Taylor Swift: Speak Now

Speak Now

Best song: Dear John

Worst song: Innocent

Overall grade: 5

Taylor Swift’s third album is the first one I listened to all the way through. The first two, I knew as individual songs, and the fact that they were all released at the same time was of little to no consequence. By the time this was released, though, I could see the importance of the album format, so this went on my CD player and I played it straight through, discovering every song at once. Does that influence how I think of it? Probably. There’s no connection between any of these songs, but in my mind they’re far more parts of a whole than just a collection of parts.

It might not be just me, though. Taylor’s certainly becoming more mature here and on many songs we see her taking on a more ‘adult pop’ style, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for her to be looking more towards the album than the singles. Although this development also leads to my main problem with the album: it’s a little predictable. The songs are well written pop songs with a hint of country, exactly the same as the last album, the slightly more sophisticated music and lyrics just able to counterbalance the fact that she’s not stretching herself re. styles.

But still, I’m not one to argue with a bunch of good songs, so let’s talk about some of these. Here, we can divide most everything into upbeat pop songs, slower ballads, and a small amount of slightly more ambitious material.

This last category comprises two of my favourites: this album’s answer to the emotional, multipart storytelling of ‘Love Story’ is ‘Dear John’, but this time it’s a story of empowerment rather than dependence, and it’s outstanding in the way Taylor’s voice shows its narrator move from being broken and hurt to realising she’s better off without that relationship. (That description doesn’t exactly make it sound groundbreaking, but this is impressive stuff.) The other one is ‘Haunted’, a very melodramatic song that almost strays into orchestral rock territory at times and features Swift almost shouting some of the lyrics, refusing to hold back any of her feelings.

A whopping five songs fall into the slow ballad category, and the best is the thoughtful and introspective ‘Never Grow Up’, where Swift gathers the courage to sing to her younger self, pleading with her to enjoy being young while she can, and the futility of the whole exercise makes it incredibly poignant. Also successful are the slow-building, understated ‘Last Kiss’ and the apologetic, uncertain ‘Back to December’ that showcase her talents to the full, both as a singer and a writer. On the other hand, ‘Enchanted’, while a nice tale of meeting someone once and having an instant connection that I can definitely relate to, ultimately doesn’t play to her strengths. And ‘Innocent’ is just an embarrassing attempt at psychoanalysing Kanye West for the incident when he interrupted her VMA acceptance speech.

And finally, upbeat pop. The title track and the closer ‘Long Live’ are both overblown, overproduced, and far cheesier than they rightfully should be, and I wholeheartedly enjoy both of them. Apart from anything else, it’s nice to see a famous musician writing a song appreciating their opportunities rather than complaining about the perils of being famous. ‘Sparks Fly’ is the closest this album comes to filler – it’s fun and catchy but doesn’t have any kind of a deep meaning. ‘Better Than Revenge’ is slightly self-conscious, a girly girl trying too hard to be one of the boys, but it’s catchy as hell and probably a great live number.

And that’s without even mentioning the actual lead single, the double-platinum ‘Mine’. Lyrically it’s the closest copy of anything from ‘Fearless’, with its description of a relationship that goes through its trials and tribulations but ultimately ends up perfect, but it deserves recognition for being the last of Swift’s songs to feature such themes, and there is a charming naiveté in her belief that this could happen.

This third album was entirely written by Swift herself with no help from other songwriters, making it completely her own work. It’s clear she really cares about the messages behind her songs and giving them a certain amount of musical depth, and is capable of realising these aims, but it’d be nice to see her push herself more and think outside the box a bit.