Member Since: 4/9/2012
Posts: 1,916
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Quote:
As successful as Taylor Swift and her last album Speak Now have been, the radio play from the album was downright anemic. In fact before the release of “We Are Never…” the Swift material you were likely to hear randomly while at the grocery store or in a friends car was from her first two albums, not Speak Now. Her harshest critics will never admit this, but Speak Now was very mature for a pop album, and for Taylor Swift. The songs were just too long for radio play. There wasn’t a song on Speak Now that clocked under 3 1/2 minutes, 11 of the 14 songs clocked in at or over 4 minutes, 5 of them clocked in at over 5 minutes, and two at over 6 minutes. That’s unheard of in pop/radio play music.
Even though Taylor is/was unarguably the hottest thing in country, none of the first four singles from Speak Now made it to #1, including the notorious “Mean” which won two Grammy’s. It was only the 5th single “Sparks Fly” that hit #1, and only briefly. And for the last few months, country radio has been free of any Swift singles. Compare this to Swift’s closest commercial rival, Jason Aldean, whose My Kinda Party album had 3 #1 singles, and two songs top out at #2, and Aldean immediately began releasing singles from the new album after the old one was singled out. That’s what you can do when nearly every song is under 4 minutes.
So am I surprised when Taylor’s lead single is the most radio-friendly 3-minute pop-eriffic thing she’s done since her second album Fearless? Not at all. I’m also not surprised that Taylor went back to using co-writers as opposed to writing all the material herself like she did with Speak Now. Taylor needed a hit single to keep her music queen status fresh. I do think that Taylor wants to be regarded as creative, authentic, and autonomous. But she also wants to be successful, and that is why “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” won out as the lead single.
As for what Taylor’s Red album will eventually reveal itself as, we’ll have to wait and see, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “We Are Never…” is the album’s most vapid offering, or that it becomes a #1.
1 1/2 of 2 guns down.
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http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/ta...-back-together
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How's it going to harm the song?
