CMT Blog: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is going to be both the host and the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this Saturday (Nov. 7). Is that even possible, for someone to perform country music AND be truly funny in the skits?

Yes. And I know this because of Garth Brooks. He did the same double duty when he was at the top of his game, and I think really surprised everyone with a sense of humor that seemed to come very naturally. Like when he's being teased backstage by the irresistibly sexy Mango (Chris Kattan). Or when Tracy Morgan is totally bad-mouthing Chris Gaines right to Garth Brooks' face. "He's a weedy beedy bing bong freak. And he's soft. He's fat. If you were that big, they'd be calling you Girth Brooks." But the very best was when Garth played Milo Jenkins, who sells his soul to the devil (Will Ferrell) to write him a hit song. Like "Fred's Slacks." It might be hard for Swift to beat that. But she has taken Garth Brooks' advice before, so I'm guessing she'll follow in his footsteps again this weekend. She told MTV she wanted to look nothing like herself. "I told all the writers, 'Don't count anything out. I want to go completely, 100 percent in.'" Then she said cast member Kristen Wiig was one of her comedic inspirations. Which really makes me hope they do a skit with Wiig as the one-upper, trying to one-up Swift. Like, "You got a songwriting deal when you were 14? I got one when I was still in my mother's womb." Or, "Both your albums went platinum four times? My albums have gone platinum, like, platinum times. Elvis was totally jealous." And they'd have to do something about Kanye. "Kanye West barged in on your VMA speech? He barges in on me more. He barges into my house, my dressing room, my car. He's obsessed with me. He thinks I'm the greatest comic of all time."

There's been much talk lately about the fact that Taylor Swift just broke the record set by Nickelback for having an album stay on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart the longest time during this decade. Good for her. Nickelback was hard to beat because their All the Right Reasons had the staying power to remain on the chart for 156 weeks. But Swift's self-titled debut album has now been on it for 157 weeks, so she wins. But I tend to look at things through only country music glasses, so I wanted to know what country album records she beat. So, according to Billboard, here goes: Shania Twain came the closest to Swift when her 1997 album, Come on Over, was on the chart for 151 weeks. And Carrie Underwood was on for 137 weeks with Some Hearts. And the Dixie Chicks, who I never thought anyone could ever beat, stayed on the charts for 134 weeks with Wide Open Spaces. Other noncountry albums have enjoyed similar success during this decade. And, of course, Pink Floyd's 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, holds the all-time record with 741 consecutive weeks on the chart.

Good news for people who think that today's country music isn't really all that country: George Jones agrees with you. He isn't loving where the genre has moved in recent years. So when he was asked about some of the pop-influenced country stars that are so hot right now, Jones said, "They (Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift) had to use something that was established already, and that's traditional country music. So what they need to do really, I think, is find their own title, because they're definitely not traditional country music." He does think that Alan Jackson and George Strait are still good for that traditional sound. "We still have it, and there's quite a few of us that are going to hope that it comes back one of these days," he said. In the meantime, though, any suggestions for what that new title should be?

Not every one is crazy about deluxe album reissues. Why pay for songs you already have just to get a couple new ones, right? Well, I have three words for you: forever and always. On Taylor Swift's new Fearless Platinum Edition, she has six new songs, one of which is the piano version of her "Forever & Always." One listen gave me goosebumps. I'm kind of a sucker for piano songs and for songs that have only one instrument. So it was only natural that I'd like it. But I didn't know how much until I put it on. Using such sparse music makes the lyrics so much more powerful. It's kind of like the way a dash of salt on an orange makes the orange taste so much sweeter. You strip away the layers of guitars and you're left with a beautiful, although heartbreaking, story. (Remember Sugarland's "Stay"? I felt just as strongly about the way that song was arranged.)

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When Taylor Swift speaks, celebrity Web sites listen. That was certainly the case Wednesday (Oct. 28) when portions of her interview with CMT Radio Live With Cody Alan made their way to the Internet. It looks like all the excitement is about Swift's comments regarding her friendship with Taylor Lautner, who portrays Jacob Black in the Twilight film series. The speculation stems from photos of Swift and Lautner in California at a Los Angeles Kings hockey game this past weekend. "I don't know, he's an amazing guy and we're really close ... and ah ... yep," she says in Alan's interview airing Wednesday night. "We're in a movie together and I am really excited about seeing it." The movie she's referring to is Valentine's Day, set to arrive in theaters on Feb. 12. Wait, that's just two days before Valentine's Day. What a coincidence! You can check out the Swift/Lautner coverage provided by People and Us magazines and Perez Hilton.

