Fearless & angry

Two years ago, Taylor Swift, all of 18 years old, and beautiful, sang I might actually find someone someday who will treat me well…in the cut White Horse in the album Fearless. It was said then she wrote the song after her breakup with boyfriend Joe Jonas. That guy ended the relationship via a text message. Uncool. Uncool. Gross. Gross. But does anybody know where that Jonas boy is right now?

In contrast, Taylor’s Fearless went on to sell several million copies and win four Grammy Awards. In fact, Taylor became the first female country artist to win the most coveted Grammy of all, the Album of the Year Award for Fearless. Now there are country legends and country legends. Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Reba McEntire. Etc. Extraordinary singers all. But none of them accomplished the crossover to pop in the effortless way that Taylor did. And with her own compositions, too.

One new album later, it looks like Taylor’s luck with men has not changed. She has this song titled Dear John in Speak Now, her latest CD. You’ll add my name to a long list of traitors who don’t understand and I’ll look back and regret how I ignored it when they said run as fast as you can… Talks have it that the John of the song was no other but John Mayer. Tut tut tut. This girl should have gone to Jennifer Aniston for advice.

But although her name may have now indeed been added to that long list of traitors, that Mayer maybe collecting, whatever dalliance there was between them has served to add the blues to her list of music accomplishments. In case you have forgotten, Mayer is a bluesman. That was why a lot of people who watched his recent concert here, could not make head or tail of what he was doing. He preferred to sing the blues instead of his hits. And the blues, I believe, has never been popular with us Pinoys.

But back to Taylor, who, it is now obvious, has the ability to turn personal episodes into hit songs. Dear John in Speak Now, is a bluesy, six-minute track that lots of people will be analyzing for a long time as the album goes on to sell millions and millions and millions more. Is this really about Mayer? I say, that is the way to go girl. Use the heartbreak and make a million bucks or more out of them while you are still young and real and transparent about your feelings.

If it is true that Dear John is indeed about Mayer; and that Back To December is her way of apologizing to Taylor Lautner, the Twilight werewolf she also dated; and that Mean is for a music critic who dissed her singing; and that Innocent is about the Kanye West’ trophy grabbing incident at the MTV Video Music Awards, then Speak Now must be one of the most personal albums ever made. I would love to hear Taylor fans tell me who or what the other songs are about, most especially which one she composed for Glee hunk Cory Monteith.

Taylor wrote all of the songs in what must be her best album to date. She is only 20 years old and judging from the contents of this CD, she will only get better and better in the years to come. She also co-produced with Nathan Chapman and together they decided to explore assorted pop music types with the same bravado that Taylor exhibits when singing about her personal life.

Speak Now is basically a pop album. There is rock, big and loud in Haunted; acoustic country in Mean; emo in Enchanted, Better Than Revenge, and The Story Of Us; bitchy humor in Mine; and good old pop ballads of the very catchy kind in Sparks Fly, Never Grow Up, Last Kiss, Long Line and others. Now I do not know how country music fans will react to this CD. Mean is the only country song in the album. It may hurt having to share Taylor with the more widely appealing pop but the girl has grown up and you know what happens when we grow up, we need more space. And how beautifully she uses this space in the CD.