Release Date: 11/11/08
Genre(s): Country, Pop
Taylor Swift started out as a preteen songwriter. Nashville originally snapped her up to write for some of the biggest names in country music. Instead, they recorded the model turned musician and started releasing the bubble gum country pop that Taylor Swift is famous for, such as "Teardrops on my Guitar." Her second album, Fearless, is on the chopping block today.
I'll give Swift this: she can write a hook. Even writing this review, the chorus to "You Belong with Me," is stuck in my head. Darn it. Now I'll have to go listen to The Civil Wars to remind myself that good country music does indeed exist...
The driving force behind this album was the song "Love Story." Given her age, and the content of the song, my guess was that she read Romeo and Juliet (or watched the 90's cult classic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes) and wrote a song about it. Most of her songs seem to read from a teenager's diary, and the lyrics from this album are no different. being able to write a hook doesn't mean that you deserve a recording contract or a Grammy. And yet this album guaranteed Swift both.
There's a reason that this album cranked out radio hits and music videos, to be sure. Swift's catchy hooks are easy to get stuck in your head, and her lyrics definitely appeal to her demographic 13-18 age group. All of the girls want to be her, all of the guys want to date her - she's a marketing dream. However, I don't know that I believe for one minute that Swift is the girl on the bleachers, jealous of the cheerleaders. I would more likely believe that Swift was robbed of a proper adolescence. Maybe one day that experience will slip into her lyrics. Maybe then she'd have something to say worth listening to.
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