Yes, her voice is universally flat when she performs.
Sure, she's not yet reached legal drinking age but has tens of millions of dollars.
And yes, she seems to be the industry constructed, porcelain doll of a pop star - just another member of the chosen ones that MTV has monarchically decided will succeed.
She's also not half bad.
Unlike every pop star that the above complaints apply to, Swift has an artillery of overtly positive qualities to counterbalance, and her new album, Speak Now, articulates all of them.
First, she deserves due recognition for being the first one to really figure out the pop-country thing. Swift opened up this genre to more listeners before she was 18 than the Dixie Chicks did in a decade together.
Second is her surprisingly strong ability as a storyteller. Though the content of her songs scarcely references anything deeper than the ghosts of boyfriends past, she possesses a sharp ability to lay lyrics so comfortably on top of her arrangements, and do so in a manner that makes you want to hear her tale conclude.
But the true success of Speak Now is its strength as an album.
Though she is definitely at her strongest when she kicks the volume and the tempo up, represented by the majority of her singles, this only represents about half of what she does.
The rest of her material is slower, softer, and even more confessional. And though the latter speaks to her weaknesses, Taylor and her producers have the discretion to stagger these two categories perfectly throughout the record.
Speak Now starts and ends as it should, with Swift loud and in charge. Any point in between when things seem to get too sedative, it quickly picks back up to make sure you're still paying attention.
Radio is going out of business. Television programmers aren't paining to find time to play music videos anymore. In 2010, if you want to avoid hearing a homegrown girl whine over her acoustic guitar, you've got your work cut out for you.
And truthfully, of all pop culture evils available, someone like Taylor Swift is the very least offensive. If you spend your time letting this particular young girl make you mad, you're likely going out of your way to do so, and probably too cynical for your own good.
3 Culture
Andy Collier
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