After leaking to the Internet a bit earlier than expected, Taylor Swift’s new single “Mine,” off her upcoming album “Speak Now,” has been formally released on iTunes and should soon be popping up on radio. Destined to be an early hit, the song is nonetheless not perfect–and a quick journey through Swift’s history as a songwriter reveals some of the flaws of the effort.
Yes, without its infinitely endearing hooks–particularly on smash singles “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “Our Song”–Taylor Swift’s self-titled debut would not have been the game-changing breakthrough it was. But in addition to delivering catchy, charming songs, the album also featured some of the most honest and down-to-earth songwriting delivered by a mainstream female teen artist in years.
From songs like “Cold as You,” to “The Outside” to “Stay Beautiful,” the latter literally written about a classmate she once saw and thought was “hot,” Swift’s songwriting was so effective because there were no hidden meanings or complicated lines of subtle poetry. Everything was just told like it was–and it truly felt like it was coming from the voice of a teenage girl.
If there were one knock, it was that the simple production did not always lend itself to pop radio. The songs were largely stripped down, and in one of the more unfortunate bits of irony, “Teardrops on My Guitar” did not become a national pop radio hit until a remixed version featuring a thick beat that took focus AWAY from the guitar was shipped.
Nonetheless, Swift built phenomenal buzz and sold millions of records, and the anticipation was blazing when her follow-up album “Fearless” hit stores. A smash hit that produced her two biggest career singles–“Love Story” and “You Belong with Me”–the album marked an evolution in both her songwriting and the production effort, with her straightforward, yet immensely descriptive and relatable lyrics finding their way onto pop-friendly instrumentals.
But for positives like the universally-accessible yearning on “You Belong with Me” and “Hey Stephen,” the honest feeling of heartache on “You’re Not Sorry,” the accusatory response to heartbreak on “Forever & Always,” the eerily simple yet accurate description of teenage relations on “The Way I Loved You” and the simply beautiful motherly (and family) tribute on “The Best Day,” there were also some songs that strayed from what worked so well on her first album. The Colbie Caillat collaboration on “Breathe,” while excellent from a pop standpoint, boasts everything that Taylor Swift was not as a songwriter. The lyrics and melodies are so generic and cliched–there is nothing that gives a particularly vivid “window” into her life. Gone are the cutesy anecdotes and pieces of the Taylor Swift teenage puzzle. Songs like “White Horse,” “Tell Me Why” and “Change,” while all great, gorgeous songs, did not need Taylor Swift as a writer and could have been written by any 40-year-old songwriter for any 18-year-old singer in the world.
The later bonus releases followed that same mold–the songs were worth a dozen enjoyable listens, but they did not seem to offer anything significant in the way of a Taylor Swift insight. And since Taylor Swift is just a mediocre singer, without the simple yet dazzling beauty of her intimate songwriting, the songs just came across as good pop-country songs. They were not special.
“Today Was a Fairytale,” released on the “Valentine’s Day” soundtrack, also fell victim to the same trap, and while it started off well on the charts due to download buzz, it had far less shelf-life than her bigger hits.
And so comes the release of “Mine.” If one read the lyrics on paper, it might very well come across as her most beautiful effort to date. The story is well-constructed, the lines are weighty and impacting and the message is loud and clear. Her phrasing of concepts has always been impeccable, and this absolutely ranks as one of her strongest efforts in that department.
But the emotion is somehow still missing. For as pretty as the wording is, it does not seem as real or personal as it once did (Swift might attribute the words to a real experience, but that does not mean the songwriting itself instantly becomes “genuine” or accessible). Granted, this was an inevitability given the fact that for the past several years, Swift has not had the normal teenage life needed to reproduce the experiences she had for the songs on her first two albums. But for someone who could turn something as simple as seeing a cute guy into a gorgeous piece of song writing, there is no reason to expect a shortage of songs that draw on the “little moments” that define her life.
Lines like “you made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” are just great pieces of songwriting, and evidence that Taylor Swift is a legitimate talent with the pen–she is more than just a girl who never seemed to find the right guy in high school. But as pretty as so many of the lines are in principle, when compared to something as real as the second verse of “The Best Day,” in which Swift credits a shopping trip with her mother to getting over bullying, and even though “I don’t know who I’m going to talk to now at school…I know I’m laughing on the car ride home with you.”
One should not mistake this criticism as a sign that her high school stories were more interesting or “honest”–she has grown up, and the days of bullying and blind crushes are no longer as relevant. But with everything that has happened to her as part of this journey to superstardom, one would think she would have some great stories and personal musings worth sharing.
As for the total effort, the addicting chorus is very much a “Taylor Swift chorus,” and the builds and transitions are absolutely in the spirit of her past hits. The pacing and construct of the verses is a bit different, however, falling more in line with “normal” pop standards (akin to how Colbie Caillat moved from a song like “Bubbly” to the more generic “Falling For You”). Still, as a song, one would be hard-pressed to find a late summer song as endearing, fun and catchy in any genre of music.
The production is excessive; the standard Taylor Swift band guitar tones are there, but the snare hits and overall arrangement are a bit too taut, polished and big for her. The vocal effects and general melody give Swift a more mature, “Diva” quality to her voice, but that is almost missing the point about what is so great about Swift. She does not need to sing particularly well; she just needs to sing real. The passion in her voice is largely neutralized.
With Swift having transcended the simple world of country into a pop music phenomenon, it is only natural that she develop these big, radio-friendly songs. This song should be quite successful, and it will only give Swift more opportunities to connect with the broader music market–people who didn’t quite get the importance of her boyfriend’s truck on “Picture to Burn.”
But as the first single from the first album she wrote entirely by herself, the overdone vocals, generic pop production and distant vocals make for something of a disappointment.