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Post by Elliot Kane on May 16, 2009 14:01:47 GMT
Does anyone else here like music's fastest rising young star, or is it just me? Kinda curious, as I can't find a thread for her. For those who haven't heard her yet, here are a few YouTube links: Come In With The Rain* - one of my favourite Taylor tracks, but not yet released. Annoyingly. White Horse - live for AOL. Love Story* - great vid for a great song. A lot of it is teen love songs, sure (Taylor being a teenager, that's kinda forgivable) but not all of it: Change** - probably the closest Taylor ever gets to Rock, unless you count her dets with Def Leppard on CMT Crossroads. She doesn't have the world's greatest voice, but she does have a pleasant sound and she's a terrific songwriter. She also plays guitar and piano. Not the world's least talented person, you might say  * I deleted the links due to infringement of copyright.
Richard** further deletion as I am reliably informed that 'Change' is commercially available.
Roger |
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Post by stevemacdonald on May 16, 2009 15:38:31 GMT
Taylor is a huge star here in America. We appreciate greatly her rare combination of excellence and originality! Of course, no one here really doubts that she wouldn't be where she is if she wasn't so darned easy on the eyes as well as the ears. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 16, 2009 16:38:22 GMT
LOL! I have no doubt you're right, there  It's a bit sad that someone so richly talented needs to have the looks, too, but there's no doubting that she shows the promise of great beauty. If I were 15-20 years younger I'd be smitten She also has the personality, though, i have to say. |
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Post by Richard on May 17, 2009 7:49:22 GMT
Hello Elliot, and welcome to the forum.
Unfortunately I had to remove two of your links to YouTube because the videos are infringements of copyright. I couldn't get 'Change' to play, but I suspect that may be an infringement too.
Best Wishes,
Richard
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 17, 2009 12:00:17 GMT
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Post by Natasha on May 17, 2009 12:26:14 GMT
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 17, 2009 12:36:22 GMT
Awesome! Thanks, Celtic Woman I'm pretty much in agreement with you regarding Taylor, I have to say. I actually consider her the best young songwriter in the world today and i don't think she has a single bad song. Which is pretty scary as most artists have at least one or two that isn't up to scratch. *** I won't provide a link as I'm not sure there's an official version anywhere, but if you get the chance, look for Crazier on YouTube. It's part of the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack. Taylor wrote that when she was 13... |
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Post by socalboy on May 27, 2009 20:51:04 GMT
I actually consider her the best young songwriter in the world today and i don't think she has a single bad song. Which is pretty scary as most artists have at least one or two that isn't up to scratch. Hi Elliot: I’m really gratified to read this comment, because I’ve been expressing the same sentiment for several months. Remarkably, both of her first two albums are essentially “greatest hit” collections. There’s not a second-rate song in the mix. And she wrote, or co-wrote all of them, music and lyrics. It’s unheard of. I too have had reservations about her vocal abilities, but I was lucky enough to be stage side at her concert in Los Angeles last Friday. Her voice was powerful and pitched superbly throughout. I think in the past she has been victimized by some acoustically-flawed TV performances which created a bad and undeserved rap about her singing. That was all dispelled for me Friday, hearing her in person. I would also add that I’ve seen Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, U2, Bob Seger, Celtic Woman, Dire Straits and many others in concert, but Taylor’s was the most exciting and charismatic performance I’ve ever seen. She’s an outright superstar at 19. And yes, in addition to being kind and genuine, she’s a vision to behold. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 27, 2009 22:34:47 GMT
Socalboy... She is indeed an outright superstar at 19. Honestly, if someone were to invent her as a character for a book the reader would laugh her off as an obvious Mary Sue. I imagine the conversation would go something like this: "So let's get this straight: your lead character is tall, blonde, beautiful and has turned down modeling contracts to pursue her career as a singer. She has been a professional song writer from the age of... good grief, fourteen? Is this a joke? She has a really sweet personality, a great sense of humour she uses to entertain her fans with using her video camera she carries everywhere... She plays guitar AND piano and she keeps winning awards for everything you can think of... Is that about it?* "Um... she also designed her own album booklets, has stories in mind for her songs that get made into her videos and designed her entire concert set for her first tour. And she's a talented mimic..." "Dude, no-one would ever believe in your character! Go write something people might find slightly credible!" Only in real life could someone as improbable as Taylor ever exist I am honestly in awe of her talent and I've been a music fan for more than twenty years. I saw the explosion of talent in the 80s and my interest has caused me to look at music from many earlier eras in the 20th century. My interest in undiminished in the 21st and I seek out new talent as eagerly as ever. And in all that time I do not think I have ever come across an artist as richly talented as Taylor. It seems like every time I turn around, she's developed a new talent or improved on an old one (Her singing voice certainly seems to get better all the time). And she's so nice with it. I don't even really like Country music. Just Taylor music. I am unabashedly a huge fan and likely to remain so. |
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Post by socalboy on May 28, 2009 20:07:12 GMT
