Taylor Swift "Speak Now"

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when during an interview that ran in Time magazine last year, Taylor Swift cited Shania Twain as her biggest musical influence. “She came out, and she was just so strong and so independent and wrote all her own songs. That meant so much to me, even as a 10-year-old. Just knowing that the stories she was telling in those songs–those were her stories,” she said. Comparisons between Swift and Twain are apt; both are country artists that have crossed over into major mainstream territory. Swift was the biggest selling artist and arguably the saviour of the music business in 2009; Twain changed the game entirely when her Mutt Lange co-produced album Come On Over was released in 1997.

Twain was in her thirties when that album was released and it went on to become the biggest selling country album of all time. Swift is 20, but already well aware of her position. She writes dramatic country pop music that works for adults as much as it does teenagers, and it will see her audience grow with her instead of abandoning her like the next Disney princess who’s had her 15 minutes already. Sure, Better Than Revenge might be her pop-punk Paramore moment but the slowed down tempo of songs like Back To December and Enchanted allow us to take her more seriously.

Swift wrote all the songs on Speak Now herself, something which is a doubled-edged sword for an album like this. On one hand it shows that Swift has matured enough as a songwriter to be able to knock out a full album of songs just as good as the ones that Liz Rose co-wrote on Fearless. On the other, we’re sometimes confronted with a lack of diversity and simple storytelling that begins to feel old the more you become aware of it. Never Grow Up, a polite, cute track, which is less about being afraid of the future and more about holding on to what’s passed, shows her youthful approach a little too much and probably would’ve worked better as a bonus track on the album. Especially with lyrics like, “you’re in the car on the way to the movies and you’re mortified your mom’s dropping you off” followed by “but don’t make her drop you off around the block.” Her best moments always come when she’s tackling having to grow up, not when she refuses to confront it.

But the album paces itself nicely, which is great considering that there are 14 tracks on the album and it clocks in at over an hour long. Narrative issues and other minor complaints aside, Speak Now isn’t about to upset her fanbase. This isn’t going to be Swift’s Come On Over but that status can’t be far away. Whenever it does happen, she’ll be ready for it.