Taylor Swift - Fearless [Platinum Edition]

Fearless [Platinum Edition] starts out with those six new songs and as one would expect, the songs are not dissimilar from what Taylor has done previously except for the fact that they may be slightly more ‘pop’ sounding.  “Jump Than Fall” instantly grabs you with an infectious melody and lyrics about taking a chance for love while “Untouchable” feels ready for a Twilight movie reel while also being one of Taylor Swift’s better vocal jobs of recent memory.  “Forever & Always” is stripped down from the lite pop of the original version and here the song feels like something that just allows Taylor to sing the lyrics that young girls have sung over and over again about the loss of their first ‘love.’  “Come In With The Rain” and “Superstar” both continue the wistful young love of Miss Swift’s “Fearless” proper and the latter one features some melodic mandolin and acoustic production notes while the former features an atmospheric melody to balance out the lyric. 

The regular portion of the Fearless disc is nothing if not the product of a confident singer/songwriter who knows her audience well.  “Fifteen” smartly captures the thoughts of entering high school for the first time after a tough time in middle school.  It’s a song that reminds those who are taking those steps that the cattiness of middle school, while not completely gone, will be much less in high school.    “White Horse” is a powerful mediation that finds a strong Swift singing about a guy who tried to call her his princess and the song is as adult as anything she’s ever done while “Love Story” found her young, naïve and hoping for that fairy tale that all young girls in love dream about.  “You Belong With Me,” a song which is as sharply written as anything Taylor’s ever written as she sings from the POV of the ‘not so noticable’ girl in High School who crushes on the boy who should be with her and not with the ‘bubbly’ cheerleader who he is actually with.  

There’s no doubt that Taylor Swift knows her audience and even if she doesn’t have the voice of contemporaries like Carrie Underwood or even bff Kellie Pickler, that doesn’t mean that Taylor Swift shouldn’t be where she is.  She’s gotten to where she is the old-school way, through lots of hard work.  Only instead of going exclusively through traditional models of promotion, Taylor worked her butt off using new media methods like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and multi-media campaigns which certainly have her positioned as not only 2008’s best-selling artist but 2009’s and possibly next year’s as well.  Fearless? Indeed she is.

Listen to the entire record, courtsey of lala.com

You can support Taylor Swift by purchasing this album at iTunes | Amazon (digital) | Amazon (CD/DVD).