A couple weeks ago, Kanye West went from eccentric genius to total asshole with one dumb-ass stage rush. It’s not that Taylor Swift really needed another award to add to the batch she’s justly collected over the past two years. It’s not that the country star needed MTV to validate her pop-princess standing either. But she did need, and deserve, a minute onstage alone to accept her Best Female Video award (yeah, Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” is a way better video than Swift’s “You Belong With Me,” but that’s not the point). In a pop landscape filled with corporate cash cows and interchangeable teen cuties destined for Celebrity Rehab, the 19-year-old Swift is the real deal, a genuinely likable singer who writes her own (very good pop) songs. Her second album, Fearless — which has sold more than four million copies since its release last year — gets a facelift later this month with a new “Platinum Edition” that adds six new songs. Her voice isn’t always equipped to reach an arena’s back seats, but with enough onstage razzle-dazzle (props, costumes, flashy guitar and fiddle solos), it’s a spectacle that not even a party-pooper like Kanye can spoil. Swift plays Quicken Loans Arena (One Center Ct., 216.241.5555, ticketmaster.com) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $23-$52.50. —Michael Gallucci
This article appears in Sep 23-29, 2009.
When you say “yeah, Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” is a way better video than Swift’s” I admit to confusion. Perhaps the criteria for better video is the problem: Swift’s has sparkling production values with thematic progression, a cute but not cloying story, music that is both professionally played and attractively sung, attractive young players, Swift and Till, and the ironic touch of Swift playing both the geek next door and the bewigged cheerleader; Beyonce’s video displays her very attractive figure along with two similar dancers executing a provocative dance very effectively, a terrific dance tune with little in the way of lyrics, few production values, no thematic development, and in short is little more than a very come-hither performance, but does not contain much that distinguishes it as a video. So when you say it is better, are you just saying you like it or Beyonce more than swift, and is that all that matters in judging between the two videos. Prior to the awards I looked at all the candidates and thought that Swift’s was on almost all counts the best of them. I am puzzled, is it just a popularity contest (which by the numbers Swift also won)?