The first time I heard of Taylor Swift was my sophomore year of college. My roommate had her “Our Song” as the ringtone for her boyfriend. I thought it was cute and catchy. My roommate let me listen to her songs and I thought they were good. Then Taylor released Fearless. My roommate had the CD pre-order and was excited about the release. I really enjoyed this album. I went and downloaded this album and her previous one. The songs were starting to grow on me. When Taylor announced her tour my roommate and I had to attend! Her performance was amazing! The lights, theatrics and dances all combined to make you feel like you weren’t just in the arena but you were living the song! She was also very personable with crowd. She came and sang some songs in the back of arena. First she started on the stairs then moved her way down to a mini stage. Also toward the end of the show she came out sporting a Pittsburgh Penguin jersey. It was just great how she incorporated the city and crowd into her songs.
When Taylor was due to drop her third album, I bought it on the very first day it came out. My roommate pre-ordered the album from the website, pre-ordered the deluxe edition from Target and bought the album on iTunes. Needless to say she was excited to get the new record. We both contributed to the 1,046,718 record sales in the first week. Speak Now holds the biggest single-week sales since 2005. Also within an hour of it being released on iTunes it broke her previous record set by Fearless for most country digital downloads. And Speak Now marked the largest debut album release across all genres at Target in the history of the retail chain.
This album takes Taylor into adulthood. She adds grown up details in her songs. “There’s a drawer of my things at your place,” from her hit single “Mine.” Other songs show off her voice and how much it has grown over the years. Again in “Mine” the line, “You made a rebel of careless man’s careful daughter” she lowers her voice to set the mood of the song. Other artists would just build up to that line but she just hides it beautifully. Other songs on the album show off Taylor’s romantic side such as “Dear John,” “The Story of Us,” “Enchanted,” and if you bought the deluxe edition, “Ours.” Taylor also continued to sing about boys. “Back to December,” ballad reminiscences about mistakenly leaving the one you love. The end to the album is “Long Live.” It’s about prom and winning prom king and queen. She wrote it like she attended but most of her high school was spent on a tour bus. The song is a powerful ending to a great album.
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