Music : Taylor Swift 'Fearless'

Album Info :

Artist : Taylor Swift
Album : Fearless
Release Date: November 11, 2008
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Enhanced
Label: Big Machine Records
ASIN: B001EYGOEM
Genre : Country > Today's Country, Pop > Adult Contemporary
Official site : taylorswift.com

Album Review :

By Andy Hermann Critic's Rating: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
Metromix, November 10, 2008

The buzz: All Taylor Swift did with her self-titled debut album was sell three million copies, produce a pair of chart-topping singles ("Our Song" and "Should've Said No"), get nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy and win virtually every country music award a newcomer can get. Two years later, Nashville's teen phenom is now all of 18 and ready to show that her debut was no fluke.

The verdict: Swift is already a superstar in country music circles, but "Fearless" should catapult her to the top of the pop heap, as well. It's very nearly a flawless record, full of big-hearted anthems with catchy melodies, chiming, pop-radio guitars (and the occasional fiddle and banjo, as if to say, "Don't worry, I'm still a Nashville girl at heart") and disarmingly frank lyrics about being an average American kid with real-life hopes, dreams and dramas. On "Fifteen," she captures the wide-eyed excitement of dating older boys in high school, singing "he's got a car!" like it's the most exciting thing imaginable. "Hey Stephen" is an irresistibly sunny come-on of a love song; "The Best Day" miraculously manages to portray a happy childhood without getting cloying or sentimental; even lead single "Love Story," with its corny "Romeo and Juliet" references, is infused with so much sweetness and precocious wit that it's impossible not to get swept up in the song's surging chorus. Right from the get-go, it appeared that Swift's talent ran deep; on this record, she proves it, and then some.

Did you know? On the CMT show "Crossroads," Swift teamed up British pop-metal veterans Def Leppard to perform songs like "Photograph" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me." (The pairing is less odd than it sounds; the producer behind those classic `80s Def Leppard albums, John "Mutt" Lange, also produced hits for one of Swift's biggest influences, Shania Twain.)

About the Artist
Stepping off Music Row and into the small but stylish lobby of Big Machine Records, a visitor quickly realizes it's not just the walls that reveal the story of Taylor Swift's meteoric rise to stardom. Even the floors have a tale to tell. With much of the vertical real estate already claimed by industry awards, framed national magazine covers, and gold and platinum records, the staff has adopted the tactic of neatly stacking the continuous stream of accolades and achievements along the baseboards. All that's needed is a break in a busy intern's schedule to grab a hammer, a few nails and search out any open wall space.

The photo most often found framed inside with all that precious metal is certainly a familiar one to millions of her fans: the cover of her first album, 2006's Taylor Swift. Knowing what we know now about Taylor, it's a striking image. Gazing back at us are the calm yet intense eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl who knows she has much to say, but isn't really sure if anyone will want to listen.

"It's crazy, the first time making an album, not knowing if people are going to care what I write in a song," Swift admits. "And then the second time around...knowing that there are people who are going to know the lyrics that mean so much to me. It makes it all worthwhile."

A second time around. It's hard to believe it's already time for Taylor to follow up her triple platinum debut. Especially considering that, two years after it's release, it is still near the top of the country charts.

What's even harder to believe is that Taylor Swift has yet to turn nineteen.

And when it came time to put a name to her sophomore effort, Swift decided on one word that just might be the perfect adjective to describe her journey to this moment. FEARLESS.

After all, this is the girl who, at the tender age of 10, had the guts to take the stage at every karaoke contest, festival, and county fair that passed through her hometown of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. This is the girl, who at age 11, took a trip to Music City and left in her wake a trail of amused receptionists as she dropped off her homemade demo tape at every label in town. This is the girl who, at only 14, relocated with her entire family to Nashville to sign a songwriting deal with one of the most prestigious publishers in all of music. This is the teenager who signed her first record deal before she could drive. Who sidestepped the major labels in town to take a chance with a smaller start-up label. Who had the guts to step from an ACM awards stage and into the audience to introduce herself to Tim McGraw live on national television - just seconds after playing the last chord of her first hit song that bears his name.