You forgot to mention that she won a national poetry contest when she was in the 4th grade. Something else for which she is increasingly being recognized is her visionary understanding of new media. She is generally viewed as a pioneer in the use of online services such as Facebook and MySpace to distribute her work. She is the most downloaded artist in the world. However, Taylor being Taylor, she always says she gets too much credit for this and was just another young girl creating a MySpace page like all her friends. And by the way, the poetry thing is true. I got a real kick out of your creative dialog because it is so difficult to discuss Taylor without overdosing on superlatives. In some ways her beauty has been an obstacle. For certain people it’s hard to believe that someone who looks like that can do all these things. I’ve heard her dismissed as a Britney wannabe and other such insults that are so far off the mark it’s silly. I want to mention that I was drawn to Taylor for many of the same reasons I became interested in Hayley. As much as I admire both of them as artists, what truly drives my interest is the way they have mastered the difficult business of being a human being. It is no small feat the way they manage to remain humble and decent amidst constant adulation. They are both rooted in strong, supportive families and never lose sight of the importance of their fans. And though they are both beautiful, neither has overly exploited that to get where they are. I have no doubt that were they to meet they would become fast friends. Although as you say there have been no previous threads on Taylor, Celtic Woman (the forum member, not the group) astutely recognized her talent in some posts she made last year. And I did discuss Taylor in a couple of posts related to Hayley’s career. Here are the links if you care to take a look: hwi.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Media&thread=4177&page=7hwi.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Miscellaneous&thread=4459&page=6 |
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 28, 2009 20:26:08 GMT
I never tire of discussing Taylor I have a huge and growing thread about her on my own forum, in fact (Much to the annoyance of some of my boardies, I am sure ) and even my signature banner there is Taylor. And yeah, I forgot the poetry contest. And the learned three chords and wrote her first song on the first day she started to learn guitar part. And... A whole lot of and, in fact You're right that any discussion of Taylor pretty quickly turns into a massive gush of 'She's so awesome'. Because she just is... There's the backlash beginning from the envious, of course, as there always is with any successful artist, but with Taylor they don't really have a lot to go on so they're reduced to sulking and "She's over-rated!" without any explanations of why. If you are curious, the Taylor thread on my forum is here. Lots of links to interviews and things Regarding Hayley, I have to say it's her voice I find most arresting. There's no doubting she's a sweet girl, but that voice is just... out of this world, really. That and when Hayley is so focused on singing she almost seems to shine with an inner light. I know that sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it. It's like the song somehow brings her to greater life. Um... does that make sense? She's somehow more animated, more alive... Probably doesn't make sense, right? Nearest I can get to describing it, though... Taylor doesn't have that, but she does have performance down to a fine art. At 19. She's a scary woman. |
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Post by larryhauck on May 28, 2009 21:33:39 GMT
Hi Elliot,
No offense, but I see Taylor Swift a lot on U S television and I'm just not very impressed with her voice. In my opinion her writings and her vocals are no different then the multitude of other neophyte country artists here in the states.
Larry
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 28, 2009 21:58:53 GMT
All opinions, Larry Be a very boring world if we all liked the same things, wouldn't it? |
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Post by socalboy on May 28, 2009 23:12:29 GMT
Hi Elliot, No offense, but I see Taylor Swift a lot on U S television and I'm just not very impressed with her voice. In my opinion her writings and her vocals are no different then the multitude of other neophyte country artists here in the states. Larry Hi Larry: I know you addressed this to Elliott and I also know from past threads that you will never be a Taylor Swift fan. I can only tell you that I’ve now seen her perform live - at times from less than 3 feet away - and I was genuinely impressed with her ever improving vocal skills. That said, she will never be Hayley in the voice department, nor will she ever aspire to be. But where I think you are really amiss is in your assessment of her songwriting skills. Your insistence that her compositions are undistinguished just doesn’t stand up, in my opinion. You may not be her target audience, but those who are react to her music and lyrics in a deeply emotional way. You don’t sell out Staples Center in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York in 2 minutes if you “are no different than the multitude of other neophyte country artists here in the states.” No one else has ever accomplished this and no one else has even come close. So something about her must be different. She had the number one album on the Billboard charts for 11 weeks, a milestone reached by no other individual in a decade. She was also the number one selling artist in any genre in 2008. Her talents as a songwriter have been praised by critics in the New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times and dozens of other respected publications. On May 19 of this year, her peers at BMI, which is a prestigious songwriter’s association, presented Taylor with the BMI President’s Award, which their website says “honors an exceptional individual in the entertainment industry deserving of special recognition. The BMI President’s Award is presented only on unique occasions when an individual has distinctly and profoundly influenced the industry.” I don’t expect to change your opinion Larry, but there is a lot of empirical evidence out there suggesting that Taylor Swift is every bit as exceptional as Elliot says she is. |
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Post by stevemacdonald on May 29, 2009 0:27:42 GMT
I consider myself a fan of Taylor Swift the singer (and nascent actress), but I have my doubts about her songwriting skills. Nothing she writes relates to me or my generation and many of her songs have a sameness/tameness to them that I can't wait for her to outgrow. I'd like her to be a little edgier and not so fairytale. Songwriting prodigies like Janis Ian and Bob Dylan had little use for fairy dust and knights on white horses. Why can't Taylor look at the world outside her horse-farm and report back on the deeper concerns of these crazy times? I love her freshness and her guilelessness but it does wear thin after awhile and it just makes me focus more on her exquisite appearance than her mind.
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