Taylor Swift - Taylor Swift

And I don't try to hide my tears, my secrets or my deepest fears / Through it all, nobody gets me like you do

Jun 18, 2024

This post was originally published on June 18, 2024.

For my 50th review, we have a Very Special Episode. The reason I've stuck to such a strict posting schedule, sometimes even doing multiple reviews per week, is so I could reach this moment. At long last, she's here.

Release Date: October 24, 2006
Genre: Country, country-pop
Label: Big Machine Records
Producer(s): Nathan Chapman, Robert Ellis Orrall

In June of 2007, I went to the movies with my mom. Regal theaters have large screens next to the concessions area, where they play ads and music videos. As I stood in line to buy candy, I looked up at the screen, where a young woman with huge blonde curls was singing slowly. I couldn't hear the song super well, but it was pretty enough to catch my attention. When the video ended, a narrator announced the artist was 17-year-old Taylor Swift, and the song was called "Teardrops On My Guitar." I bought it on iTunes that evening. A couple months later, I looked up her other songs. When I read the lyrics, I knew I had to get the whole album.

Taylor's origin story is part of pop culture lore by now. Born in Pennsylvania, she grew up loving all genres of music, and began playing guitar and writing songs around age 11. She sent demos around to country labels and radio stations, but they thought she was too young to sign. After a couple years, Taylor's parents were so convinced she was a star in the making that they moved the family to Nashville. There, she was given a development deal with RCA Records and paired with some co-writers, including one who she especially clicked with, Liz Rose. After that deal didn't seem to be going anywhere, she left. At age 15, she met Scott Borchetta, a name that will be important again later down the line. He signed her as the first artist to his new label, Big Machine Records, and she finally got to record her album with songs she had written over that roughly three-year time period.

There will be people for whom the sheer scope and mythos of Taylor these days -- the easter eggs, the Taylor's Versions, the tour, the NFL, the friendship bracelets, the record-breaking, the vinyl variants, the endless connections between songs -- has swallowed her early work. In this post, I'll attempt to strip all that back and remind you that her debut album is great. It was great well before anyone knew how huge she would get. Her strengths are all on full display, including the scathingly honest lyrics and powerful sing-along hooks. Every song is at least a little catchy, and many are very catchy. The lush, bright production brings out both the fun and adolescent drama in the lyrics. Really, the only weak point sometimes is her then-underdeveloped vocals, which could get very thin. Still, it's a minor complaint considering the strength of what's here.

Track by Track

That's right, for Taylor, I have enough to say about every song that I'm going to talk about them all.

Tim McGraw: Her debut single, a wistful romantic ballad that could be seen as a mission statement for her whole career. It's got a gentle, growing hook, the kind of thing you could sway to with your friends around a bonfire. It's a nostalgia song about the nostalgia of country songs, so it has a meta self-awareness that most people probably wouldn't expect from a ninth grader. Though somewhat forgotten today, this is a pleasant tune that shouldn't be overlooked.

Picture to Burn: The first track introduced us to Nostalgic Taylor, and this one introduces us to Angry Taylor, a character who crops up again and again through her discography. This one is an all-out country stomper with furious banjoes and stupid ol' pick-up trucks. I don't think it's the best angry song here, but it's fun enough.

Teardrops On My Guitar: The song that introduced me to her, and her first crossover hit. I remember being so excited when I started to hear it on top 40 radio. There are some lyrics here that shine, but I think the melody and production are the true stars here. They're so sparkly and pretty. I actually prefer the pop mix of this; it's fuller, glossier, and flows better, whereas the original country mix gets a bit boring. On the other hand, the pop mix cuts out the great little final verse, which is definitely missed. The video, specifically the long green gown, is the most iconic image from this era. A very strong display of craft, and a sign of the brilliance to come.

A Place in This World: A contender for the weakest song on the main tracklist, this is an early throwaway where her voice sounds especially young. I think the melody, hook, and production are about as good as they could be, though.

Cold As You: The song that truly convinced me to buy the CD. A lot of fans (and Taylor herself, at the time) consider these the best lyrics on the album. Compared to the singles, it falls a bit short -- the piano and strings drags at times, as if it needs to be a tad faster or needs more juice somehow -- but it's a beloved deep cut for a reason, and a fine example of what she and Liz Rose were capable of together.

