Taylor Swift: Fearless Poll

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?

...

I'm standing by it.

given how many words have been expended on explaining why t-swift is amazing, claiming you don't understand why people love her or acting surprised when they express this love is tantamount to admitting you're illiterate at this point

or we are decently literate and just think a lot of people on this site are fronting

I think a lot of people here don't actually enjoy country music as they'd like to on some philosophical level and taylor swift - who writes decent, approachable pop songs - is a good way to pretend like they actually like country music. hope she makes a 'yankee hotel foxtrot' soon!

also whenever you guys start analyzing her amazing songwriting techniques, you guys look like some parent talking about their 10 year old's amazing academic prowess. look at her, she used a 'bridge'!!! can you believe she's only 20??

I don't think anyone on ILX who praises Taylor Swift is using it in any way to claim they're really into Country now, or even that Swift is the token Country artist they like as some sort of 'look at how eclectic I am' front.

just one theory to explain the fronting, maybe you got a better one?

somewhere between 'she really is that good' and 'Tim F's enthusiasm is infectious'?

most of the "real" country music fans on ilm like taylor swift, afaik. including me.

but i like the idea that anyone needs a theory to explain why people like good pop music.

I still hate country. I don't believe that Taylor Swift has any country in her music, other than a few extremely minor banjo parts and shit.

you definitely don't have to like country to like her. fearless especially is pretty much just a pop-rock album with a few country touches. (the first one is more obviously country.)

but you also don't need some complex double-blind study to figure out why anyone enjoys catchy well-written pop songs.

Her stuff reminds me more of Fleetwood Mac.

I'm giving my vote to Love Story, since it's the song that won me over. And I really enjoy almost all country music.

Very curious about this "philosophical level" that I should be or would like to enjoy country music on?

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~bertrand/5_nob_6.jpg

"If you don't like Taylor Swift on my level, you're just fronting."

just one theory to explain the fronting, maybe you got a better one?

the obvious - it's not fronting and you have to be really, really fucking thick to think it is

also whenever you guys start analyzing her amazing songwriting techniques, you guys look like some parent talking about their 10 year old's amazing academic prowess. look at her, she used a 'bridge'!!! can you believe she's only 20??

how on earth is this even remotely like what anyone's said? who has ever praised her for using a bridge? at this point you're just arguing with the voices of the strawman in your head

Ol' Strawy. Great guy.

Lol at the idea of people saying they like Taylor Swift as a way to gain cred. for liking country. ??? Liking country still doesn't bring a lot of cultural cache. If you did want to prove you liked country, there are hundreds of country artists it would be more appropriate to claim to like rather than Taylor Swift.

I don't think people are fronting when they say they like her, I think they're fronting about how much they like her.

So many non-country fans probably like her precisely because she's pop country.

x-post:

Well it's certainly possible for people to front for various reasons. Personally I like her but not nearly as much as some others seem to do. I really did find her one of the more appealing recording artists on commercial radio over the last year and a half, and I genuinely do find some of her songs pretty moving. Her overall sound is a little too far removed from what I usually go for for me to want to hear her that often.

Haha, if people on ILM front about liking things, it may simply be because a lot of us really enjoy liking things.

this is boring. iatee, you're being a) totally ill-mannered b) completely dense - shrieking "i don't believe you!" in response to a bunch of disparate people articulating why they like something doesn't cut it. i think you're fronting when you say you don't believe any of us tbh.

as I said, I don't disbelieve that plenty of people genuinely like taylor swift and I do think there are reasons to like her...she makes simple and accessible pop music. I just think there's a difference between a. 'like taylor swift' and b. 'believe that taylor swift created the best piece of music in 2009'. I do think anyone in group b is fronting to some degree or another, and it's pretty apparent in the way some people here talk about her. this thread: Taylor Swift '08: The Hype, Anticipation & Appreciation Begins Right Here is filllllled with people projecting complexity onto her music.

No, they're not projecting complexity onto her music. Most music is complex, has subtext, some sort of motivation. They're trying to untangle what it all means, and finding the process gratifying. Why? Because the music is so good they want to pore over every detail. What you're doing is completely ridiculous and the worst kind of argument because you make sure that nothing we say will ever 'prove' it wrong. I can verbally abuse you and call you a shithead, and you'll keep on saying "you're fooling yourself". I'm not in the habit of playing something on repeat far more than any other music unless I think it's the best album of a particular year. Short version: Get a life.

lol @ its good cuz i like it

iatee killing it itt

No, they're not projecting complexity onto her music. Most music is complex, has subtext, some sort of motivation. They're trying to untangle what it all means

um if you need some help untangling what a taylor swift song means, I can help you out

I think a lot of people here don't actually enjoy country music as they'd like to on some philosophical level and taylor swift - who writes decent, approachable pop songs - is a good way to pretend like they actually like country music

this is really stupid -- why would anyone pretend to like country music? i don't fuck with country music at all but taylor is the most mainstream pop country out there -- that's why a lot of people who don't like country dig her

fyi white horse is really abt her challenging battle with cocaine addiction

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0CNi9wqirCA/0.jpg

i think it's one thing to say "you all are retarded for liking this music" -- i think it's another to say "you all are pretending to like this and are expressing this by writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about this music on a message board thread read by 20 people" -- i really don't think that there's any fronting going on

fyi white horse is really abt her challenging battle with cocaine addiction

O_o

i think it's one thing to say "you all are retarded for liking this music" -- i think it's another to say "you all are pretending to like this and are expressing this by writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about this music on a message board thread read by 20 people" -- i really don't think that there's any fronting going on

right, again and again: I don't think people are pretending to like her. liking taylor swift isn't that hard. I think a lot of people are exaggerating how much they like her and the paragrahps upon paragraphs are be sorta smh embarrassing after her next album comes out and it's more of the same, except a little worse and you guys get bored.

i don't fuck with country music at all but taylor is the most mainstream pop country out there -- that's why a lot of people who don't like country dig her

I said as much...

the "paragraphs upon paragraphs" are a lot less than has been written on ilm about vampire weekend, tv on the radio, animal collective and a whole lot of other schmindie hype that i for the life of me can't figure out how anyone stays interested in enough to listen to much less write about, but i don't think any of those people are or pretending or exaggerating. they just like different stuff than me. i don't know how you'd measure if someone is exaggerating how much they like something, but i know for sure that in the last 16 months or so fearless has been one of the 10 albums i've listened to most, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was in the top 5. i've also made copies of it for friends and family, and made fans of several of them.

so ... yeah. some of us really do like it that much.

yah idk i totally believe u dudes like this garbage "that much" but a lot of the paragraphs strike me as granting whats basically a 2nd rate rilo kiley album a degree of subtlety and complexity is doesnt have & doesnt really much seem to want

I've never heard a Rilo Kiley song, but the song Jenny Lewis did for Bolt was nice.

That shit actually breaks my cold heart, come to think of it.

granting whats basically a 2nd rate rilo kiley album a degree of subtlety and complexity is doesnt have & doesnt really much seem to want

conversely a lot of the anti-taylor snideness here and elsewhere strikes me as almost-not-at-all veiled contempt for the idea that teenage blonde girls could have anything at all to say.

Would prefer it if Taylor Swift's were more along the lines of Voivod, it is true.

conversely a lot of the anti-taylor snideness here and elsewhere strikes me as almost-not-at-all veiled contempt for the idea that teenage blonde girls could have anything at all to say.

they dont, really! i mean i guess u can call t.swift's suburban fairly tale garbage "universal" or w/e but catching feelings off a taylor swift jam is just lol.

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...