Day 21: Afraid of Fearless?

Fun fact: Taylor Swift has published six studio albums over the course of her career.This may seem obvious to you, after all I have said it many times. but if you have been reading this blog you might not even know. I say this not because I doubt your knowledge of Taylor's works but because over the last three weeks I've only ever covered content from 5 of her 6 albums. The one that I've left out is her 2008 album, Fearless. Fans of this album have made themselves known and rest assured, I have heard you loud and clear.

I've been steering clear of Fearless up to now not out of aversion for the music, but mostly out of apathy. Before you get too angry, let me first say that Love Story and You Belong With Me are iconic and anyone who disagrees is either lying to themselves or ignorant to the facts. But I didn't want to talk about the only two notable songs on the album only to never touch it again, hence why I've waited for so long.

I haven't been found any songs that I dislike like I have in Red, or any songs that keep impressing me the more I listen like Reputation. In a similar vein as Taylor Swift, Fearless has a few songs that blew up and the rest of the album is pretty unremarkable and unoffensive. I believe there are a lot of good reasons for this, like how this was earlier in Taylor's career so her style wasn't as well developed or distinct as it would eventually become. An artist's second album after a few hits is also a very uncertain time, since they are trying to cement themselves as a lasting presence rather than just a one hit wonder. As a result, Fearless ends up being more of the same that was on Taylor Swift, which to be totally honest gets pretty stale after a few listens, especially compared to her other works.

This makes it so that there's no easy song on Fearless to talk about. The two hit singles were so popular that it is often difficult to hear past the nostalgia. I'm getting a better idea of what I want to talk about the more I listen to them, but for now I'm left with very little to say about this album.

Yeah, pretty much

But I know there are a lot of fans of Fearless out there, and I don't want to let all of you down! So I'm going to buckle down and listen to it even more than I already have been. I'll find something to say about this album if it kills me! But I have been having a good time so hopefully it doesn't. Also I want to see if J.J. Abrams can make me care about Star Wars again so I need to be alive at least another year. But that's too far in the future to be thinking about right now. One day at a time folks!

See you tomorrow,

-C