Depression era wardrobe didn’t spoil Taylor Swift’s fresh performance of “Mean”
212212213725
Proving that Bob Lefsetz was dead wrong, Taylor Swift wowed the Grammy audience and this viewer with spot-on sassy singing, banjo strumming, and choreography on Mean. She’s just so darn good at her performance and good looking to boot.
Hard not to love that. She seemed honestly shy at the love and adulation that washed over her at the finish.
“Earlier in the evening, Taylor picked up the awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Mean”. She was also nominated for Best Country Album for Speak Now, but lost out to Lady Antebellum‘s Own The Night.” JustJared on Buzznet
“Why you gotta be so mean?
You, with your switching sides
And your walk-by lies
And your humiliation
You, have pointed out my flaws again
As if I don’t already see them
I’ll walk with my head down
Trying to block you out
’cause I’ll never impress you
I just wanna feel okay again”
(Lyrics by Taylor Swift)
Bob Lefsetz connection
Some say Mean is directed at Bob Lefsetz, the ex-entertainment lawyer who writes a daily rant to his 50,000 music industry readers. Lefsetz dissed Taylor Swift two years ago saying she couldn’t sing. Lefsetz could be in her list of mean guys along with Kayne West.
Certainly this verse hits Lefsetz right between the eyes.
And I can see you, years from now, in a bar
Talking over a football game
With that same, big, loud opinion, but nobody’s listening
Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things
Drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing
But all you are is mean (then she leans over and winks with a smile at the camera)
Just for fun, last night she sang a new line “Someday I’ll singing this song at the Grammys and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”
Contrarian Lefsetz accused Swift of being a no-talent using voice correction a few years ago, after a bad TV appearance. Swift called Lefsetz up and told him he was dead wrong. Lefsetz did apologize in print.
Taylor Swift in the studio
Nathan Chapman (Photo: Emily Mueller SOS)
If you’d like to learn all about how Taylor Swift creates and composes her music, check out Sound on Sound Feb 2011 issue Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Nathan Chapman & Justin Niebank | Taylor Swift’s Speak Now.
SOS Taylor Swift has become country music’s biggest mainstream star, thanks in part to a stellar production team. Producer Nathan Chapman and mixer Justin Niebank lift the lid on Swift’s latest hit album, Speak Now.
In early 2006, Taylor Swift was an unknown 16‑year old with a good voice and a talent for writing songs. Her rise to the top since then has been, well, swift.
Her eponymous titled debut album was released in October that year, and became a monster hit in the country market. Follow‑up Fearless, released in November 2008, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, propelled her to the top of mainstream charts around the world, and spawned hit singles like ‘Love Story’ and ‘You Belong With Me’. It made her, at age 20, the youngest person ever to receive the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
The huge pressure that must have resulted from all this appears to have rolled off her like water off a duck’s back, for her third album, Speak Now, released in October 2010, appears to be on its way to become as successful as its predecessor. It sold more than one million copies in the first week after its release, and has already generated one major hit single, ‘Mine’. At the time of writing, the second single from the album, ‘Back To December’, was near the top of the US charts.
The Sound on Sound article shows how much raw talent she has and how artistic she is with her team in making her music. It won me over and tonight’s performance was, well just so awesome.
I had to go back and eat crow on my story Taylor Swift wins CMA Entertainer but she can’t sing where I wrote
“Update – Feb 13, 2012- eating crow here because I just watched Taylor Swift pull off an excellent performance on the 2012 Grammy Awards. Taylor Swift performs Mean on Grammy Awards Depression era wardrobe didn’t spoil Taylor Swift’s musical and fresh performance. Guess this old dog’ll have to go out and get that new Taylor Swift CD.”
I stopped reading Lefsetz. He’s just too negative and got me bent out of shape on Taylor Swift.
Have you lost your gourd?
So you’ve heard this girl sing for years on end as if somebody beat her in her frontal lobe with a steel baseball bat, and yet you now decide based on the merits of one feebly on-key performance that she talk-sang her way through that she is in fact…. a good singer? Huh? What, did auto-tuning capabilities fall off the face of the earth a few hours before the Grammys aired? Just look at her last awards show performance in which she sang “Ours.” It was so off-key that her mommy and her friend Faith had to give her a standing o to prompt a reaction out of an unimpressed audience. Now that says something. Improving from a state of holy-shit hideousness to limp mediocrity is nothing to be proud of.
Stephen Pate
Two things – I stopped listening to her but I did read the Sound on Sound story about how she created and recorded her music. It seemed genuine to me. Sure I was wowed by the Grammy performance. Mean is a great song and that’s the best version I have heard. Never to old to change your mind. 🙂
Almost everyone, except maybe Tony Bennett, uses Autotune or the better one Melodyne.
Cathy Patterson
Skip to the :58 mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANPk-mRtpLc&feature=related
Skip to the 1:29 and 1:56 to the VERY obvious usage of auto-tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zudLJdajX5Y&feature=channel. Now… who is really wrong here? Just because she doesn’t over use the heck out of it in all of her live performances, doesn’t mean she doesn’t use it. Also… Why didn’t she take vocal lessons BEFORE branding herself as a singer? She probably would have been seen as a truly authentic and talented performer if she took lessons before milking impressionable girls for everything they’re worth. Please have ALL of the facts and let us not take sides like we are immature school children. Yes she’s a decent songwriter that has plenty of room to grow and maybe she can be an even better singer once she ditches the auto-tune and the compelling need to lie about not ever using it.