Tag Archives: Taylor Swift

Ours (Single Review) – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s follow up to her #1 country hit, Sparks Fly (check my review) is a song off the deluxe version of her album, Speak Now, titled Ours.

“Elevator buttons and morning air,” she sings sweetly as the song opens up. “Strangers’ silence makes me wanna take the stairs. If you were here, we’d laugh about their vacant stares but right now, my time is theirs. Seems like there’s always someone who disapproves. They’ll judge it like they know about me and you. And the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do. The jury’s out but my choice is you.”

Then she breaks into the chorus, the background of which is a happy melody that goes well in hand with the lyrics she’s painting: “So don’t you worry your pretty little mind, people throw rocks at things that shine and life makes love look hard. The stakes are high, the water’s rough but this love is ours.”

 Ours‘ highlight comes in the form of the song’s bridge, which is sort of typical for Taylor’s songs – she leaves her best songwriting skills to that part of the song: “And it’s not theirs to speculate if it’s wrong and your hands are tough but they are where mine belong and I’ll fight their doubt and give you faith with this song for you. Cause I love the gap between your teeth and I love the riddles that you speak. And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos will be ignored, cause my heart is yours.”

Ours has an infectious happy melody that, like many of Taylor’s uptempo songs and whether you like them or not, you’ll find stuck in your head. You may not like the song and you may switch the channel if it comes on the radio but after random repeated plays, you’ll find that you actually know the melody to it. It’s a simple tune, it’s a happy tune. It’s a tune very easy to memorize.

Many have spoken highly of Taylor’s songwriting skills on Ours. And well, Taylor Swift is a great songwriter in her own merit. She manages to turn a subject, which most other songwriters would turn into a cliche-ridden song, into something fun, breezy and happy. Even her vocal delivery, which many people say is subpar, works for this song because it’s the type of songs that actually sounds better not sung perfectly. The little mistakes here and there, the laughs spread throughout help Ours have soul. In fact, Ours mostly works because Taylor’s singing it. Had any other artist taken on this song, it would have sounded like a big mess of sappy lyrics and forcibly uptempo melody. Ours is as it is because of Swift’s delivery.

So for all matters and purposes, Ours is a fine song. It’s definitely not the best Taylor has written and it’s definitely not the best choice for a single off an album that has songs like “Enchanted” still left on its track list. Ours lacks the freshness that was in Mean and it lacks the immediate hit that was Sparks Fly. But it’s Taylor Swift so of course it won’t fizzle away and die on country radio like the songs of almost every other female country artist (with the exception of Carrie Underwood).

Perhaps after having a good radio streak, Taylor Swift should have went for broke and released the best song on “Speak Now,” this little song titled Enchanted which no one cannot like. I find it weird that they had to revert to a bonus track on the deluxe edition of the album, which until recently wasn’t even available everywhere in the US. And the sad thing is, Ours isn’t even the best bonus track.

6.5/10

Listen to Ours:

Top 13 Songs of 2011

Since this is the last day of 2011, I figured I’d save all my “Top of 2011” posts to it. First post to go public – songs:

Note: the top 5 songs can easily be rearranged as you see fit. I have personally classed them as such based on how often I listened to them according to their iTunes play count.

13 – We Are Young – Fun.

This indie band released this song back in September but never got into it until very recently. It’s quirky, exciting and, well, fun. “Tonight, we are young. So let’s set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun.”

12 – You and I  – Lady Gaga

One of the few Lady Gaga songs I can stand and my favorite of hers by far. It could be that there’s nothing “Gaga” about it. It could be that it might as well be played on country radio but You and I is definitely the best song on her otherwise disappointing new album: Born This Way. (My review of You and I)

11 – We Owned The Night – Lady Antebellum 

My favorite song off their new album, Own the Night. The lyrics are smooth, fresh and lively. The music is happy, effervescent. The chorus is one line that will get stuck in your head. “Yeah we owned the night!” (My review of We Owned The Night).

10 – Safe & Sound (Feat. The Civil Wars) – Taylor Swift

This newly released song is easily one of my favorites of 2011 as well simply because it is a greatly written somber song, perfectly befitting the mood of the movie it will be part of. It is among Swift’s best works and can be one of the few songs she has written that would please a wider fanbase than the teenagers she normally targets. “Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light you and I’ll be safe and sound.” (My review of Safe & Sound).

9 – Eighteen Inches – Lauren Alaina

My favorite song off Lauren Alaina’s great debut album, Wildflower. It is a sweet song about young lovers who elope to start a new life. “When you’re young and in love you might do some things that don’t seem all that smart. Cause there ain’t no greater distance than the eighteen inches from your head to your heart.”

