![]() But the fourth tune, “I Knew You Were Trouble,” is far afield from anything she had done before, with a combination of electronic beats and harder edged guitars, and by now it’s clear that all bets are off. Lyrically, it’s a string of similes (“ Loving him is like…,” “ Forgetting him is like…,” “ Touching him is like…,” etc.), which is on brand for the genre and for Swift. The second song, “Red” starts off with banjo before pouring on the rock in the pre-chorus. She wouldn’t let her audience get too uncomfortable for long, though. “State of Grace” answered any questions within its first 30 seconds, and a minute later Swift put a stamp on that with the lyric “ …and I’ll never be the same.” But its cute poppiness did not signal the direction of the album as a whole-it might have been kitsch for all we knew. Ever the marketer, she telegraphed her potential metamorphosis with the album’s first single, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” released two full months before the album. Pounding drums and guitar feedback launch us into “State of Grace,” immediately labeling her first three albums as prehistoric this is to be the new Taylor Swift. The first sounds in Red nod to the ‘90s indie-rock blasts that might have permeated her school halls even as she tried to ignore them. ![]() But as each song unfolds into the next, it’s clear that Swift’s formula is transferable. She could have accomplished the task of bending genres in various ways and it might not have worked, revealing to her doubters that she was a very bright flash in the pan, that her early success was tied to the style that was as loyal to her as she was to it. With her fourth, she consciously broke out of her comfort zone, vowing to work with musicians who could not only help push forward the writing and recording of the album but would also contribute to her growth as an artist. Swift’s greatest strength through her first three albums was her ability to convince the listener that she was baring her truth to them, and for that, Country was the appropriate canvas. Red is full of meaning and melody, hope and love and loss. The result of that effort was 16 songs that solidified Swift’s place as a talented young songwriter while breaking free of the invisible genre lines that once hemmed in her music. Her Nashville roots are still there, but the end of each branch bore a different fruit, each its own color and flavor. However, with the release of Red in 2012 we saw that veneer begin to fade. And even though several songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100, Swift’s music still sat comfortably in that same section of the record store. Her first three albums topped the Billboard US Top Country Albums chart. Despite that ostracization, she launched a career in the Nashville scene at age 16, and she did pretty well for herself. ![]() ![]() Young Swift, however, discovered country music in her ‘tween years, something that didn’t necessarily make her popular among her peers. In the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, most musicians and bands in Eastern Pennsylvania (west of the Philly suburbs) still somnambulated in the hazy wafts of bands like Live and Fuel. Taylor Swift was a weirdo in middle school.
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