Is Taylor Swift Debbie Gibson or Joni Mitchell?<\/p>\n
"Speak Now" is Taylor Swift’s effort at self-justification.\u00c2\u00a0 She wrote all the songs, it’s totally her…and we wish it wasn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 We wish she still co-wrote, that she used the usual suspect producers, then it would be more professional, less cringeworthy, more radio-friendly and acceptable to those who are not diehard fans.<\/p>\n
What you notice first is the terrible sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Loud and edgy, which does a disservice to Taylor’s voice.\u00c2\u00a0 And the endless "Dear John" makes it clear why Mayer has not acknowledged, never mind refuted Taylor’s account. Hey, she was nineteen!\u00c2\u00a0 But didn’t Steely Dan sing "we got nothing in common" in "Hey Nineteen"?<\/p>\n
Then you notice that this is not a country album.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, country isn’t even country anymore and Taylor Swift inhabits that rarefied world where you’re genre-proof, where your fans accept you for who you are, you don’t have to worry about playing the game…or do you?<\/p>\n
Give Taylor credit.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to "Speak Now" the radio singles don’t jump out.\u00c2\u00a0 "Speak Now" is statement, from the mind of a twenty year old, who’s had way too much success way too fast and missed out on growing up but learned so many lessons she wish she hadn’t.<\/p>\n
Listening, you think of a million rock albums.\u00c2\u00a0 The endless dirgey numbers Alice In Chains specialized in.\u00c2\u00a0 You can see a rock band working out on stage.\u00c2\u00a0 And you think this record is written for little girls, allowing the elder audience to dismiss Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n
Then you come to "Never Grow Up".<\/p>\n
It was the quiet numbers that Taylor built her reputation upon.\u00c2\u00a0 "Tim McGraw", "White Horse"…\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re strangely absent from "Speak Now".\u00c2\u00a0 You know, the kind of number you listen to while sitting alone on the floor of your bedroom in a rainstorm.\u00c2\u00a0 "Never Grow Up" has all the honesty, all the insight Taylor Swift is famous for without the wincing indictments of those who’ve wounded her.<\/p>\n
You’re in the car on the way to the movies<\/span> Whew!\u00c2\u00a0 Who hasn’t been there, too young to drive, still tethered to your parents yet so desirous of being independent and grown up, cool. Funny to see a song that can juggle two perspectives.\u00c2\u00a0 Reminds me of Jay-Z’s "Can I Get A…"\u00c2\u00a0 He’s ripping on the women and then they come in to tell their own side.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s revelatory, it illustrates how complicated life truly is. Parents were children once too.\u00c2\u00a0 And as much as they want you to grow up so that they don’t have to endure your whining and your sleeve-tugging demands, they’re mortified when you do.\u00c2\u00a0 It means they’re getting older.\u00c2\u00a0 It means soon they’ll have too much time on their hands instead of not enough.<\/p>\n This is what Taylor Swift specializes in.\u00c2\u00a0 The honest communication of the teenage landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 When she tries to be an adult, she gets confused.\u00c2\u00a0 You see teens still show their bruises, complain and cry, whereas adults are more cerebral, they play the game and only reveal themselves intermittently.<\/p>\n "Speak Now" will sell through Christmas.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s review-proof.\u00c2\u00a0 And after that, Taylor Swift will play live to swooning masses.\u00c2\u00a0 After that?<\/p>\n Give John Mayer credit, he broke the mold.\u00c2\u00a0 He was overexposed when everybody said to hold back and now he’s removed when everybody else is finally exposed.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s ahead of the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he realizes the rules have changed.<\/p>\n "Speak Now" is all about the rules.\u00c2\u00a0 An album two years after the last one, hyped to high heaven in every medium known to man.\u00c2\u00a0 As far as playing the Jet Blue terminal…is this her target demo, or does she just want to fly free for life?<\/p>\n "Speak Now" does not augur well for longevity.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s both too cutesy and too dramatic, just like an adolescent girl. The question is whether Taylor Swift can grow.<\/p>\n If Taylor can be as honest about being a woman as she was about being a girl, there’s hope.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s got to work with a producer who flatters her voice, she has to decide whether she’s removed or involved, whether she’s giving us a peek at the life of a star or a regular person.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean it’s hard to have sympathy for someone who says they were screwed by John Mayer…what did she not know?\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t she living out every high school girl’s fantasy?\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t it have been better if she blamed herself instead of John?\u00c2\u00a0 If she owned her actions instead of blaming him for the hurt?<\/p>\n A lot to contemplate.<\/p>\n But "Never Grow Up" points a way out.\u00c2\u00a0 "Never Grow Up" is infiltrated not a whit by all the b.s. of her public life. It’s private, just like the lives of the rest of us civilians, we can identify, we want more like this.<\/p>\n Taylor Swift should not wait two more years for another album, to release more new material.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d love to hear a monthly report on her growing up, told with the hooks which are evident on "Speak Now".\u00c2\u00a0 She needs to blend the authenticity of "Never Grow Up" with the world of modern communications.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this wounded teen bird act ain’t gonna last forever.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is Taylor Swift Debbie Gibson or Joni Mitchell? "Speak Now" is Taylor Swift’s effort at self-justification.\u00c2\u00a0 She wrote all the songs, it’s totally her…and we wish it wasn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 We wish she still co-wrote, that she used the usual suspect producers, then it would be more professional, less cringeworthy, more radio-friendly and acceptable to those who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-TG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3453,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions\/3453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
And you’re mortified<\/span>
You’re mom’s dropping you off<\/span><\/p>\n
But, don’t make her drop you off around the block <\/span>
Remember that she’s getting older too<\/span><\/p>\n