8 – 20 Years – The Civil Wars 

Absolutely one of the most stunning songs I recently heard. There’s no clear chorus, there’s no clear bridge – it’s nowhere near a typical song you’d hear anywhere. And it’s simply breathtaking. “In the meantime I’ll be waiting for twenty years and twenty more. I’ll be praying for redemption and your note underneath my door and your note underneath my door…”

7 – Skinny Love – Birdy

Released early in 2011, this is a Bon Iver cover. Well, forgive me Bon Iver but your song about heartbreak is conveyed in a way more heartbreaking way by this fifteen year old singer. “Come on skinny love, just last the year. Pour a little salt, you were never here…”

6 – Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People

This alternative hit came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise. It is a very dark song – even darker than many people think it is. And yet, it comes off as a very smooth listen. “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,You better run, better run, outrun my gun.All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,You better run, better run, faster than my bullet.”

5 – Rolling In The Deep – Adele

Let the Adele domination of whatever remains of this list begin. Her first single of her smash of an album (or whatever you call selling over 15 million copies worldwide of an album in one year nowadays) is also one of the year’s biggest hits everywhere. “There’s a fire starting in my heart reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark.”

4 – Someone Like You – Adele 

Because no other breakup song can be this good. Someone Like You is chilling. Someone Like You is captivating. Someone Like You is a song almost every other artist out there wishes they had written. “Nothing compares, no worries or cares. Regrets and mistakes, they’re memories made. Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?” (My review of Someone Like You).

3 – If I Die Young – The Band Perry

Although released to country radio back in 2010, I’ve decided to include this song in this list because 1. I didn’t have a blog in 2010 and 2. It was released to other radio formats in the US in 2011. There’s just so much I can say about this song and I would still be able to say more. You only need to look at how many people were affected by this song to know exactly the magnitude of its reach. It may not have become the smash hit that Someone Like You or Rolling In The Deep became but it is a song equally worthy, if not more. What song can get a sixty year old woman to stand in a concert in the scorching sun and hold a banner saying: “She died young.” You can’t listen to If I Die Young without being contemplative. “If I die young, bury me in satin. Lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in the river at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song.”  (My review of If I Die Young).

2 – Set Fire To The Rain – Adele

My favorite song off Adele’s 21. This song is about her breakup – as is all her album, obviously – but this song treats that breakup in a very different light than the other songs. It’s a confusing song in the sense that the beat is there so you’d expect the song to be happy and yet the lyrics are devastating. “My hands, they were strong. But my knees were far too weak to stand in your arms without falling to your feet. But there’s a side to you that I never knew. All the things you’d say, they were never true. All the games you’d play, you would always win.”

1 – Remind Me (feat. Carrie Underwood) – Brad Paisley

The bonafide country hit of the year. Remind Me, the fourth single off Brad Paisley’s new album, is a song about a couple wanting to rekindle their dying romance and it resonates with almost all couples who have been together up to a point where they’ve become so used to each other they take their significant other for granted. The song beholds a stunning vocal performance by Carrie Underwood who’s set to release her fourth album sometime in 2012. “Do you remember how it used to be, we’d turn out the lights and we didn’t just sleep? Remind me, baby remind me.” (My review of Remind Me).

Safe & Sound (From “The Hunger Games” Soundtrack) [feat. The Civil Wars] (Single Review) – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s Christmas present for her fans arrived in the form of a song titled “Safe & Sound,” which is serving as the lead single for one of 2012’s most anticipated movies: The Hunger Games.

The song opens with a guitar playing to which Swift sings eerie breathiness: “I remember tears streaming down your face when I said, I’ll never let you go, when all those shadows almost killed your light. I remember you said don’t leave me here alone. But all that’s dead and gone and passed tonight.”

The moment Swift utters the first note, you know this isn’t like any song she has written before and it’s a very welcome departure from her previous works to a more mature, mellow musical sound.

“Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I will be safe and sound” Swift sings on the chorus, with the hums of The Civil Wars, who are featured with her on the song, in the background only serving to increase the overall tense atmosphere of the song and make it more fitting of the movie it will be part of.

For those who don’t know, The Hunger Games is based on a book of the same title and is set in a post apocalyptic world where there is very little hope, very little potential for a better life and where the young people of that world have to kill each other for the entertainment of their ruthless governing Capitol as part of the Hunger Games. Once you have that in your mind, it’s very easy to see how this song fits perfectly that atmosphere. You can easily imagine the characters of the book sitting around a campfire and singing this to maybe bring nonexistent strength to their spirit.

“Don’t you dare look out your window, darling everything’s on fire. The war outside our door keeps raging on. Hold onto this lullaby even when the music’s gone,” Swift sings on the second verse with slightly more strength to echo a buildup in the song teller’s morale. The vocals are layered and icy while trying to echo the building fire inside. It simply works.

The Civil Wars are more pronounced on the second verse onwards as their provide beautiful harmonies to Taylor’s singing, providing an eerie echo that resonates with the overall ethereal atmosphere painted in the song, adding to the folky sound the song has.

