Day 10: Never Grow Up

If there's one thing Taylor Swift is known for, it's her transition from country music to pop. This transition didn't fully kick into gear until Red, but songs started to change as early as Speak Now. Some of the songs in this period pulled off a brilliant fusion between country and pop, while others totally botched it and read as a the awkward teenage phase of Taylor's career. Today's song falls into neither of these categories (but also kinda both), which is one of the reasons I like it so much. Attentive readers may already have guessed (or read the title), today we're talking about the 8th song on Speak Now, Never Grow Up.

This song seriously toes the line between being legitimately sincere and pandering, which is why I suspect that people may have such different reactions to it. For me, it comes out on the good side but I could easily see it being different for others.

I like this song because it describes a feeling everyone has eventually, especially when you realize that you're so much older than you thought. For Taylor in the song, this was brought on by helping to take care of a little tiny baby. She reflects on her situation, and urges said toddler to "never grow up". This is, or course, absolutely ridiculous. Everyone knows that there's only one way to make sure kids don't grow up, and I don't think it's what Taylor was suggesting.

Taylor isn't stupid though; she knows everyone has to grow up eventually (except those younglings). It's a hopeless plea but still, we all do it. The purity of children can seem pretty overwhelming, especially when you first move out on your own.

"I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone"

Okay, wow, that got existential. But that is exactly where the previous train of thought leads, there's really no getting away from it. So for someone with an audience with a lot of young girls, I guess I can see how trying to get the message out ahead of time can seem pretty important.

Like I mentioned before, I really like how this song seems almost genre-less. It has hints of country and definitely isn't pop. Really the most accurate way to describe it would be as a lullaby, although that doesn't seem totally right either. It's just a guitar with some vocals. In my opinion, this is a great example of how sometimes less can be way more.

Okay cool, that's all for today. Have a good one.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 9: Ranking Taylor Swift's Albums

Today we're going to have a little fun. I'm going to say which of Taylor Swift's albums are OBJECTIVELY the best and worst. But not the songs specifically, I'm not quite there yet. I may be listening to her music non-stop, but I still don't have the experience needed to say which ones are best. Instead, today I will be basing my list purely off of the album art.

For the most part, the album covers are very nice. I've pictured them all below, listed in order chronologically. For reference I won't be considering the deluxe/platinum/chocolatey-fudge-coated versions of the album covers; I consider them to be non-canon.

I'll be doing this list in reverse order, from 6 to 1. Remember, this list is objective, so please don't post your opinions in the comment section below!

6. Taylor Swift

This picture is fine. Taylor looks fine, the butterflies in the background are fine. It's all fine. Nothing really pops about this picture except her eyes, which to be totally honest look a little overdone. Taylor's future album covers actually have a similar strategy in terms of making Taylor's face pop, but go about it in a different way. It places a little too much focus on her face, probably because no one knew who she was.

5. Fearless

I swear I'm not biased against her older albums. I just honestly think that this album cover is less interesting than the ones that come later. It's a lot like the Taylor Swift album cover, but a lot cleaner. It gets straight to the point. That said, it doesn't really have much more to say than "Taylor Swift pretty".

4. Reputation

The biggest sin of Reputation is that it's too busy. I understand the point of the newspaper text, and in principle I think it works really well. I especially like the way that the text fades into nothing on her face. Unfortunately I think the decision to go gray scale worked against them here; the use of color on the other albums is one of their greatest strengths, something you'll see on all the covers from here out. Also, that choker looks very uncomfortable.

3. Speak Now

The difference between numbers 3 and 2 is so small. Sadly, one has to win out and Speak Now just barely loses out. This is, in my eyes, the ultimate form of Taylor's first three album covers. They finally figured out that you can do more with Taylor than look at her face, and the effects on her dress go very well with the font on the album name and signature. They also used red lipstick to accentuate her face, which works well. I just think it's better in the next albums.

2. 1989

This cover is somewhat of a gimmick, but it pulls it off. The Polaroid style comes together really well with Taylor's look in this picture. The red lips, the seagull shirt, and most importantly the cut off eyes. I can't stress how important that decision was. Seriously, look at this. It's a goddamn monstrosity! That one decision made this album art much better. Also I want that shirt. Oh shit, it exists! And it's on sale! And it's sold out! Fuck!