The Outside: Speaking of juice, here's an awesome tune that needs more love. It's the oldest song on the album, as far as we know, written when she was about 12. It's one of the best produced songs on the album, with layers of banjos chugging up and down, and her girlish voice actually serves the lyrics. I've always thought this one is very slept on.

Tied Together With a Smile: I feel really mixed about this song. On the one hand, it's got great lyrics and unique subject matter that proved Taylor wasn't just writing about boys. On the other hand, it's musically super sleepy, owing to the opening mandolin (or whatever that instrument is) and the prominent backing vocals in the chorus. I appreciate it, but I don't think it's even in the top half here.

Stay Beautiful: A cute, bouncy crush ditty that is completely unremarkable.

Should've Said No: Angry Taylor's finest moment, a searing kiss-off to a cheating ex. It benefits from being played loud, and the chorus slaps so hard that you could easily imagine this with a rock arrangement. It's not the first song people think of on this album, but on many days, it is the best.

Mary's Song (Oh My My My): Many Taylor songs, especially early in her career, grew from fantasies. Here, she imagines herself in her eighties, looking back on a lifelong romance. It is pretty embarrassing as a whole, but there are actually some great lyrics here, especially the way each chorus changes it up and shows us some different images. It's a sappy story, but you can picture every little memory within it.

Our Song: The other arguably best song, and one that often represents the album era as a whole. A joyous ode to a sweet romance, this is a cute subversion of the song-about-a-song seen in "Tim McGraw," and it's the perfect tempo for a crowd to sing together. A cheery closer that leaves us on a high note.

I'm Only Me When I'm With You: Some Taylor albums have outstanding bonus tracks. This is not one of those albums, but this song is the best of the three. Another upbeat number, this one is about her best friend. Her voice sounds quite different here, almost like it's another person altogether, but that fiddle after the choruses is infectious. This was one of the encore songs on her first tour, and I think it has the perfect energy for that.

Invisible: Sometimes I think this is the weakest song on the album, then I listen to it and the piano sounds a lot nicer than I remembered. It's still a bit limp, and the lyrics had no doubt been written into a dozen older songs already, but I think I get why this has its admirers.

A Perfectly Good Heart: Speaking of admirers, this song does not have those. It's considered by many fans to be the worst in her whole discography, but I think it's… nice? It's just simplistic and young and repetitive. It is often a skip, but it finds its footing pretty quickly.

Beautiful Eyes: A pleasant B-side that flows along nicely. The lyrics are nothing special, but she's doing interesting things with her voice.

I Heart ?: Her most yeehaw song. It was probably left off the album in favor of "Picture to Burn," but it's a fun jam where her voice actually works to its advantage.

When I started this blog, I expected that we would have Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version) by now. There are some songs on my spreadsheet that I expect to end up on that re-recording, so when we eventually get it, I will probably do an addendum to this post where I talk about my feelings on the vault tracks.

Final Thoughts

I'd love to say that once Taylor was unleashed upon the world, everyone caught on immediately, but in reality, this album was a bit of a sleeper hit. "Tim McGraw" took just under six months to peak, and "Teardrops" took another year beyond that (which was the first song I noticed my classmates talking about). Yet once that boulder got rolling, there was no stopping it. This album ended up as the longest-charting album of its decade, staying on the Billboard 200 all the way until 2011. The combination of her true-to-life subject matter, personality that did not feel concocted by a focus group, and effort to connect with fans directly on MySpace made countless teens feel seen, an early glimpse of the singularly engrossed following she has today.

Yet despite its obvious success and importance, this is Taylor's least respected album. Some fake fans haven't even listened to it. Its absence is by far the biggest issue on the Eras Tour, showing that even Taylor herself underestimates how much fans enjoy it. While some may not find it that accessible, I'm pretty confident that as long as there are young people out there, new generations will see a bit of themselves in these songs. I'm so lucky I went to that movie theater that day so I could be among the first.

Rating

This sort of comes as a surprise to me, as once again I think about the many albums I've covered here that did not manage four stars but should have. After the umpteenth re-listen just to make absolutely sure, yep, there's way more than a handful of keepers here. If you have this good a hit ratio, you deserve a rounding up. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ it is.

Synesthesia & Sugar

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