Taylor Swift – Speak Now Review
By Sasquatch at October 26, 2010 | 9:06 pm | Print
Now in no way do I call myself a country music fan. I’m very impartial to all forms of music, although I do tend to gravitate towards the heavy metal genre. I do listen to other styles of music to help balance it out, such like country. I decided that I wanted to do something that I would most likely not normally do, and that is to tackle my first country album review. What better way to start off then to take on mega-hit star Taylor Swift. Bear with me folks as I may be a little out of my element here.
I decided to do a little research before I started to write this. Now most artists in the pop/country genres tend to have co-writers or just plain writers that work with them. During my research I’ve read that Swift has written all of the songs during her tours and her sessions at home. After listening to this album I can surely say that it is starting to show that she is getting into this more on her own.
Speak Now is the follow-up to her monster mega-hit, Fearless, which has set records for the amount of awards that is has won. Most notably are winning the Album of the Year for the American Music Award (AMA), Country Music Association (CMA), Academy of Country Music (ACM), and the Grammies. One wonders how she can follow-up that.
Anyways Speak Now obviously has love songs and songs about breakups. What country wouldn’t have these types of songs? The writing of the songs however was done very well. This is where you see Swift really maturing in the songwriting process. Obviously some of these songs are stemming from personal experiences, whereas on her first album (her self-titled) she claims that she viewed everything from the outside. The music is definitely enjoyable to listen to, with the use of an orchestra it should be. The songs have a pop and rock feel to them with a fusion of country in it. Such songs like the first single, “Mine”, and others like “Back to December” and “Speak Now” has that pop sound in it. Other songs like “Better than Revenge” and “Haunted” incorporate that rock sound into it. The flow of the album has been put together well, where you have the right mix of slow songs mixed with faster-paced songs.
On a final note, I believe this album will surely do very successful. It will no doubt be a classic in the eyes of all Taylor Swift fans. This is just another milestone in the amazing career that this young artist has to offer, and it shows no sign of slowing her down. I’m not saying that I’m going to switch over to the country music genre, but I can say that I will have no problem listening to this album instead of hitting the skip button. Coming from a guy that will listen to metal bands like Metallica, Slipknot and Rob Zombie as well as many others, that is saying a lot. Country fans and just fans of music will definitely love this album.
Notable songs to listen for: Mine, Sparks Fly, Back To December, Speak Now, Mean, The Story of Us, Better than Revenge and Haunted
Tracklist:
1. Mine
2. Sparks Fly
3. Back To December
4. Speak Now
5. Dear John
6. Mean
7. The Story Of Us
8. Never Grow Up
9. Enchanted
10. Better Than Revenge
11. Innocent
12. Haunted
13. Last Kiss
14. Long Live
Speak Now is now available at your local retailer.