Tyler Dean - "Taylor Swift"

This was bound to happen.  From the moment Taylor Swift hit the ground running with "Tim McGraw," there was most certainly gonna be somebody releasing a song somewhere in the future with the title "Taylor Swift."  Does the single really stand a chance at success?

Ha ha, I knew this one was coming. Back when Taylor Swift hit the scenes three years ago (has it been that long already?) with "Tim McGraw", one of my first wacky predictions was that, once Taylor became a big star, someone would cut a song titled "Taylor Swift". Unfortunately, that song wasn't recorded by Tim McGraw, so it doesn't quite complete the circle. But at the very least, it's by someone on the same label (Curb Records, which is also home to… um, a bunch of third- and fourth-tier artists).

The production is fairly clean, but it's almost too loud. Tyler's decent voice nearly gets drowned out in a sea of compressed, overdriven guitars. On the upside, the melody is swelling and catchy, not unlike those composed by Taylor herself. While lyrics start off a bit blandly (there oughta be a law against rhyming "girl" and "world") they improve after the first couple lines. I suppose the song could be read as "creepy teenage stalker" at first listen, but Tyler sounds far too good-natured to truly be a stalker. That, and he says only that he wants a girl like Taylor Swift, not necessarily the genuine article.

One oddity about this song is that it shows a parallel between father and son. After two failed singles, Tyler's father, Ronnie McDowell, hit it big in 1977 with "The King Is Gone", an ode to Elvis Presley which just happened to be released at the right time. With two failed singles ("Built for Blue Jeans" and "Somebody Who Would Die for You") under his belt, maybe Tyler will hit it big with this silly little ode to perhaps the hottest commodity in country music.

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