At some point late during Taylor Swift’s Fearless Concert at Prudential Center, the young superstar introduces “White Horse” by claiming: “There are two kinds of love stories. Fairy Tales and Life Lessons.” She pauses as though she is a great oracle waiting for her sub-Hallmark nonsense to sink in (no wonder Taylor has a deal to produce greeting cards). “And the difference is Fairy Tales have happy endings.” An even longer pause as the close circuit TV hones in on her face while T-Wizzle moves her eyes from side to side, er, expressively. “And Life Lessons don’t.”
Okie dokie.
Look, nobody turns to Taylor for deep thoughts: we turn to her for deep feelings and deeper melodies. Through two albums of brilliant country pop, one Christmas album, the greatest “Umbrella” cover known to man and the very greatest rap song (with T. Pain), she has provided it. And it carries her through this really awful two hour concert.
The first band, Gloriana, is a country-pop foursome with one hit and a coupla crossovers in the oven. Not bad. Kellie Pickler (TS: “One of my best friends”) is such an American Idol alumni that she scretchys thru her set. EVERYBODY WHO COMES OFF IDOL OVER SINGS. The songs are ok, and the song she wrote with TS, “Rocks Instead Of Rice” a little more, but dressed in black with a fake drawl, a fake country band, and a TS redux sincerity, she fails to connect with anybody. “Best Years Of My Life” wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Taylor enters dressed as a marching band leader till she takes off her tall hat and lets her long tresses come rolling down way past her shoulders and the young audience howls in pleasure.
The young audience sings along as well and provide the uplift for Taylor Swifts academic march through
1) the hits
2) self help
3) The singing
4) Love of Taylor.
The Hits
There are plenty and pacing is almost irrelevant as there is much stuff to choose for. She opens with “You Belong With Me”-a crowd pleaser and a me pleaser, as Taylor and a coupla thousand girls throw their hearts at a boys feet. You can’t fake this song, it cuts so deep and don’t tell me it is all just puppy love. Puppy love isn’t silly to puppies. It’s a great song, a potboiler “life lesson” and easily emapthized by just about everybody who went to high School of either sex. The version played tonight is too loud and too boring and overacted and overearnest. Not bad enough to destroy an indestructible song which is the whole moral here.
She coulda sung “Love Story” -the swiftly uptempo masterpiece -the first time I heard the song knocking on two years ago (before Fearless was released) I nearly fell out of my chair. It is crescendo building segue from verse to chorus back to verse. A three part restructuring of “Romeo And Juliet” into a joyful last act of love (she plays it near the end though at this point she can put the songs wherever she wants to). Joe Steinhardt coulda written “take me somewhere we can be alone, i’ll be waiting all there’s left to do is run” and the end is so exulted, so triumphant, Springsteen could stick his name to it if he was a teen girl. I am going on at length because from the 18th century full Elizabethan garb with taped orchestra thru to Swift tearing off one dress to reveal a wedding dress, the version here was just a drag. With a song this good let the fucking song construction do the work for you. It needed nothing but to be played sincerely, and sung and played well. Something Taylor doesn’t do once tonight.
From time to time she comes close, “Fearless” isn’t terrible and the first encore “Today Was A Fairytale” was quite good though, like everything else here, there isn’t a spontaneous second. I just took a look at a setlist from a May 2009 concert in as Vegas. The entire difference in the set list? She did’t have “Fairy Tale” yet so played a different song in that position. Cmon, girl, you’re 20 years old… shake the sucker up already. The music was DOA.
Self Help
As shown at the beginning of this post, Taylor is not so helpful when it comes to love. In a funny taped segment where TS is interviewed about why guys would date her if she knew they were gonna write about them, Taylor said they wouldn’t have to worry if they treat her well: “Boys shouldn’t do mean things” . Well, try telling Taylor Lautner that. Anyway, the problem isn’t the depth of Swift’s emotional life, it is the lack of shading in her emotional life. It’s either love or betrayal, and it misses, it fails to take note of, the subtleties she always manages to convey musically. Essentially her advise boils down to (she actually says this) “So if you learn guitar and play songs this could be you.” True, or the girls could buy a lottery ticket. They have as much chance of it coming true. In Taylor’s world of fairty tales and life lessons, all her adoring fans get is life fucking lessons. Oh and it is a lie and it is completely insincere at this point.
The Singing
Taylor has a voice, it is a weak, light voice and if it wasn’t being massaged by computers it would be crushed into a million fucking pieces. And she will never get better till she wants to. Taylor thinks it doesn’t matter and if you are spending your concert changing clothes and running about (not dancing) and shaking yourself into fits, maybe it doesn’t matter. But there were so many moments here where the singing was ghastly I’m thinking even the fans must have noticed on a scary vocal during “Forever And Ever” she was delivering the punch, that she was outsung by the sketchy Pickler.
I don’t know why her management are not saving her from herself. Aren’t her parents a part of the handlers? Can’t they start her from scratch? I saw Lady Antebellum at Joe’s Pub. Taylor can’t nail the MSGs of the world if she can’t nail the Joe’s Pub. She needs a residency somewhere.
Taylor isn’t a fake. I know who she writes with and none of their other work is a tenth as good as the writing they do with taylor. It must be her. But she is an old fashioned star in a modern future cross pollinated, heavy duty, stadium driven ride to the top and it is killing her many many gifts.
Love Of Taylor
The word ceasura was written with the thought of Taylor in mind. She is one long, endless, pause. Eyes wide. Look of joy and happiness plastered on her face. So moving three years ago. Such a bore in 2010. It’s not that I doubt her sincerity. Not at all. I’m guessing she is insincere. Nobody can turn on those facial expressions, nobody can tell their adoring, worshipful, loving audience the same crap day in and day out for over a year and have it mean anything at all.
The word ceasura was written with the thought of Taylor in mind. She is one long, endless, pause. Eyes wide. Look of joy and happiness plastered on her face. So moving three years ago. Such a bore in 2010. It’s not that I doubt her sincerity. Not at all. I’m guessing she is insincere. Nobody can turn on those facial expressions, nobody can tell their adoring, worshipful, loving audience the same crap day in and day out for over a year and have it mean anything at all.
And yet…
At one point Taylor walks through the auditorium and hugs and kisses audience members all the way from mid-floor back to the stage and it is kinda touching… kinda sweet. But then a little later she milks the applause endlessly and when (with a wave of her hand) she quietens the fans and says “I will never forget this moment” I remember her saying the exact same words at Jingle ball.
And so, and so, and so… and no I wasn’t expecting much after Jingle Ball. I was expecting a kid whom I consider one of the best songwriters of her generation to sing loudly and bad for girls who believe in Princes and fairy And I guess it was less stagey than I thought it would be. Still, of everybody you can think of writings in 2010, Taylor is near the top. And because of that, because we are anticipating a real and great career for her, the scaredy cat Fearless tour was a huge disappointment.
Taylor needs to put it to bed and rethink her stratergy.
ps: i’m half sleep and not thrilled with this review, so i might try again in a day or so…