OMFG! Taylor goes ghetto and girly and tuff in one breath.

[koganbot]

Finally saw a clip of Taylor Swift at the ACMs, and the staging is astonishing. She starts acoustic, with a wicked strum, in a hoodie and jeans, and then she jettisons the guitar, her homies join her, and then OMFG.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[koganbot]

Jimmy Draper tells me that this performance was the talk of the gossip/celeb/music blogs the next day. I somehow missed the convo. Xhuxk described it briefly on rolling country but that went in one eyeball and out the other while I was thinking about LeAnn Rimes and what a great raving stomper "Family" is, and about Miranda winning album of the year and Chesney complaining about the voting procedures for the award that he won.

[koganbot]

And Jimmy points out that Taylor in hoodie with acoustic is coming on like 2004 Avril at the start, before her homies hit the stage. Also tells me that there are Abdul and Clarkson precedents for some of the subsequent maneuvers. But what impresses me most is the way Taylor deliberately mixes and confounds social markers, with complete assurance.

She does sing the song better on record. (It's her single by the way, best since "Tim McGraw.")

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

When she came out with the hoodie, I initially thought of Eminem. It was too plain (honest maybe?) to signify Avrilness.

As for the performance, awesome melding of a bunch of strains of teen confessional! And pointing the way toward the future with (1) Taylor herself (country appropriating this stuff) and (2) flashy spectacle (dance and R&B appropriating this stuff?).

[koganbot]

Well, I'm guessing that in making the Avril comparison Jimmy was probably thinking of the combination of hoodie and singer-songwriter acoustic guitar. What'd you think of "Take A Bow"? As I said a few days ago, I think Taylor's version beat Rihanna's. I wonder if she'll ever release one of those covers as a single. (Rissi Palmer's version of "No Air" isn't going to rise much more unless it gets a second wind; but Rissi doesn't have nearly the name recognition of Taylor.)

(Speaking of Taylor's social range, on rolling country I linked a duet of her and Kellie Pickler doing "Courtesy Of The Red, White, And Blue," for contrast. It was terrible. Xhuxk says he thinks he did a better version of that song himself at karaoke. The Taylor-Kellie version went over well with her audience, but I doubt that such jingoistic saber rattling would carry to many other audiences, and events over the last few years haven't helped the song's message any.)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I wonder if she'll ever release one of those covers as a single.

Is there no outlet in the US for pop or country acts to do (properly recorded and produced) radio sessions?

If TS was British (bear with me, I realise if she were, she wouldn't be doing country) she'd have done at least one session for Radio 2 by now and likely as not you wouldn't have to rely on YouTube to (half) hear this stuff.

[koganbot]

People can do radio-station sessions, but there's no real equivalent to a national radio station (NPR, which is "public" radio, i.e., runs worthy stuff supposedly of redeeming social value, and is partly supported by public funds, is national but not all the affiliates pick up every program, and NPR doesn't have a lot of listeners, and it's generally not asking Taylor Swift types anyway). And online music outfits such as Launch Yahoo and AOL Music and MySpace will often get a performer to do a special live performance or rerecording that they'll then run high-quality clips of at their site (there are seven Ashlee recordings for AOL from around the time of I Am Me). And someone can do properly recorded and produced TV sessions if they want (and many of the Idol performances get released as mp3s), I'd think. There's a long-running PBS show called Austin City Limits with country and alt-country performers. But whether any of these performances become generally available for sale would have to do with whether the acts themselves want to release the results. Taylor Swift did release a digital-only live set, I think it's five songs, and includes her version of "Umbrella," though I actually prefer this half-hearable and not altogether on-pitch live version. The thing is, although Taylor can sing in tune, she can't always count on herself to do so (the ACM performance was particularly wavering). So I'd think she'd be wary of committing in advance to recording something live that would be for official release. (But when you say "properly recorded and produced," I'm assuming these sessions aren't strictly live and that they allow for overdubs or at least retakes, like the BBC sessions of old for the Kinks, Beatles, etc.)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I meant the old-style, BBC Maida Vale, come-in-for-a-day-and-record-4-songs-for-broadcast-later type of session.

Even the Beeb does much this less often nowadays, preferring most acts to do live (or as-live) in-studio performances.