Swiftmas Review: Taylor Swift (Debut)

Hey there, I know you were all expecting some typical holiday posts around this time. However, I decided to do something different this year. As many of you know, Taylor Swift has been the biggest trend in music and pop culture for the last couple of years. From her massively successful Eras Tour to her re-released albums along with a couple of new ones, everywhere and everyone can’t stop talking about Taylor Swift. I do love Taylor Swift, and even though my interest has been off and on, I enjoy her entire journey through all the different eras when it comes together. Plus, it has also inspired me to re-publish my study abroad posts because I could relate to what she has been through. I have actually wanted to do this review series for a couple of reasons. One, there is a 6-part docuseries of the Eras Tour and the final night of the Eras Tour coming to Disney Plus one day before her birthday (December 13^th). Two is that earlier this year, she brought back the rights to her music, and officially owns all of her master recordings. I will talk about that when I review the second album in the series. That’s right, I am going to review every single one of her albums this month in which I will call this Swiftmas starting with her debut album. Now the debut album is one of the two albums that have not been re-recorded under “Taylor’s version” so I will be reviewing the original version.

Taylor Swift released her debut album, Taylor Swift on October 24, 2006 by Big Machine Records. She was 16 years old when it was released, however a few songs were written when she was 12-13 years old which was when she was trying to break into the music industry. Many, if not all of these songs were written during her freshman year of high school. The album has themes of romantic relationships, personal struggles in high school, and teenage troubles. Because Taylor Swift grew up in Pennsylvania, and moved to Nashville to pursue a record deal, it is only fitting that this first album is in the country music genre in which she also developed an early interest in. There are five singles from this album (“Tim McGraw,” “Picture to Burn,” Teardrops on my Guitar,” “Should’ve Said No,” and “Our Song,”) that became certified platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). The album also topped the top country albums chart for 24 non-consecutive weeks. Furthermore, this album earned a nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2007 Academy of Country Music Awards, album of the year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards, and earned Taylor Swift a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse that year. It did win Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year at the 2008 CMT awards, and a Horizon Award at the 2007 CMAs. It became the longest-charting album of the 2000s on the Billboard 200, and was the first album by a female country artist to have a platinum-certified debut album with all the songs written by her. Currently over 5.871 million copies of this album have been sold in the US.

There is a total of 11 songs in the standard album which are listed below, but in the deluxe edition there are 3 bonus songs. Now those songs are not the same as the hidden vault tracks in her re-recorded albums, but once the “Taylor’s Version” of this album is released, I am sure there will be more songs from it.

1.    Tim McGraw (single, music video)

2.    Picture to Burn (single, music video)

3.    Teardrops on My Guitar (single, music video)

4.    A Place In this World

5.    Cold as You

6.    The Outside

7.    Tied Together with a Smile

8.    Stay Beautiful

9.    Should’ve Said No (single)

10. Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)

11. Our Song (single, music video)

12. BONUS I’m Only Me When I’m with You (music video)

13. BONUS Invisible

14. BONUS A Perfectly Good Heart

Because this is considered to be a country music album, you will hear the familiar instrumental elements of country music such as acoustic guitars, banjos, and fiddles. However, this album does not overuse the country music aspect and also mixes a little bit of pop for a couple of her songs which may be inspiration for Taylor Swift’s full transition to pop in her later albums. A majority of the songs do touch upon a relationship that either Taylor had with a guy or just observed from afar, but there are also some songs in between that talk about her being an outcast from her peers, and typically issues teens face such as eating disorders. Despite this album being released while Swift was still in her teenage years at the time, it still resonates with young teenage/high school girls who are going through similar themes/issues this album touches upon. It can also be relevant to anyone who looks back at their high school/adolescent years to see how much they have grown, especially for Taylor Swift who will go through many ups and downs in her personal and musical life after this debut album. You don’t have to be a die-hard country music fan to enjoy this album because the messages and themes will apply to all.

This debut album starts the trend of having the 5^th song be the most emotionally vulnerable in the entire track list. That song, is “Cold As You” where it touches upon Taylor’s experience with an emotionally unavailable guy. There is also some inspiration from Shakespeare who unlike compares his lover to a warm, summer’s day, she compares hers to a cold, rainy day. I could feel how vulnerable she sounds in the song, but I really didn’t feel emotional, probably because it is like all her other songs that are about her relationships ending. However, it does foreshadow the many more breakups she will experience down the line.

  Now, I am not interested in country music, but there are a couple of songs I enjoy from this album which are, “Teardrops on my Guitar” and “A Place in This World.” “Teardrops on my Guitar” gives me that nostalgic feeling of my early days in elementary and middle school. I wasn’t in any relationship, but I just remember listening to this song on the radio, and it felt like I was in simpler times, which is another element this album brings. “A Place in This World” resonates a lot with me since it was the inspiration for one of my re-published study abroad posts when I went on my fall break trip. The song is still relevant to me today because I am also trying to find my place in this world as I go further into adulthood.

My personal thoughts on this album are that it may be a genre that I am least-interested in, but it shows that it had potential for what was to come down the line for Taylor Swift. I really enjoyed the theme of her being felt like an outcast from others which is how I felt in high school and even now. This album will invoke nostalgia especially for die-hard Swifties who have been big fans from the start. Other people will brush this album off, and pay more attention to her later pop albums, but this album planted the roots of Taylor Swift’s career. If it weren’t for this album, then we wouldn’t have gotten memorable eras and albums from Taylor. I was even impressed to see how much awards and accolades it had received which is a great start for a young singer at the time. I just hope we get a Taylor’s version of this album soon, so we can see what other hidden songs she had written for this album, and a different perspective now that she is a grown woman. It may not be one of her best albums in my opinion, but this album was a good start for her. Hopefully when she re-records this album, it might change my mind and I can come back to this post.

My overall rating of this album is a 7/10. I might be a little bit bias, but it is a country album, and Taylor Swift wrote these songs when she hadn’t quite fully entered the music industry yet as she was still learning. However, the context in the lyrics set the foundation for her in the future. I am not going to rank it with the rest of the albums since it is too early in this review series being the first one.

Before I end this post, in addition to giving my review of each album, I am going to make a symbol of each album by my second passion, crocheting. For this debut album, I crochet a mini cowboy hat to represent the country aspect. I even embroidered a little green heart on the top to match the album’s color scheme (and it is a "perfectly good heart" see what I did there?). Here is a better view with my Snoopy amigurumi wearing it.

"Debut" crochet cowboy hat worn by amigurumi Snoopy

That is it for this album review of Swiftmas. Please be on the lookout for my other album reviews this month.