It's safe to say Taylor Swift knows a thing or two about being FEARLESS.

"It's a big deal to title your album, so I wanted to make sure that it was the right call," says Swift. "I started thinking about the word `fearless' and what it means to me. It isn't that you're completely unafraid. I think fearless is having fears, but jumping anyway."

Jump? With this record, Taylor Swift takes a flying leap. FEARLESS is a creative snapshot of an undeniable talent taking the next big step, both in her life and in her music. The high school freshman who once sang of "trying to find a place in this world" has now seen so much more of it. It shows in the new music.

"I think that when you grow up two years, you learn a few things," reflects Swift. "Some people have been saying that the songs seem more mature. You know I wasn't really going for that. I just wrote what was happening to me. I grew up a little bit and that came into my songwriting."

It's important to remember here -- these are truly her words. Following an impressive trend established on her debut CD, Taylor has once again written or co-written every song on FEARLESS - including seven tracks by herself. Songwriting is a craft Swift has been honing since first strumming a chord on a guitar at the age of 12. By that evening, she had written her first tune. She was hooked. Her life became consumed with songs. Every spare moment was spent writing, playing, or thinking about music. Even while hitting the books as a straight-A student at Hendersonville High School, just outside of Nashville, she was doodling lyrics in the margins of her notebooks.

Even now, with her life barreling down the country music fast lane, Taylor still makes it a priority to put the guitar, pen, and paper she keeps nearby to good use. And it's not easy with her schedule. After signing her record deal, Taylor left her high school locker behind to be home-schooled out on the road. Now instead of English and Latin class, Taylor has been studying George Strait, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts on tour. Instead of class pictures, she's posing for the covers of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Seventeen.

Now, more than ever, making music has become her way of making sense of all the madness. Writing songs helps her stay grounded as her career launches into the stratosphere. But for listeners popping in Taylor's new CD and expecting to hear a laundry list of lyrics on the plight of country music superstar rising through the ranks, FEARLESS is going to surprise you.

"I didn't want to write songs about being on the road and being in hotels and missing your family and missing your friends," insists Swift. "When I was like 14 or 15 and I would hear those things on an album...being alone, living out of a suitcase... and I was always like, `Ugh, skip!' I'm inspired by boys and love. Those are my favorite things to write about and I don't think that that is limited to high school. I'd rather write songs about how I'm feeling and the relationship side of things."

As we quickly realize from several of the tracks on FEARLESS, Taylor has found out relationships only get more complicated with age. Songs like "You're Not Sorry", "Tell Me Why," "Forever & Always," and "White Horse," the latter of which debuted in the 2008 season opener of the primetime drama Grey's Anatomy, find Taylor has learned that "happily ever after" endings are not always a given.

"I think I'm very fascinated by the differences between reality and fairy tales," Swift says. "When we're little, we read these books and we see cartoons and the bad guy is always wearing black. You always know who he is. But in real life, the bad guy can be incredibly charming and have a great smile and perfect hair. He says things that make you laugh and he's sweet and he's funny, but you don't realize that he's going to cause you a lot of pain."

But lest you think it's all ogres and trolls reeking havoc on the landscape of Taylor's love-life, there is a welcomed cameo from a prince charming or two riding to the rescue.

The album's first single, "Love Story," offers up a countrified version of Shakespeare's play that is anything but a tragedy. In Taylor's world, Romeo is still breathing when the curtain closes...and Juliet has a ring on her finger. And in the incredibly infectious "Hey Stephen," Taylor proves she truly is FEARLESS by singing about a secret crush - who will most assuredly not remain a secret for long. Yes, the boy really exists. And yes, Stephen is his real name. "He has no idea the song is written about him," Taylor says with laugh. "It's someone who I've always been friends with and always kind of had a thing for...and he doesn't know. It's always fun for me to put something on the album that is personal. Something I know I'm going to have to deal with when the record comes out."

