When Taylor Swift first became popular, I was a skeptic. She appeared to have little talent, relying too heavily on her hometown charm and blond curls. But then I looked past her more popular songs, such as Teardrops On My Guitar and Our Song, and realized that her other songs were actually pretty good. However through her Speak Now album, she still appeared to only be attracting screaming preteen girls escorted by their reluctant mothers.
However, with her new album, Red, it looks like the preteen princess just might have grown up. From her upbeat We are Never Getting Back Together to the eerie sound of The Lucky One, she just sounds more mature than in her previous albums.
The content, ranging from the realization that fame isn’t what she thought it was going to be, to the acceptance that she isn’t a teenager anymore, to realizing that maybe a bad breakup was really her fault, differs heavily from her middle school dramas and grade school crush songs she sang before.
With maybe the exception of Stay, Stay, Stay and Girl at Home, she also appears to have turned away from a country sound altogether, opting for a pop feel. This has received mixed feedback from her fans, some enjoying the fact that she is experimenting with a different sound, while others look back to her days as a country queen, worried that that image might not last forever. I applaud her choice to broaden her sound, and have really enjoyed listening to her new CD.