I like Taylor Swift. She seems like one of the nicest people in the music business. I also enjoyed this SF Gate primer on how to write your own Taylor Swift song:
2) Subject matter:
– A boy who I like
– A boy who I liked, but not anymore
– A boy who I like, but he doesn’t like me
– Tim McGraw3) He was/I was:
– A prince/A princess
– Romeo/Juliet
– White Knight/Damsel in distress
– Tim McGraw
This reminds me of an internal debate I have when I listen to music. I always wonder if when a band demonstrates a lack of variety, it means they have ”iconic sound” or they are uncreative. For example, Phoenix’s last album was my favorite of the year. But–or maybe “and”–every song has a similar theme and sound. Go ahead, click on that link and listen to the samples, especially tracks 6-10. Now, I like to think that Phoenix made an album full of songs that work well together, but I’m sure someone else has heard the disc and thought: “Not for me. All the songs sounds the same.” And they would be right. They do sound the same, but that’s part of what the album so good to me. It puts me somewhere interesting and lets me stay a little while.
So is it bad if you can write your own Taylor Swift song? I have both of her albums. You could take lyrics from one and a melody from another and it probably would sound about right. But she’s not out to make Thriller, a set of 9 singles that don’t really fit in one box. She is a good musician who is making a particular kind of music., and there is nothing wrong with that (now if you’re Rascal Flatts and you’ve been making the same exact music for 10 years, it can get a bit repetitive, and maybe that’s where Swift is headed but I doubt it).
I think most of my favorite albums swirl around the same sonic concept for 40 to 50 minutes*. It makes sense given that most songs on an album are generally written, performed and produced by the same people from track to track. So rock on Taylor–I’m excited to hear your next one.
*For me, the two exceptions I can think of right now are Thriller and Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. Besides the obvious pairing of the first and last tracks, I’m not sure I see much of a link between most of the songs on Coldplay’s last album. That’s not a bad thing though.
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