She even leaves listeners with a positive vibe. The album's final track is a song Swift wrote to inspire her during some of the tougher moments in the early going of her career. "There were times I was working so hard that I didn't realize that every single day our numbers were getting bigger," Swift remembers. "Every single day, our fan base was growing. Every single day, the work that we were doing was paying off. Then, during the 2007 CMA Awards, when they called out my name as the Horizon Award winner, I looked over and saw the president of my record label crying. Walking up those stairs, it just occurred to me that that was the night things changed. It changed everything."

Some things for Taylor, however, have stayed the same. Her steady creative partner Liz Rose is back on board. Rose was a co-writer with Taylor on seven songs from her debut album, and was the first person to encourage her to release "Tim McGraw" out into the world.

Swift has also invited three more talents in to the writing mix on FEARLESS. After getting the title track off the ground with Rose, Swift called on songwriter Hillary Lindsey ("Jesus, Take The Wheel") to help bring the song in for a landing. Blown away by pop songwriter Colbie Caillat's talents on her debut album CoCo, Taylor immediately reached out to her to collaborate. The result is "Breathe," with Caillat adding vocals to the track. "I think she sounds beautiful on it," gushes Swift.

And the final pairing brought two country forces of nature together in the same Music City studio. Taylor Swift meet John Rich.

"It was always one of my goals to write with John," says Swift. "I had heard so many things about him. I just wanted to see what it was like to get into a room with him because I know I'm a very opinionated writer and I knew he was a very opinionated writer. So I knew this was either going to be the best thing in the world or was just going to be a complete train wreck." Not only does the song they created stay on the tracks, it's proof that two great cooks can rock a kitchen. Taylor and John clicked in a big way recording "The Way You Loved Me," a song about the age-old story of a good girl pining after a bad boy.

As if writing every song on the album and living the life of a country superstar wasn't enough, Taylor added even more to her workload when recording FEARLESS. She joins Nathan Chapman, the main man behind the board for her debut album, as a co-producer on the record. "All the songs for the second record, it's like they were already produced in my head," recalls Swift. "When I was writing a song, I knew what every instrument was doing. The strings, mandolin, banjo, or dobro. I heard it all. It was just really cool to have all those instruments I heard end up on the album."

But even as she experiments with new sounds and new directions for her music, Taylor Swift knows the power of a song begins and ends with its lyrics. And it is in two of the softer, more stripped down moments on FEARLESS - the tracks "Fifteen" and "Best Day" -- that Taylor's extraordinary gift for writing shines the brightest as she remembers fondly moments from her past.

We've always known Taylor was an old soul, but songs with this level of reflection from someone still so young - they can leave you shaking your head in amazement. Then you remember she's just a few years removed from her own freshman year - and you understand why her fans, including her over 1 million friends on her MySpace page, love her. She puts to music exactly what they are feeling.

"I want my fans to know - I'm the same girl I was when the first album came out," says Swift. "I'm just not in high school and I have a different schedule. I feel the same things, I feel the same way. And my songs are where I'll never hold back."

That is music to a Taylor Swift fan's ears.
Taken From : http://www.amazon.com

by. JODY ROSEN
Taylor Swift has defied a lot of conventional wisdom. In the midst of a recording-industry implosion, she sold 3 million physical copies of her 2006 debut. At a time when Nashville is dominated by Stetson-wearing male singers in their 30s and 40s, the 18-year-old emerged as country's newest superstar with a repertoire full of girly songs aimed at teens. She is a blond, blue-eyed, amazonian starlet who — unlike nearly every other person who fits that description — writes her own songs, plays an instrument, answers to no Svengali and doesn't rely on high-priced studio ninjas and trendy producers. Britney she ain't.