Safe & Sound is dark. Safe & Sound is anything but safe and sound for a singer who has become more known for her tween hits than her better songs that never see the light of day on radio. Safe & Sound is here to show that Taylor Swift is truly one of this generation’s best songwriters – one who is able to craft an idea into a song that can fascinate you. She uses beautiful imagery and manages to create musical hooks out of the gloomiest of songs. Safe & Sound is no exception to that rule. Safe & Sound is the most grown-up Taylor Swift has ever been on song. This is one of the few songs she has where she doesn’t talk about boys, love, fairytales and broken romances. This is a song about life, about hardships – and she pulls it off brilliantly.

8/10 

Wildflower (Album Review) – Lauren Alaina

Lauren Alaina’s greatest challenge with her debut album was to deliver something that represented both her young age, appealing to listeners her age, and to which older listeners could also relate.

With the release of her first album, Wildflower, she does just that. Showcasing her young, vibrant personality, she doesn’t shy away from discussing complex themes. Her approach to the love theme is not just fairytales and princes à la Taylor Swift, the soulfulness of her voice adds depth to all her songs.

The album opens up with a highly catchy uptempo and Lauren’s second single “Georgia Peaches,” her ode to her home state’s girls. “Well, our shorts a little shorter,” she sings, “’cause the sun’s a little hotter, sippin’ lemonade while we’re playing in the water. Ain’t nothing sweeter than us Georgia peaches.”

She proceeds with the midtempo “Growing Out Her Wings,” where she sings playfully about growing up in the shade of overprotective parents, without being overly critical about it. In fact, she doesn’t criticize. She sings how they got “her whole life on lockdown, doing time behind her bedroom door… dreaming ’bout the girl she’s gonna be, growing her wings.”

The third song is “Tupelo,” a well written remembrance to a summer road trip with a loved one, all the way down to Tupelo. While Lauren needs a few years to nail the sultriness of the chorus, she will definitely get there. And “Tupelo” remains a very enjoyable song.

The album then proceeds to a a very inspirational ballad called “The Middle” about making the best of the time you have. It is the album’s first track where Lauren Alaina’s emotions shine as she tries to convey the message she’s beginning to learn herself. And she does convey the message at hand, which makes the overall feat even more impressive. “The day you’re born is a start,” she sings, “your last breath is a question mark. The story of your life is in the in between.”

“Like My Mother Does” is the album’s first single, released soon after the American Idol finale and it is about a girl being thankful to her mother. It is a highly emotional song that is bound to get anyone smiling, with their mother’s face flashing before their eyes. “When I love, I give it all I’ve got like my mother does. When I’m scared, I bow my head and pray like my mother does. When I’m weak and unpretty, I know I’m beautiful and strong because I see myself like my mother does.”

The album’s title is based on the song “She’s a Wildflower,” an uptempo about a girl that did not fit in, dreading going on with her life because of the taunting, not knowing that “she’s a wildflower, just waitin’ on the winds of change to blow.”

On the uptempo “I’m Not One Of Them,” Lauren Alaina is telling the boy she wants to date that many girls “might fall for what you got but I’m not one of them.”

And then comes one of the album’s true highlights and a song that will leave you mesmerized: “The Locket.” “Back in ’41, you met a brown-eyed boy, who called you pretty,” she sings. “He’d walk every day, couple miles out of his way to hold your hand and keep you company… he gave you his picture in a locket that you wore around your neck. Left it right beside your heart so you would not forget the way it felt when he held your hand.” The song then proceeds, two years later, and the boy left for war, swearing he’d marry the girl and as she cried while he rode away, she clutched the picture in her locket so she wouldn’t forget how he kissed her, how he spent time with her. 60 years later, the girl is struggling to remember. She’s a grandmother now, her granddaughter by her side writing down her memories of the man she spent 60 years with and who left her two month prior. “And it breaks my heart to see you struggle to remember. I’ve been writing your memories down and I stopped by today to read a couple pages. Grandma, you sure look pretty. And you smiled that smile, the one I haven’t seen in a quite a while. And you said to me I want you to keep his picture in the locket that I wore around my neck, the one I left beside my heart so I wouldn’t forget…”

Following up “The Locket” is the album’s second highlight, the Carrie Underwood co-written midtempo: “Eighteen Inches,” about a young couple who elopes to California. “Eighteen Inches” delivers the album’s strongest hook in the form of the chorus: “Cause when you’re young and in love, you might do some things that don’t seem all that smart. Cause there ain’t no greater distance than the eighteen inches from your head to your heart.” The song features Carrie Underwood’s preferred narrative style of having three parts to the story in three different verses. And while the song wouldn’t have worked for Carrie’s albums, it sure works for Lauren. She doesn’t romanticize their decision. She doesn’t judge them either, which is surely helped by the lyrics. But Lauren’s delivery helps as well. It is Lauren’s youthful innocence that colors this song.

