Review: Speak Now, by Taylor Swift

Last night's illustrious stop to Wally World (the one that yielded the knowledge that the entire hat industry needs to be fired) yielded other goodies as well. Namely, an extremely cost-effective version of Taylor Swift's newest album, "Speak Now."

My daughter-L-has a huge thing for Taylor Swift. And by "a thing", I mean she begs me to put on Taylor Swift the minute we get in the car. Since this is the first Taylor Swift CD I've actually gone out and bought rather than just using and abusing the power of YouTube, it's driven me nuts on more than one occasion!

But she's been stalking this album since we heard it was going to be released, so I told her we'd pick it up. I approached it with a grain of salt at first, then dove whole-heartedly into the deep end.

With tracks like this one on the album, who can blame me?




Now, this is a big swing for the normally upbeat Swift. Her songs have a much more organic, homegrown sound to them this time around, as opposed to the heavily flavored techno, pop and country that have been so prevalent on her other albums. Some of them, like this one, tickled me right to the bone. Others missed the mark. And there's a number of times where she warbles like a bird when she should have held the note, as though she was taking her voice for a test drive. Not very Taylor.

But fans who are willing to set aside the memories of some of her other songs and appreciate this album for what it is-a unique step forward for a young woman flexing her songwriting muscles on her own for the very first time-will really enjoy this. And a number of people who haven't cared for her earlier works will find this a huge step forward.




Tracks

1) Mine
2) Sparks Fly
3) Back to December
4) Speak Now (Truthfully, easily my favorite song on the album)
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