In the past five years Taylor Swift has dominated the country and pop music scenes. With the release of her first album “Taylor Swift” in 2006, Swift burst into the mainstream and never looked back, going four times platinum. Two years later, Swift released “Fearless”, which went six times platinum. What could everyone expect from Swift’s third studio album? This question was answered on October 25, when Swift released her third album “Speak Now”.
Anticipation for “Speak Now” arose in the summer when an internet video from Swift announced her new album. In the video, Swift also announced the release of the first single off of her new album, “Mine”, which was scheduled to be released on August 16. Because the song was leaked onto the web, the single was released early, on August 4. “Mine” reached the third spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Two months later,“Speak Now” hit stores and became an instant hit. In the first week of the album being released, “Speak Now” sold over 1 million copies, making it the biggest single-week sales since 2005 as well as the highest grossing debut country studio album in history.
One of the reasons why Swift’s new album is doing so well is that “Speak Now” is Swift’s coming-of-age album. The album is filled with serious stories that reflect Swift’s increasing maturity (she is turning 21 in December). Despite losing most of the ‘fairy tale’ stories, Swift still incorporates love songs in “Speak Now”, only this time the songs have adult situations. “Speak Now” also signals Swift’s departure from country music and entrance into the pop music genre. Since her first album, Swift has shifted from all country on “Taylor Swift”, to a mix between pop and country on “Fearless”, to almost all pop on “Speak Now”. Although there are a few songs that are country, noticeably “Mean”, and most others have small country accents such as the fiddle, the majority of the album is mainstream pop.
“Speak Now” is different from Swift’s previous albums because Swift wrote all of the songs herself. Swift writing the songs without any help is another example of her maturation as a musician. The song “Innocent” is another display of maturity as Swift forgives Kanye West for his infamous 2009 MTV VMA Awards incident. “Enchanted,” “Sparks Fly,” and “Haunted” are two songs that deal with the usual Swift relationship, but both show her maturity because of the grown-up situations she sings about. Another first on this album is the song “Long Live”, which Swift says is the “first love song that [she’s] written to [her] team”.
After her 105th show Fearless tour that spanned four continents, Swift is already planning another world tour that could be the same, if not bigger than the Fearless tour. It seems that with “Speak Now” Taylor Swift has cemented her name into music history, and has shown the world that she isn’t just a teenage girl singing about childish love. Swift has proven instead that she is an impressive songwriter who should be around in the music business for a long time.