She doesn't two-step. She doesn't shake her booty. She doesn't bust a move. Really, other than throwing her head around when she plays guitar and occasionally skipping across the stage in concert, Taylor Swift never tries to do much dancing to her own music. So why, oh, why are there people gliding across the dance floor in formal wear?

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"All the girls in our school kind of used Halloween as an excuse to take all their clothes off," Taylor Swift recalls about the upcoming holiday. "My best friend Abigail and I have always been sort of anti-teeny-tiny, little costumes." I love that. Even at my age, I still know women who insist on being not just the nurse, the cat, the teacher or the hippie, but the slutty nurse, cat, teacher and hippie. As for the girls Swift knew in school, she added, "They would tan weeks in advance so that they could bare it all on Halloween. I'm like, 'That's not the point.' You're supposed to be scary." Last year Swift was Chewbacca and had the special-edition costume. No word on what she'll be for Halloween this year. But considering her budding romance with Twilight star Taylor Lautner, maybe she should be Bella to his Jacob.

I had a feeling that live music was sort of recession proof. And now I have proof. According to the Tennessean newspaper, concert grosses held steady and attendance even rose a little bit. That means 19.2 million people went to see some kind of live music during the 2009 concert season. I'm sure some of those are repeaters like me who go to multiple shows in a season, but still, that is a lot of people. Kenny Chesney makes up for a large part of that number, as does Taylor Swift. The story theorizes that the concert industry did OK this year because "many belt-tightening fans saw going to a concert as a less expensive alternative to going on vacation." I've never really thought of a two-or-three-hour show as a vacation, but I can kind of see the parallels. The sun is usually out, the beer is plentiful and typically everyone's pretty happy. So yeah. I guess concerts are the new vacations.

Photo credit: Ed Rode

I know, I know. It's just a guitar. But I have a solid argument for why this new guitar Taylor Swift has come up with could do a lot of good, so hear me out. If you spend any time with teens and tweens, you'll notice that they are very hyperverbal -- in an all-talk-no-action kind of way. They will text ad nauseam, Twitter about absolutely nothing and update their Facebook status every 10 minutes. So that doesn't leave time for doing very many things that would actually be worth the texts, tweets and status updates. Enter the Baby Taylor guitar, due out on Nov. 5. It's a ¾-scale dreadnought. Technically, a grown-up can use it, but it's really more well-suited for younger musicians. And, it's pretty, with a rosette design and Swift's signature and the words "Love Love Love" buried in the vines on the top. So for $299, a teenager can start DOING things that are very worthwhile. She can learn a few chords, write some poetry, pour out her heart, callous her fingertips, overcome frustration, take a lesson, audition for talent shows, face an audience and maybe find out that she has a talent that could take her places. I'm not saying every girl who buys this guitar will have a future like Swift's, but playing music will do a lot more good than playing nothing. When I interviewed Swift a couple of years ago, she told me how she'd started out playing a 12-string guitar and how so many people told her she'd never be able to master it because her hands weren't big enough. She showed them. And now she says, "For a beginner, finding the right guitar can be intimidating, but this guitar, it's the perfect size. I wanted to share my passion for playing guitar with my fans."

Remember back when Ellen DeGeneres introduced a stunned Taylor Swift to her favorite musical crush, Justin Timberlake? Well, that was so last year. Now it looks like Timberlake and Swift are buds. So much so that she helped him out in Las Vegas over the weekend (Oct. 17) at his second annual Justin Timberlake & Friends concert. It benefits the Shriners Hospital for Children. When she took the stage, Timberlake told the crowd that there would be "no Kanye-style stage crashing on his watch." Swift did "Forever & Always," "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story." Then after all the artists had taken their turns on stage, it was time for Timberlake. And toward the end of the show, Timberlake reportedly took to the piano to do his "What Goes Around ... Comes Around." Since Swift covers that song during her own performance of "You're Not Sorry," it might've been cool to see the two of them collaborate on that one. Maybe next year.