belong with me
2 breath
3 fearless

had to go with "you belong with me". it was the one that changed my mind about her. and its just perfect.

I love Gucci! Especially when he guest stars, that dude is comedy. He's got some excellent wordplay on his songs unlike Tay Swift

i would sb you again but

Just kiddingggg. Sorry for the bitterness, I'm just feeling terrible.

gotcha back xp

^^^

For me the funny thing about this album isn't merely that my favourite changes all the time but that songs radically wax and wane in my affections, dropping from 1 to 7 or so from day to day.

But I love most often: "Love Story", "Hey Stephen", "Forever & Always"

You're Not Sorry is probably right, but I kneejerk voted for Hey Stephen

I voted Fifteen but listening again now its clearly The Way I Loved You. her vocal performance on that is PERFECT POP. totally fantastic.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

still dont get u dudes jizzing all over the one tree hill of pop

Any other really similar pop-stars get this much love here in the past?

...

Colbie Caillat is back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFjJs6ZjPe8

for the most part i think taylor's b-sides are not great so i'm a little blown away by how much i like the vault tracks. maybe it's bc they allow me to see new angles on an era of her songwriting that i kind of miss

this isn't a mindblowing song or anything but i love everything the chorus melody does

Featuring the debut of the phrase "casually cruel," before she re-used it in "All Too Well."

I like it!

I've pre-ordered the new CD, and I look forward to hearing it - but I still feel like there's a "going through the motions" quality to her vocal performance on each of these preview tracks.

honestly despite making her best and most mature work last year, there is a part of me that has missed the gleefully petty teenage aspect of her/her voice, and it's a testament to her growth as a singer/songwriter/performer that she can inhabit that former self in 2021. i would have gone absolutely feral if i'd heard this in a claire's in 2008.

i love the production on that, really dreamy

Rerecorded version out today

i think i might genuinely prefer this to the original, simply for minor changes in some of the timbres

"Fifteen" was the one I was most curious about, because it's one where she doesn't have to change a thing for it to feel very different — and it does, in obvious ways. I think the vocal is sweet, you can hear all the affection for her younger self. Also the lyric video has a nice slideshow with a whole lot of who I assume is the real-life Abigail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLCol1C3ouc

p sure if i watch that i will cry

the new “fifteen” is good but this project mainly just reinforces how much i hate faithful rerecordings

can’t tell if it’s because i listened to it through streaming but the dynamics felt more squashed too

i did listen to evermore right after and got to marvel at how far she's come

Yeah overall I can't see myself reaching for this one rather than the original. But I think she's done it about as well as she could.

the vault stuff is uniformly excellent afaict tho

i think the song that suffers most for not being sung by a teenager is "forever & always"

I haven't had a chance to listen to it on good speakers because my bluetooth isn't pairing for some stupid reason, but via a cursory listen through my phone, I think I might agree. That one is my absolute favorite on the album too.

Is Abigail a real person(?)

"Breathe" sounds great. I'm enjoying this more than I expected to, based on the advance tracks. I still think her vocals lack a certain "commitment," and the overly faithful musical settings feel like a missed opportunity; but it still sounds good!

(Her singing has improved (technically) in a big way since 2008, which def. helps)

abigail is extremely real

Abigail makes an appearance in the Miss Americana documentary, iirc

listening to this new version of "fifteen" reminded me of the very bad feminist discourse around taylor swift circa 2009-2012

Felt like I was going insane with some of that discourse, it did take away the energy to talk about her music. It was a relay race, first she hated sex, then she did sex wrong or something, and then it shifted and probably peaked in insanity when she was a nazi ??? it sort of quickly fell apart like a house of cards at some point and now it's weird to remember it as a real thing but I guess these re-releases will force some of the skeletons out of the closet. I have read reviewers of this re-relase admitting "I didn't take her seriously as a songwriter back then I guess I realize now she always made great songs"

the overly faithful musical settings feel like a missed opportunity

well, it's not primarily an artistic pursuit. being unfaithful to the original songs would betray the motivation for doing this whole project in the first place

personally i'm kind of digging the slight 90s alt rock vibes of the re-recordings and also "you all over me" is one of the best songs of the year

i do enjoy the grungier guitar tone when it appears

the drums have that kind of dull thwack that sounds very live (the adjective not the band) to me, still not exactly sure why it ended up like that but i'm kind of into it. there's a certain rawness to the re-recordings

I don't really know this album aside from "You Belong With Me," so that's all I listened to, but the original version sounds much better to me. What the re-recording is missing, I think, is the wistfulness in her voice that balanced the cattiness of the lyrics. In the original, "she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts" comes off mostly as envy; she would like to be the kind of person who can wear short skirts. In the re-recording, the envy is missing from her voice, so what I get instead is a sense of superiority, of "she's wrong for you because she's shallow and slutty, unlike me." Does anyone else have that reaction? I feel like I'm zeroing in on something so tiny as to be almost unnoticeable, but it really takes away what I liked about the song.

I think that may fall under the rubric of what I've been saying about her vocals – she doesn't sound really expressive or like she's committed to "selling" the story or emotion in many of these songs (which isn't surprising, considering how old they are).

(and she's always been a really expressive singer, even when her singing was a lot more rough)

xxp: I have always read the short skirts/t-shirts thing as a superiority thing! The "I am not like the other girls" trope kinda applies there.

The lyrics read that way to me on paper, but I also hear some envy/wistfulness/insecurity in her younger voice that makes it more nuanced.