With her second album, Swift aims to extend her dominion beyond the country-music-loving red states. Songs like "Fearless" and "The Way I Loved You" are packed with loud, lean guitars and rousing choruses. The only overtly country-ish things about Fearless are Swift's light drawl, the occasional reference to a "one-horse town" and a bit of fiddle and banjo tucked into the mix.

Swift is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture that, in singles like the surging "Fifteen," calls to mind Swedish pop gods Dr. Luke and Max Martin. If she ever tires of stardom, she could retire to Sweden and make a fine living churning out hits for Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry.

For the foreseeable future, though, she's concentrating on her own quirky teen pop. She sings one vaguely political anthem, the string-swathed "Change," filled with pronouncements about "revolution" and a singsong chorus of "hallelujahs." And then there's "The Best Day," a goody-two-shoes ode to Mom and Dad: "Daddy's smart, and you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world," Swift croons. But she mostly sticks to her favorite topic — boys, boys, boys — in songs filed neatly under "love-struck" or "pissed off." In the latter category is the infectious "Tell Me Why": "I'm sick and tired of your attitude/I'm feeling like I don't know you."

It's hard not to be won over by the guilelessness of Swift's high-school-romance narratives ("She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts/She's cheer captain, and I'm on the bleachers"), with their starry-eyed lyrics about princesses and ball gowns and kissing in the rain. For Fearless to feel any more like it was literally ripped from a suburban girl's diary, it would have to come with drawings of rainbows and unicorns in the liner notes. The lyric sheet to "Forever & Always" even reveals a hidden message in the form of an acrostic, clearly intended for a young man of Swift's acquaintance: "If you play these games, we're both going to lose."

And therein lies the peculiar charm of Taylor Swift. Her music mixes an almost impersonal professionalism — it's so rigorously crafted it sounds like it has been scientifically engineered in a hit factory — with confessions that are squirmingly intimate and true. In "Fifteen," Swift confides, "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy/Who changed his mind/And we both cried." Swift's real-life best friend is a girl called Abigail — the singer's not afraid to name names. It's safe to assume that the titular love object in the lilting "Hey Stephen" is, well, some dude named Stephen that Swift has a crush on. And she has a question for him: "All those other girls, well, they're beautiful, but would they write a song for you?"
Taken From : http://www.rollingstone.com

Track Listing :

1. Fearless

2. Fifteen

3. Love Story

4. Hey Stephen

5. White Horse

6. You Belong With Me

7. Breathe

8. Tell Me Why

9. You’re Not Sorry

10. The Way I Loved You

11. Forever & Always

12. The Best Day

13. Change

Taylor Swift - CMA awards 2008 - Love Story



Taylor Swift 'Love Story' lyrics

We were both young when I first saw you
I close my eyes
And the flashback starts
Im standing there
On a balcony in summer air

See the lights,
See the party the ball gowns
See you make your way through the crowd
And say hello
Little did i know

That you were romeo you were throwing pebbles
And my daddy said stay away from juliet
And i was crying on the staircase
Begging you please don’t go, and i said

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I’ll be waiting all theres left to do is run
You’ll be the prince and i’ll be the princess
Its a love story baby just say yes

So i sneak out to the garden to see you
We keep quiet 'cause we’re dead if they knew
So close your eyes
Lets escape this town for a little while
Cause you were romeo i was a scarlet letter
And my daddy said stay away from juliet
But you were everything to me
I was begging you please don’t go and i said

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I’ll be waiting all theres left to do is run
You be the prince and i’ll be the princess
Its a love story baby just say yes

Romeo save me, they're tryin to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but its real
Don’t be afraid we’ll make it out of this mess
Its a love story baby just say yes,

Oh, Oh

I got tired of waiting
Wondering if you were ever coming around
My faith in you was fading
When i met you on the outskirts of town, and I said

Romeo save me i’ve been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head, i don’t know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said

Marry me juliet you’ll never have to be alone
I love you and thats all I really know
I talked to your dad go pick out a white dress
Its a love story baby just say yes
Oh,Oh,Yes
We were both young when i first saw you