1. Red

Yeah, I'm sure this was a surprise to no one. The lips, the shadow, the hat, the hair. It all just flows together so well. It would be good on it's own, but considering that the album is called Red, it makes it even better. So congrats to Red! It's probably the last time you'll see it at the top of one of these lists.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 8: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift , not to be confused with Taylor Swift, was Taylor Swift's first studio album. The year was 2006 and the place was Nashville, Tennessee. Taylor wrote most of this album while a freshman in high school. On one hand this makes me feel incredibly inadequate; the writing from my freshman year of high school is so horrendous that I'm afraid to look back at it. More than anything I wish I was a few years older so my middle school and early high school years weren't so well preserved online, but apparently this was not a concern for the young Taylor Swift, who wanted the whole world to learn her name.

And learn it they did! The first song on her album, Tim McGraw, reached the top ten on the Billboard country charts, and she even ended up performing the song at a Tim McGraw concert. It seriously doesn't get much better than that.

If I'm being honest, I don't think this album has aged very well. If I'm being even more honest, I don't think it was ever very good at all. The first three songs, Tim McGraw, Picture To Burn, and Teardrops On My Guitar are by far the best on the album. I don't think this was lost to the young Swift or her producers, since they were strategically placed at the start of the album. They were also three of the five songs released as singles, the other two being Our Song and Should've Said No. The former has aged better than the latter, but they both suffer from the same issue as most of the songs on this album.

And before you say it, no the issue isn't that they're all country music. I actually have quite the soft spot for country music; I listened to it a lot as a youth, including music by Swift herself. Good country finds a way to make almost any emotional subject matter and still make it fun and catchy in a way that's difficult to do in other genres. Some of Taylor's best work does this very well, and continued to do so even after she moved away from the country genre.

No, the issue with so many of these songs is their homogeneity. At this point in her career Taylor still hasn't developed her distinct style, which will really start to emerge on er next album, Fearless. This is understandable, after all despite her musical talent she was very new to the industry and hadn't had her work under the eye of the public before. It's also worth noting that many of these songs were written about the experiences of people she knew rather than her experiences alone. It's no surprise that more compelling songs are developed when the writer has more life experience to draw from. As a result hardly any of the songs end up sticking with audience for longer than their run time.

I want to make it clear that I don't dislike any of the songs on this album, and I'm not just saying that to be nice. When I listen to Taylor Swift, I lose focus and stop really listening way more often than I do compared to her other works. It's not actively bad, just mostly disappointing.

That's all for now, I will take a deeper at the songs on this album at some point in the future, for both the good songs as well as the not so good ones.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 7: I M P A C T

"Show, don't tell."

This is the key to all effective storytelling. Words mean nothing if there is no action behind them. But how can you avoid "telling" in an auditory medium? It's a valid question, and I think that getting to the bottom of it helps to illuminate what this phrase really means. It's not about the use of words, it's really about making the audience feel something. Humans are, by their nature, very empathetic. Human emotion isn't so much complicated as it is difficult to put to words, so the most effective media bridges the gap when more common language can't make it there alone.

Taylor is amazing at this. She has many talents as an artist but the strength of her songwriting has much more to do with the unique and relatable ways that she describes the world, and especially love. One of the best examples of this I can find is the song Dress in her newest album, Reputation. The song is mostly about sexual tension, and describes it without ever using a well-worn analogy like "cutting it with a knife" which seems like a pretty lame comparison next to these lyrics.

"All of this silence and patience, pining in anticipation
My hands are shaking from holding back from you
All of this silence and patience, pining and desperately waiting
My hands are shaking from holding back from all this"

Riverdale season 4 leak incoming

Even though my primary focus here is on the excellence of the lyrics, you really need to listen to the song to get a complete feel for how this song operates. When a song tries to make you feel a complex and specific feeling every aspect needs to work together towards the same goal, and it really comes together in this song. As Taylor sings about the anticipation building, the music and reverb are building towards the beat drop, although climax may be a better descriptor given the subject. 😫.

Gross. Anyways, I also think this next section does a great job at instilling a feeling infatuation.

"Carve your name into my bedpost
'Cause I don't want you like a best friend
Only bought this dress so you could take it off
Take it off "

Telling someone to carve their name into your bedpost is just so genius (as a metaphor. Do it in real life and you'd probably get some weird looks.). I evokes the playful troupe of carving initials into a tree, but it makes it more sexual and personal by making not just in your house, but in your bed (That's where the sex happens {usually}). 

And there's the dress line.

Fuck! No, not that dress, which for the record is definitely white and gold. Anyone who buys that dress better take it off themselves; I sure ain't helping.

"Only bought this dress so you could take it off"

Wanting someone so badly and then getting them all to yourself is such a hard feeling to describe. There's passion, lust, satisfaction, but still plenty of longing. I could try to go on, but I won't because the song does a better job than me. Listen to it a couple times. The lyrics and their intonation are just seamless. There's really nothing else to say.

See you tomorrow,
-C