CMT Blog: Taylor Swift

If you missed the New Music Seminar in New York earlier this week, then you missed a session called "The Creative Conundrum -- Increasing Your Odds With Radical Differentiation." I'm here to translate what they said into tips that could be relevant to a country artist trying to stand out in a sea of serious talent. The best advice sounds like something your dad would've told you the day you left for college: Find your niche. Think about how well that's worked for the current breed of new country artists. Zac Brown Band's niche is Southern country rock. Lady Antebellum's is edgy pop-country. Jamey Johnson's is old-school, don't-give-a-damn attitude music. Taylor Swift's is modern young-love ballads and catchy tunes.

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Just because you marry a guy doesn't mean you have to love him, right? You just have to love how he looks in a tux. And how well he can act like the marrying kind. That's kind of how Taylor Swift ended up walking down the faux aisle with actor Toby Hemingway in her video for "Mine." She had seen Hemingway in Feast of Love and thought he was great. Then she watched him in The Covenant and he was wearing her favorite number 13 on his sweatshirt, so that cemented the deal. Since the video shoot in Maine, the two have been seen out and about off-set, like when Swift was in Los Angeles recording some of her upcoming album, Speak Now, due Oct. 25. But during her live Ustream chat with nearly 60,000 fans on Tuesday (July 20) she admitted that the song "Mine" is NOT really about getting hitched. "It's a song that is about my tendency to run from love," she said. That's too bad for Hemingway.

Photo credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Here's something for country fans to look forward to: Toby Keith and Reba McEntire are returning to the racks this fall with new albums, along with Taylor Swift's Speak Now and new projects from LeAnn Rimes, Darius Rucker and Sugarland. The first big release in October will be Keith's Bullets in a Gun on Oct. 5. He's already pulled the trigger on its first single and video, "Trailerhood." Rimes' Lady and Gentleman will be presented that same day. Due Oct. 12, Rucker's Charleston, SC, 1966 takes its name from a seminal Radney Foster country album from 1992 that stamped Foster's hometown and birth year right into its title. A week later, Sugarland rolls in with The Incredible Machine, influenced in part by steampunk, an industrial science fiction/fantasy vision based in the Victorian era. (That explains this particularly striking photo.) As widely reported earlier this week, Swift's Speak Now is due worldwide on Oct. 25. For now, the last big release of the year will be McEntire's as-yet-untitled project, due Nov. 9. As always, release dates are subject to change. In the meantime, here's more information about August and September releases.

When Taylor Swift explained the idea behind her next album, Speak Now, due out Oct. 25, she said it was going to be full of songs that are "made up of words I didn't say when the moment was right in front of me." So it's literally kind of a speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace kind of thing. But does that make it a concept album? MTV.com thinks so. They are loosely comparing this album of what Swift calls open letters to other concept projects recorded by "an interesting club of unlikely artists." Among them, they cite Garth Brooks' 1999 experiment in recording an album as a fictional Australian rock star, Chris Gaines. I think that conclusion is a stretch. Swift's album will likely just be more of what she does best -- opening her heart and telling one person what is on her mind while the rest of the world listens in.

"I can't wait for you to hear it!" That's the exuberant message that Taylor Swift emphasized repeatedly when she revealed that her new album, Speak Now, will be released worldwide on Oct. 25. In the meantime, the lead single, "Mine," is expected in mid-August. More than 55,000 online viewers heard the news first during a live chat on Tuesday afternoon (July 20) -- and they're probably just as eager as she is for her new music. Here are some of the highlights of her 45-minute chat:

• She's spent 99 percent of her summer working on the new album, and one percent of her time officially moving into her new condo in Nashville.

• She wrote all the songs by herself for the record, because her inspiration would strike on tour, when there were no co-writers around. The album will include "Sparks Fly," a fan favorite that she's played only a handful of times on tour. Later on, she said she's thinking there will be 14 songs on the album.

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Bill Clinton is hardly ready to kick the bucket. But at a conference on Monday (July 19) he revealed that he has a bit of a bucket list like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson did in the movie of that name. He'd like to have grandchildren, see all children live their dreams and, on a lesser note, maybe climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. My own list is a lot less grand and has more to do with music than anything. I'd like to see the Dixie Chicks get back together for good. I'd like Garth Brooks to go on a real tour so I can see him without flying to Vegas. (In fact, as long as it's MY bucket list, I'd like Brooks to play my backyard.) I'd like to see Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift record a duet. I want to watch a songwriting session. Then a recording session. I'd like to have a tiny role in a country music video. I want to do more ride-the-bus stories. And I want to smoke weed with Willie Nelson. I know I should think bigger, like spend a week at the Louvre or go on a safari. But my list is my list. What's on yours?

I'm not even sure she is aware of it, but Taylor Swift is up for another award. She's been nominated for induction into a Hall of Fame -- that is, the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame. I guess since she's been seen out and about bowling with friends, family and her band, she is considered Hall of Fame material. But she's up against some other celeb bowlers, like Justin Bieber, Jeff Bridges, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon and Kim Kardashian. They pick celebs who help contribute to the enduring popularity of bowling and because of what the bowling experts call "showing their love for the sport." If you think Swift is worthy of the honor, you can vote for her between now and August 7.

Concert ticket sales are down 17 percent this year, compared to the first half of 2009. And then there's country. The Tennessean has a great story about how so many major concert tours are suffering the same recessionary woes as the rest of the world, but how country concerts from the likes of Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift are actually doing quite well, thank you very much. The story attributes that to the cheaper seats, but having just shelled out $250 for a Dixie Chicks/Keith Urban/Eagles ticket, I don't buy that. I personally think maybe country fans are just that loyal, and would gladly make sacrifices before they'd miss a show. Clarence Spalding, who manages Jason Aldean and Brooks & Dunn, said, "A lot of acts out there from the pop and rock side are getting the crap beat out of them, and a lot of it's about the high ticket prices. I don't think you should look at it like we're not making money from the record business so, in turn, you need to jack up ticket prices. If that's your strategy, it's not a great strategy, and it's going to turn away fans."

Photo credit: Ed Rode

I heard a Keith Whitley song on the radio the other day. One that I am crazy about. And I thought, "Well, that was nice." Nice because it was a change of pace. But would I want to hear a steady stream of old-school country? Not really. Because if there was too much old, how would you ever discover the new?

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume radio never had stopped playing Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. What if that prevented the world from hearing fresh country voices like Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift or Miranda Lambert? That would be a shame, wouldn't it?

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Everyone seems to want to know everything about Taylor Swift's every move. And now she's ready to talk. Well, at least about her next album. She's going to do a live chat with fans on Tuesday (July 20) at 5 p.m. ET. "I've gotten so many questions from fans -- on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, my website, everywhere really, and it's so incredible to see how excited everybody is about what's next. I want them to be the first to know about my new music, and I can't wait to talk to everybody as directly as I can," she said. So whatever you may want to know, like the release date, the writers she wrote with, any hints about the song topics, and whether this album will be more country than pop, or more pop than country, you just have to ask. The chat will be available on her official website, her MySpace and Facebook pages and Ustream.tv/taylorswift. Fans can submit questions directly into the live Ustream chat window on all viewing sites. There's no word on how long she'll be able to chat, but knowing her, she will probably do her best to give brutally honest answers to every single question.