If her voice has been manipulated by in-studio producer Nathan Chapman, he’s done a good job masking it. She belts out the climaxes of songs like the romantic nightmare “Haunted” and the snot-punk catfight “Better Than Revenge” on “Dear John,” her hate letter to Mayer, she opens up her throat so wide that she almost yells. Swift, who wrote all the songs herself, does push one thing: her voice. Conquering new territory, she acts like it’s simply what’s expected of her. She surveys this wide ground without bluster she never poses. Little spoken asides pepper some songs, signifying hipness on others, Swift lays claim to several genres’ worth of signatures, from the lush strings of Céline-style kitsch-pop to Americana banjo to countrypolitan electric guitar. The musical range of ‘Speak Now’ expands beyond country-pop to border both alternative rock and the dirty bubblegum pop promulgated by such producers as Lukasz “Dr. Swift is naming names during the media cycle accompanying this release -– the guitarist John “The Player” Mayer is the cradle-robber in “Dear John,” Taylor Lautner the lost prince of “Back to December” - but the gossip surrounding the music is much less interesting than the maturation of her sound. Her third album, “Speak Now,” is meant to be a masterpiece of major declarations - two-thirds of it recounts broken love affairs with fairly identifiable fellow celebrities, and she offers glimpses that finally confirm she’s not a princess, but a modern young woman who stashes clothes for the morning at her boyfriend’s place and isn’t above calling a rival a mattress gymnast.
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