Fearless (CD & DVD deluxe edition with extra tracks)
Taylor Swift
Big Machine Records
$21.98
Release date: Oct. 27
Believe it or not, “Kanye West feud” and “VMAs victim” were not etched into the marketing scheme for Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” tour.
Before getting on the phone with Swift as she tours, we’re informed West is off the table. She’s tired of talking about how the hip-hop star with the “cool” haircut rudely hijacked her speech at the MTV Video Music Awards.
She was at a loss for words when it happened that night, but as it turns out the young pop-country star has a lot of other things to talk about. She’s more well-spoken than any 19-year-old has a right to be.
That’s not too much of a surprise considering that, unlike most teen pop stars, Swift is a self-starter who wrote or co-wrote almost all of the songs on her first two albums.
Long before she became even more of a household name with the VMA incident, she had already:
* Sold more albums in 2008 than any other recording artist.
* Chalked up career record sales of more than 7 million.
* Became, at 17, the youngest person to write and sing a No. 1 country single entirely on her own.
* Won the Academy of Country Music’s Album of the Year award for “Fearless.”
* Scored No. 1 singles on both the pop and country charts.
* Sold out Madison Square Garden in one minute for this “Fearless” tour — a true testament to her popularity, not to mention the modern state of ticket-selling technology.
At the age when most kids are fretting over multiplication tables and swooning over teen stars, this young girl from Wyomissing, Pa., was already on the fast track. She was entering karaoke contests when she was 10. A year later, she was in Nashville, Tenn., going door-to-door with a demo tape. A year after that, she learned three chords on the guitar and started writing songs that very day.
When RCA Records came calling about a development deal, Swift said no and signed with the upstart Big Machine Records for her 2006 debut, which led off with that sweet-voiced breakout single “Tim McGraw,” a song she wrote in 15 minutes. The album went to No. 5 on the pop charts and then sat at No. 1 on the country charts for nearly half the year.
By the time the first album cycle ran its course, Swift had proven she was the real deal, setting the stage for the sophomore release, “Fearless,” with its lead single and princess tale “Love Story,” debuting at No. 1 last November. If it weren’t for the occasional mandolin or fiddle down in the mix of some of the songs, we would barely know this was country.
A deluxe edition of “Fearless,” which includes extra tracks, will be released Oct. 27.
