Taylor Swift "Fearless: Platinum Edition"

Taylor Swift – Fearless: Platinum Edition

I think by this stage it’s safe to say that everybody knows who Taylor Swift is. Fearless has already gone five-times platinum in the US, which in this day and age is not an easy feat. So what’s the big appeal then? I guess on most levels, Swift’s biggest fanbase (teenage girls) can relate to exactly what it is she’s talking about. But it’s always a little deeper than that – in the details is where we find the gold which makes this whole thing so successful. It’s about little things like the way someone sweeps their hand through their hair or the way we choose to recall things. Even though they’re sung from a very female point of view (which is another thing altogether), they’re still universal ideas that I guess up to now, no one chose to branch to a mainstream audience. At least not like this.

So cue the hardest working 20-year-old in the business. Swift has been riding the success of Fearless for well over a year without running out of steam. Love Story was huge and then she chose to follow it up with the obvious choice You Belong With Me, but the interesting thing here is that Swift was selling more albums than she was singles. People wanted the total package, not just a song that they were going to forget about.

And that brings us to Fearless: Platinum Edition, which is a chance to push Fearless for all it has and to fill time before Swift releases her next album. The re-release comes packaged with six new songs that follow on in the same vein as everything she’s released before. However, I’m not too sure how the new songs will go down – not all of them are as capturing as the songs on Fearless. Saying that, Jump Then Fall could’ve easily fitted on Fearless the way her lyrics capture all those innocent aspects of being young and meeting someone new. The same goes for Superstar, which in all honestly is pretty girly, but it’s still likeable, y’know?

Elsewhere, Forever & Always (piano version) just seems a little pointless considering the original is just as raw the way it is. and Untouchable comes off as a slightly weaker version of White Horse and it stretches out just a little too long. Not that any of these critiques really mean much considering the position she’s in. She has the charm and innocence that much of the current abundance of pop music is missing, and her fans will forever be loyal because of it.