Taylor Swift – State of Grace
There’s no two ways about it, ‘State of Grace’ is Taylor Swift ‘doing’ U2’s With Or Without You. And it’s heart-soaringly beautiful. So epic, so enchanting – a blue-skies anthem to open-hearted hope. A vocal melody that builds and glides up above swathes of chiming guitar straight out of The Edge’s copybook. There’s wonderfully pretty lyrics; ‘these are the hands of fate, you’re my Achilles heel…’chief among them – in one swoop, Swift has landed on perhaps her most mature moment yet as a recording artiste, the girl grown into a woman, and bringing it to bear with all her assembled power as both musician and much-loved pop talent.
Something else to bear in mind – like the excellent ‘Red’ and ‘Begin Again’, State of Grace was written solely by Swift herself. No other songwriters, no other input. Just her. That cute twenty-two year old, constructing a song as boldly ambitiously brilliant as this. Probably knocking it out over a cup of tea or two. That’s how good Swift is.
Going by State of Grace and the previous taster singles, Taylor’s ‘Red’ album is shaping up to be one of the real contenders for pop release of the year. Forget Carly Rae Jepsen (our previous holder of the title), if the rest of the album cuts are even two-thirds as good as this, Swift will have created something of staggeringly good proportions.
Swift fans, if I should listen to one album if I wanna get into Taylor's other stuff, what album should I listen to?
Speak Now
---------------------------------------------
1 Taylor Swift - State of Grace 1.0000
2 Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble. 0.7000
3 PSY - Gangnam Style (강남스타일) 0.5500
---------------------------------------------
1 Taylor Swift - State of Grace 1.0000
2 Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble. 0.7000
3 PSY - Gangnam Style (강남스타일) 0.5500
