Taylor Swift: Fearless
Taylor Swift is Fearless on her debut UK album
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Monday, 23, Feb 2009 11:49
Mercury Records, out now.
In a nutshell...
Dreamy country-tinged pop-rock
What's it all about?
This is the UK debut album by American multi-platinum selling teen superstar Taylor Swift and boasts 16 power ballad/nu-country tracks that will provide the soundtrack to the summer.
Who's it by
Taylor Swift is only 19 but she's already written a novel, albeit unpublished, and has two huge-selling US albums to her credit as well as a plethora of music awards.
The grounded teenager is a big fan of country-pop crossover stars Faith Hill and Shania Twain, and her grandmother who was an opera singer in Singapore.
As Taylor was growing up she would listen to her grandmother sing and it inspired her to do the same.
As an example...
"You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors/It's the morning of your very first day/You say hi to your friends you ain't seen in a while." - Fifteen
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
She's nabbed some fine silverware already such as Top New Female Artist from the Academy Of Country Music Awards, so a Grammy is not such a leap of the imagination.
What the others say
"Taylor Swift's songwriting and vocal skills are just top notch. You want to embrace her music and just want to listen to each song as it's told in a storytelling fashion. A true talent and Fearless is just a fantastic album worth listening to!" - J! Ent.com
So is it any good?
The brilliant, 90-styled Love Story has been getting considerable airplay on the Heart FM network and rightly so; it's warm and enthralling nu-country with an eye on soft-focus Hollywood dreams and you fall in love with Taylor Swift's voice on the very first listen.
With the album you get lots, lots more and you're struck by the spiky quality this talented teenager has to her vocals and her music.
Yes, it's country with rock stylings but there's some fun Avril Lavigne attitude in there along with the feisty kick-butt approach of the superb Dixie Chicks.
Taylor Swift can do gentle as evidenced by the folksy, beautiful late summer mistiness of Breathe featuring the fantastic Colbie Caillat.
Taylor can also punch far above her weight with the fiery yearning of You Belong With Me and neatly draws on teen anxieties and foibles with Fifteen.
And she can truly channel one of her idols, namely the powerhouse voice of Faith Hill, on the anthemic Change, a song she wrote when she moved to Nashville after being frustrated by her experiences at a small record label.
Hit-in-the-making Change deserves to be released as soon as possible.
Our Song, near the end of the album, is a jaunty modern love song that wins you over with downhome charm and honkytonk guitar.
Teardrops On My Guitar and Should've Said No are decent enough tear-jerkers but they're de rigueur album tracks, and lack the verve of Fifteen, Love Story and You Belong With Me.
However, the soft rock echoes in Should've Said No have a charming quality that works the song into your affections after a few listens.
Taylor writes most of the tracks on the album and co-writes the rest, and these collaborations are impressive, especially the sublime Breathe and You Belong With Me with Liz Rose.
Expertly co-produced by the artist and Nathan Chapman, Fearless is an album that can cut across musical prejudices as well as genres, with Taylor Swift's sensational vocals providing the barnstorming impetus to conquer the UK.
9/10
Lee Davis