Like in the original version I can hear her wanting to buy into that trope because she's jealous; in the re-recording all I hear is the trope itself.

I also heard it as self-deprecating, in the original song. No one feels superior for sitting on the bleachers (well, a certain kind of snide teen does, but the character in the song isn't Daria).

But maybe you're right! Like, I think there could be elements of both that I had just never thought about.

Did give a listen to Forever & Always on better speakers and yeah, even though it's a decent performance of the song, the differences are kinda stark. Mostly on the production choices, I guess? I think the original was more driving. Also, there's a little artificial harmonic on the electric guitar in the second verse that's a huge point of joy for me in the song and they don't exactly nail it, I don't think.

It got me thinking about how people used to criticize TS for her lack of singing chops, which always confounded me because she sounded great to my untrained ears. Maybe what I liked were some of the vocal nuances that more singing-acquainted people would have considered bad singing and those have disappeared as she has grown as a professional singer? Or maybe she's just not all that worked up about Joe Jonas anymore and her heart wasn't all that in it.

As a high-school bleacher-sitter, I always felt way superior.

It was a false impression, but that's high school.

just wanted to say: "that's when"!!!!!!

I don't really know this album aside from "You Belong With Me," so that's all I listened to, but the original version sounds much better to me. What the re-recording is missing, I think, is the wistfulness in her voice that balanced the cattiness of the lyrics. In the original, "she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts" comes off mostly as envy; she would like to be the kind of person who can wear short skirts. In the re-recording, the envy is missing from her voice, so what I get instead is a sense of superiority, of "she's wrong for you because she's shallow and slutty, unlike me." Does anyone else have that reaction? I feel like I'm zeroing in on something so tiny as to be almost unnoticeable, but it really takes away what I liked about the song.

― Lily Dale, Friday, April 9, 2021 4:13 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been listening to this all weekend, and the vocal delivery is noticeably different throughout. What I hear is an artist who's worked a lot on things like breath control and pitch and is now delivering a much more sturdy, "professional" vocal track. Unfortunately there are places where it feels too clean, or maybe rehearsed is a better word.

And yes, I know *exactly* what you mean on "You Belong With Me." My favorite vocal on the entire original album was the end of verse 2 of "You Belong With Me" where she sings, "You say you're fine, I know you better than that/ Hey, what you doing with a girl like that?" The original is a super sweet falsetto that felt as though she had to work to hit what I assume is a rather tricky melody. It reads playful, naive, and yes, wistful is a good word, too. In the new one, she blows through the first falsetto as though she can now do it in her sleep, and then spits out a "what you doing with a girl LIKE that" in a more arrogant voice.

I know this reads as a criticism. I don't actually know if it's a good or bad thing. She's a far more capable vocalist now than she was when she first started, and I will happily listen to "Taylor's Version." But I'm actually a bit relieved to know others have noticed this too.

Having it on in the background, listening as a whole album, it mostly does the trick for me. I find myself getting wrapped up in it in a lot of the same places I do on the original album. I still think that Forever & Always didn't really get the performance it deserved and I imagine that there are other songs where it works that way for different listeners.

This is a nice song-by-song tribute that NPR put together with contributions from different writers and musicians.

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/12/985842675/still-fearless-re-recording-the-past-on-taylors-version

"Tell Me Why"
Fearless found me at the most pivotal time in my life. I was making the transition from middle school to high school, started growing my hair out in dreads — which would become a staple of my look well into the beginning of my career — and I was finally starting to get a grip on songwriting. I'd started teaching myself guitar in elementary school and by 8th grade, I was proficient enough that everyone wanted me to accompany them at the school's talent show since my middle school didn't have a guitar program (unlike the surrounding schools). I felt kinship with Taylor Swift because she started writing songs really early on in her life and it gave me the confidence to continue to write. Fearless felt like a masterclass on songwriting, but "Tell Me Why" always stood out.

"Tell Me Why" taught me how to write a chord progression. Though it wasn't a single, or even necessarily one of my favorites off the record, it was my absolute favorite to play. Despite its heavy lyrics, the chord progression sounded equally breezy and flowy sonically. The chorus of "Tell Me Why" really stands out. It's wordy and longer than the average chorus, but it never feels clunky.

Additionally, all three choruses in the song vary lyrically, which is something I always love to do. Obviously Taylor wasn't the first to do this, but she was the first I can remember doing it and making it sound as seamless as it was, thus creating yet another T Swift songwriting trick you can track throughout my entire discography — and, I'm sure, for future records to come. — Shamir, musician

Have a weird ask that I wonder if any of you may remember. I have this strong recollection of discovering Taylor's self-titled debut from a blog post circa 2007 that also covered Miranda Lambert's debut or maybe Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. As I remember the blog had a cartoon tiger in the header. Anyone have any clue what I'm talking about? I'd love to know who the writer was and find that post if it's still up somewhere...

I’m glad I bought this, for the “vault” tracks alone—they’re really good! (and what will probably keep me coming back to this version)

WELL WELL WELL you all really went out and left my greatest expectations in shambles this week.😆 Word on the street is you made Fearless (my version) the biggest country album 1st week of the last 6 years & the top release of 2021 so far. Honestly?? How?? Did I get this lucky??

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 16, 2021

I’ve grown to like the re-recorded album tracks a lot now, too. I’ve basically been going back-and-forth between the two versions. What an album...