“Eighteen Inches” is followed up by the uptempo “One of the Boys” where Lauren Alaina lays our her preference: “he ain’t too pretty, he ain’t too sweet. A little rough around the edges, cute and country just like me. One of those t-shirt, blue jean wearin’, riverside Saturday night and Sunday mornin’ church kinda goin’ boys.”

“Funny Thing About Love” is a song co-written by Lauren Alaina. Co-writer Luke Laird and Brett James said how she came to them and wanted to write a song about how complicated love can be for her age: “you used to want me but I didn’t want you. Now I want you but you don’t want me. Why can’t our two hearts just make up their minds and want the same thing at the same time.” What’s interesting about this song is Lauren Alaina’s candid approach to the topic at hand. At one point, she sings: “we were best friends until I kissed you. You know you liked it and I did too. As soon as you admit you’re crazy about me, I’m off and running…” While the first verse is the weakest part of the song, Lauren’s conviction while singing it is enough to deliver this song.

And the album concludes with “Dirt Road Prayer,” a prayer to a girl’s family members: her mother, father, brother, grandfather… There’s an element of vulnerability to this that makes it a highlight. It’s a reach out to those family members to feel close again. It’s a reach out to God so He protect them.

“Wildflower” is a very strong album. Debut or no debut. Many country artists, regardless of age, would readily give an arm or a leg to have the caliber of songwriters and artists that worked on Lauren Alaina’s album. Her talent shines through on each track and gives the listener – regardless of age – a highly joyful experience that will fluctuate between getting you emotional to making you smile. The album is safely country-pop. It has a healthy dose of both. Those who watched American Idol will recognize Lauren Alaina’s personality on the album. Those who have not will hear a strong young lady, who knows what she wants and who knows exactly where she wants her career to go. Her songs are rooted in reality. They revolve around friend, family, heartache.

If this is an indication of how Lauren Alaina’s career will unfold, I think country music listeners are in for a treat.

Sparks Fly (Single Review) – Taylor Swift


Taylor Swift just announced Sparks Fly as the upcoming single off her 3x platinum album: Speak Now.

The song, which has existed for a few years now, was given a slight makeover and included, due to overwhelming fan demand, on Taylor’s newest album: Speak Now.

The song opens: “the way you move is a full on rainstorm and I’m a house of cards…”, a line that I think is lyrical gold. It also sets the bar very high for the song to have such a line open it, add to that the very catchy music to which this line goes.

Taylor then proceeds: “you’re the kinda reckless that should send me running but I kinda know that I won’t get far… and you stood there in front of me, close enough to touch, close enough to hope you couldn’t see what I was thinking of.”

Sparks Fly is a song about falling for someone you shouldn’t fall for: be it someone older, someone younger… but at the same time, you can’t but be mesmerized by that person.

“Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain, kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain. Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile. Get me with those green eyes, baby as the lights go down. Give me something that’ll haunt me when you’re not around” Taylor sings on the chorus. And the chorus is very heartfelt and raw. You feel on it the helplessness of Taylor as she tries to get away but she’s too tangled by him.

“My mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea”, she sings on the second verse, on which lies most of the change from the original version of Sparks Fly, which was sung live at a concert a few years back. She declares: “I’m on my guard with the rest of the world but with you, I know it’s no good. And I could wait patiently but I really wish you would drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain…”

And then comes the song’s bridge. Up to this point, Sparks Fly could have easily been on Taylor’s previous albums. It has the rhythm, the catchy tune and the lyrics that would have definitely worked with the theme adopted by Taylor for her previous album Fearless. But then she reworked the bridge to make it sound like this:

I run my fingers through your hair
And watch the lights go wild
Just keep on keepin’ your eyes on me
It’s just wrong enough to make it feel right
And lead me up the staircase
Won’t you whisper soft and slow
I’m captivated by you baby
Like a firework show

And this is where the song rises. Some might think these lyrics are corny but think about it this way. If Sparks Fly plays out in real life with these lyrics in the bridge, you know what will happen after being led up the staircase. It’s that simple. This is a theme that Taylor wouldn’t have tackled on her previous album.

Ultimately, Sparks Fly will be the song off Speak Now that will be Taylor’s smash hit on the charts, possibly recreating the monster success of “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story“. Why so? because it manages to merge together two key elements: the authentic Taylor sound that she had with Fearless, along with the maturity that is present throughout Speak Now. It is definitely not the best song on the album on which it is found but for its purpose of giving Taylor a sure radio hit, Sparks Fly will excel. After all, this is a song that sustained years of being put on a shelve and that is a testament on its power. Don’t be surprised if sparks fly when this comes on the radio.

Listen to Sparks Fly here: