The debate over Taylor Swift

MORE THAN TWENTY years ago, I had a girlfriend who liked Olivia Newton-John. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with Olivia Newton-John or even with liking her. But my girlfriend really liked her. A lot. The way hardcore Presley fans worship at the Elvis Alter. Olivia Newton-John? Really? I had nothing against the British-born Australian. Her films and music works were mostly pleasant, if occasionally numbing. Even Newton-John’s best tune, “A Little More Love,” while featuring the singer’s most enterprising vocal performance, was not an artistic breakthrough by any stretch of the imagination. The words Olivia Newton-John and artistic breakthrough simply do not go together.

Taylor Swift

It’s surprising, then, that I liked Mandy Moore’s “Amanda Leigh.” The comparison between Newton-John and Moore is apt because both mined similar confectionery pop provisions at one point. Because her early songs, such as “Candy,” were so lightweight, Moore has been compared to Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. But Moore reminds me more of Newton-John than Britney and Jessica. After all, Moore’s voice sounds similar to Newton-John on Moore’s hit “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week.”

Early on in Moore’s career, there were differences, with Moore being far more erotogenic than Newton-John. And, unlike Newton-John, Moore clearly was aware of the sterility of the material itself and relied, more so than Newton-John ever dared, on nimble singing skills. Newton-John has always seemed to be gelid and lacking any authentic sensuality. More, unlike the other teen girl singers, especially Spears, never projected a sense of lewdness. Rather, she transmitted maturity and resolve. Moore’s veracity as a recording artist improved significantly with 2007’s “Wild Hope,” a soulful, accomplished collection of songs that was a palpable breakthrough. Though the album had its flaws, songs such as “Extraordinary” were ambitious and suggested that Moore potentially belonged in the same sentence with Fiona Apple and Sarah McLachlan rather than Spears and Simpson. After such a robust effort, Moore, like so many before her, could have easily taken a step back. The problem is that some artists, after finally getting a taste of what is like to reach their potential, become lost and fail to deliver on their artistic promise.

But “Amanda Leigh” is a compelling endeavor. Throughout the CD’s 11 tracks, Moore delivers time and again. Moore projects confidence and craft. Moore has wisely chosen a sound—an alternative Americana pop approach—that best suits her amatory voice. It is on full display on the lush “Merrimack River,’ the consoling “Song About Home,” the mournful “Indian Summer” and seductive “Everblue.”

The discussion about Moore leads me, rudimentum facio punctum, to Taylor Swift. It may not seem like it at first, but you need to go through Moore to get Swift, and I’ll tell you why. Harmless and unfeigned on the surface, Swift’s songs, performances and success have generated debate over the merits of her talent. It’s a worthy debate. She has sold more than 25 million digital tracks, plus at least 10 million hard-copy CDs. But some critics dismiss the 20-year-old singer-songwriter as nothing more than a gauche teenybopper and argue that there is an ineluctable discrepancy between between her talent and commercial success. That seems harsh, perhaps even a little cranky.

Clearly, massive record sales are not necessarily a measure of an artist’s value. On the other hand, it does indicate that an artist has unearthed a means to tap into the public’s collective clamor to be entertained and affected. Sometimes this clamor is ephemeral, like Peter Frampton’s mid-1970s zenith. It’s not enough to sell millions and millions of songs. Rather, for someone like Taylor Swift, incontrovertible craft over a sustained period of time will determine whether she is authentic, whether she can make the kind of complete artistic leap that Mandy Moore has made, even if Taylor Swift has pieced together the kind of commercial success that Moore can only fantasize about.

In Swift’s favor is the fact that she writes most of her own material, most of it full of generous hooks, crisp melodies and insightful narratives. As a songwriter, Swift knows precisely what she’s doing.

Yet, one of the complaints about Swift is that she is nothing more than a replica of Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez or any of the fem-clods at the Disney sweatshop. The argument, simply because it does not match the facts, is a jumbled hypothesis. Swift walked door to door on Nashville’s famed Music Row seeking a song-writing contract before being signed by Big Machine Record’s Scott Borchetta to a recording deal.

Aimee Mann

Both chronologically and artistically, Swift is a songwriter first and a performer second. A better, more accurate comparison might be Aimee Mann or Bethany Cosentino. Like Swift, they are singer-songwriters who started their careers in their mid- to late-teens. And they cover the same aftermath-of-demolished-relationship lyrical territory than Swift has mined so lucratively. Anyone who has heard the anguish in Mann’s “Amateur” or the mournfulness in Cosentino’s “Something in the Way” can see the immediate parallels with Swift’s “White Horse.”

Swift’s material, at its most successful, has an indubitable veracity. The New York Times’ rock music critic Jon Caramanica praises Swift’s songs for their “radical intimacy” and called her self-titled debut album “a small masterpiece.” In addition, he calls Swift “one of pop’s finest songwriters” who is “more in touch with her inner life than most adults.” Similarly, critic Michael Galluci, who normally writes about alternate and independent music artists, such as Cosentino, has hailed Swift’s songs for their “aching vulnerability.”

I sound like an apologist for Swift, but I think Swift has been unfairly maligned. There is evidence that Swift does struggle during televised live performances. She can be serrate and can sometimes fail to be commanding. As a performer, she over-reaches by focusing too much on mounting an animated stage show. It’s a consequential misstep. Swift’s strength is not spectacle. The quality of her music gets lost in the process. Her affability and charisma are her anchors as a performer, but she distances herself by relying on colorless, commonplace stage cliches.

Like Mann and Cosentino (and Kathleen Edwards and Neko Case), Swift is at her most rewarding when allows her material to be front and center. Swift can go one of two directions. She can continue to adhere to the pop-crossover superstar model, which can be financially rewarding in the short run, but potentially stifling artistically. Or adopt the alt-country approach that already informs her best songs. It has paid off for Moore’s credibility. Swift’s audience will eventually shrink to a manageable size either way, but the latter will have a better artistic payoff.

Mandy Moore

For proof, you do not need to look any further than “Untouchable,” a hit from Swift’s second CD. Oddly enough, “Untouchable” is not even a song she composed. It is a cover of a song by Rick Rubin project Luna Halo. Swift makes it her song by stripping it down from an adult alternative rocker to an acoustic girl-and-her-guitar arrangement. The result is stunning. Swift croons gently throughout the song, her glowing praise of new-found love creating the stirring and quivering intimacy that Caramanica has discussed.

Another compelling example is “The Outside,” which was written by Swift. The version on her debut is terrific. It actually was the first Swift song that caught my attention. It has a strong narrative, memorable melody and a revealing vocal performance. I have seen a live, acoustic performance of the song that, by slowing down the tempo, improves dramatically on the studio version. The live performance contains an awareness and go-for-broke potency that cannot be captured in a studio setting. And, like “Untouchable,” it is a convincing performance.

Those kinds of performances are a strong indicator of Swift’s future. Even more so than the major hits, such as “Love Story,” “You Belong with Me” and “Tim McGraw,” which are expertly written and performed songs, replete with the kind of story-telling detail that you normally associate with an experienced writer. Over time, Swift will be intriguing to watch, as she moves away from the urge to write overtly commercial material to songs that emphasize all her strengths.

Tags: Aimee Mann, Bethany Cosentino, Mandy Moore, Olivia Newton-John, Taylor Swift