Taylor Swift speaks from the heart by the look of her album. With eye-popping pictures that also shows her distress on the train tracks, to breaking up a wedding and much more, Swift is in control. She’s also seen in a different hairstyle with straight hair. There’s also a heart touching 2 page prologue written by Taylor, and a wonderful shot of Taylor and her full band.

Her music is intact, more mature now than before showing her growth. Taylor proves that you don’t need sex to sell your records. She’s all dressed up and makes a point to stick by it in true sincerity. The 14 songs are no fillers or any bonus stuff, but straight away full on pop that will warm your heart and also set your feet tapping. Swift captures real life and presents them in a way that is timeless, captivating and honest.

A few of her melodies sound simple, with one tune almost similar to the other. The strum of country can be seen in Mean moving onto pop/rock territory hitting out with Sparks Fly slightly heavy with an irresistible chorus. The classy, tuneful title song is neat and punchy. Swift states that each of the songs is a different confession to a person, the mysterious person who only she would know about, both famous people and normal boy friends. Better Than Revenge is a pure pop-rocker, in the slide of Kelly Clarkson/ Pink style with heavy Woah-oh on the chorus line. Swift doesn’t seem to notice the time on her songs, with Dear John clocking over 6.44 minutes, making it one of the longest songs, with the whole album averaging at over one hour. 

This is Swift's debut effort without any help of co-writers, and so all her melodies and lyrics have been composed independently giving her clear leeway to speak her heart out. Many artists have written on their personal life and right enough even Swift takes a tip and does the same. She paints the picture of a wedding - which she hopes to put a stop to on the title track Speak Now.

She also hits out at Kanye West on Innocent for his bad behavior sometime back. Never Grow Up works on the importance of childhood, love, family and innocence. The most impressive tracks as a songwriter would be her true stories unfolding in the balladic Back to December an open apology letter to actor Taylor Lautner regarding the end of their relationship. Swift is specific on detail and speaks about discarded bouquets making the song very real. Bluesy pop comes on Dear John that reflects Swift's love life bent towards old flame John Mayer. On another track Mine she sings ‘You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter’  .She's also venting anger towards ex lover Joe Jonas and former-girlfriend Camilla Belle on ‘Better than Revenge’ where her lyrics go “…….she’s an actress, whoa she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress…”.

On Dear John she puts out her vocals to the highest level, well backed up with superb lead guitar and soothing vocals, when she stresses ‘……dear john, I see it all now that you’re gone, don’t you think I was too young to be messed with…….’ The comparison of song, lyrics and vocal range are not necessarily uniform and sometimes it just hits off like a laser into nowhere. Though not many songs really showcase her vocals to its best, Mine is really the only song that fits perfectly along the lines of her previous hits like Love Story, Our Song and the repetitious You Belong With Me. Swift’s vocal range is slightly limited and doesn’t really move high to a narrow range.

Swift has cleverly worked on dropping the instrumentation at the last two words of the hook in Last Kiss allowing her breathy vocal delivery to take over the agony she wishes to bring out. She does the same on the song Enchanted where she uses an acoustic guitar that slowly crescendos behind each repetition of the line ‘I was enchanted to meet you…..’ The rocky Better than revenge shows her heavy side. It does not fit in well with the more balladic style of the album, some of which are also very radio friendly material. Country sound emanates on Mean which uses the banjo to tell a tale of the country girl….Swift. Hauntedfeatures an epic orchestral rock arrangement while Long Live closes the chapter on a great part of melodies from Swift.

Swift's grab at the Grammys and her transformation into a global music star has put a lot of expectations on this album. Her follow-up to her self titled and ‘Fearless’ sets, the latter  which sold nearly six million copies and won Album of the Year at the 52nd Grammy Awards, is an independent work, quite convincing. Though she excels as a decent songwriter and a great singer, her lack for catchy hooks and a little originality when it comes to picking her songs, is the only downer here. Even though she is just out of her teens, her third album should’ve channeled into more adulthood material, than just teen angst.

Rating: *****

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira