Finally....

Carpre diem, seizing the opportunity. Watching Taylor Swift live since I became a fan of hers a few years back was simply a dream.When the opportunity finally came, I didn't think twice. It was one of those moments in life where you dreamt about something and it happened for real.

I started supporting Taylor from the first album but it took more than the first few impressions to get my attention. Her famous Teardrops on My Guitar was quite a hit on the radio but I didn't really pay much attention to what she was singing, all I heard was the title of the song. I can't remember precisely when I first listened to her debut self-titled album, but that was the defining moment of being her fan. When I listened to that album and considered the age she wrote that album, I knew I was listening to something very special. To write and create a first album at such a high level needed something extraordinary, and it was. The stories in album were mainly about the people who were in her life a few years back but the way she painted the pictures through her songs made those songs a lot more than that. I did a review on Fearless when it came out and I rated it 9.8/10. In hindsight, I was right on the dot. Fearless was the next big step and it propelled her into one of the biggest stars in music today. When Fearless was named Album of the Year, the biggest award in the Grammys, I was over the moon, the world of music saw what I saw, it was amazing. That album started her 2-year Fearless tour.

I've seen some footage of her concerts and read stories on how she sells out her concerts around the world. I have always been so envious of those people who got to watch her and it always remained a dream to watch this incredibly talented artist, who is one of my favourites. 2009 went by, 2010 went by and 2011 went by. I seriously never thought that day would come. When 2012 finally presented the opening I have hoped for such a long time and it was a no-brainer decision. It is one of those fantastic moments in life, and taking into account the extent I went through to make it happen made it remarkable. A big thank you to all of you who help make it happen for me.

Wow..where do I start to describe my experience. It was simply unreal at times. Taylor opened her Australasia tour with Perth, marking her 99th concert on her Speak Now Tour.The opening act of her tour was upcoming band Hot Chelle Rae, also from Nashville. It was such a big bonus as I really liked some of their songs. They didn't disappoint, they were brilliant performers and I am an official fan of them now. After dishing out about 6 songs with so much energy, the moment finally came where Taylor was about to perform.

All the anticipation and dreams were moments away from being real. Sparks Fly started to play and then Taylor appeared all of a sudden from under the stage and sang the opening line "Drop everything now..." and the fireworks lit the entire stage. People were screaming at the top of their lungs and I couldn't believe there was nothing between me and Taylor (Usually the computer screen) and I looked in awe. She looked stunningly beautiful and it was probably the best I've seen of her. Those bangs made her look adorable. Lucky me.The stage was amazing, all the props and design made it looked absolutely fabulous. It had a Broadway theme. After Sparks Fly, she just stood there silently and looked around as she absorbed the atmosphere. People were screaming like mad again. Just as she looked like she was going to talk to the crowd, she took a stroll back, picked up her guitar and played Mine. I have to say she sings perfectly live, which I didn't really expect. I've seen her perform live in some music awards and some of them weren't really good, but her performance was nothing short of pitch perfect and wonderful.

After Speak Now she finally addressed the crowd. She talked about her first time touring in Perth, the beach she visited earlier in the day, the 16000 strong crowd in the venue and how she was about to share her stories with the crowd. She ended by asking "Are you ready?". It drove the crowd insane again and she started her song "The Story Of Us". She sang most of the songs on her Speak Now album.

It was one of the nights of my life. Stellar performance, superb choreography, great band members, great entertainment and outstanding songs by an extraordinary artist.I just couldn't ask for more, except that I had hoped she sang "If This Was A Movie". I'm still living the dream today and it is a wonderful feeling. Taylor, thanks for the fantastic show.

 ♥

                                                              Our Song


I was enchanted to meet you, Taylor.
~deyao~

Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless 3 hour Special

I just completed the 3 hour special about Taylor Swift's journey and her tour. I still got a final exam paper coming up but I don't want to wait any longer because I might not be writing this if I postponed it.

The special mainly showed how she went on tour and the back scenes on how she made it happen. I've watched many documentaries and read tons about her, but watching one of her concerts remain on the "waiting list". It may not happen soon but the 3 hour special was a wonderful insight on her tour which lasted about 15 months. Her journey is something looked upon millions across America and the world. Her lyrics are 'embedded' in people and it simply shows her song's impact on her listeners. It was another tremendous story about a talented musician trying to make it into the music business.

In the beginning, it showed how she convinced her family to move to Nashville to pursue her music dreams. At an age of 11, somehow she did it and credit to her parents for giving her the opportunity to. Ironically, she got spotted in the same venue where her idol Faith Hill also got noticed. Some humour to the story. After she played in that venue (a cafe), a man walked up to her, asking her to be part of his record label. At the time, she was with a big record label but they were seemingly unwilling to offer her a record anytime soon because she was just 14 or 15. He contacted her a few days later and said. "There are good news and bad news. The good news is I want you on my record label.The bad news is.... I don't have a record label yet". And it was sort of destiny, Taylor had such a bright future ahead and this guy saw it in her, the rest is history.The then little known Big Machine Records has now got Taylor Swift selling millions of copies for them. What a story. Introducing Scott Borchetta.

And more recently, Taylor again mentioned how Big Machine Records gave her the freedom of doing whatever she liked on her new album and how she was very proud to be representing them. Obvious reasons why they trust her, she sells half a million copies on the first week.

The special also included full length performances for her concert in Houston. The first hour had You Belong With Me, Tim McGraw, Fifteen,Teardrops On My Guitar and Our Song. The second, Today Was A Fairytale, Love Story, Hey Stephen and Tell Me Why. The third, Fearless, Forever And Always, Picture To Burn and Shouldve Said No. I was pretty thrilled to be seeing the inside of a Taylor Swift concert. I must say she sounds a lot better than many of her performances on awards and tv shows. It's just an incredible experience for people who attended her concert.

Taylor's efforts in the making her concert possible was also just wonderful to watch. How she chose her dancers, designed her stage, customised the effects and arrangement and most importantly how she made her fans feel that more important to her. There's a lot to mention. Go watch it to find out.

Her band and her mother's influence and support was another key involvement in Taylor's career. Her mother was every supportive of what she does and follows her on the road to all of her shows. And like how Andrea (her mum) says, not many people Taylor's age would want to hang out with their mums, but luckily her daughter does. It sets an inspiring example for teens today and Taylor should be extremely proud. She has the coolest people in her band as well and the intimacy of the band was something people could only wish for. Each and every one of them are special in their own way and they are like family to Taylor. It is closest thing to a fairytale for an artist, working with people who actually are your most important people in life.There was a moment in their last show where she said "I trust you..".Again showing how far they've come.

There are not many people I admire in life and particularly not anyone younger than me. But hats off to Taylor, she has become an idol for millions of people and setting the best example for them. She has won Grammy awards at the age of 20 and there will be no stopping her doing more. Speak Now is a just a fabulous album I can't wait to write a review about soon. Ending with some promo pictures and video from the special.





Taylor Swift's 'Journey to Fearless' on The Hub

Taylor Swift | Myspace Music Videos

~deyao~

Drowned in awesomeness

I got two weeks of studying coming up but because of another breathtaking album by Taylor Swift, I can't help but spread the word. It's only my second day listening to it, but it has surpassed my expectations. No surprises the lyrics are again based on true stories but I really feel she has stepped it up another level. Fearless was one hell of a album, generating more album sales than any other albums at that time. Now Speak Now is set to break more records, I am very certain of that. Any doubts can be put to rest because Taylor has done an amazing job for this album.She has clearly shown she has matured and become even better over the last two years. 14 tracks on the original version album and a few others with acoustic versions on the deluxe version (red cover). For her fans, it's another incredible treat. The way she connects her stories into music is quite amazing. If you take the time to get to the meaning of the songs (she wrote every song btw) and at the same time get drowned in the excellent instrument arrangement, it won't be hard to understand why she is right on top in the industry.

~deyao~

Video Recommendation by Sylvia

It has been real busy for me in many ways for the past few weeks. But it has been mostly good. I've never written about what happened during the day or anything like that before and I think I will keep it that way. This video was recommended by Sylvia yesterday and I thought it was pretty awesome. I have always loved and admired musicians all the time and this video continued to prove to me that I was partly wrong not to continue with the piano a Very Long Time Ago. The piano is the ultimate instrument that touches the heart, hands down.

The video was done by a Jon Schmidt and his friend Steven Harp Nelson. They combined two of biggest hits in the past year, Taylor Swift's Love Story and Coldplay's award winning Viva La Vida. It took me awhile to really appreciate Viva La Vida until I saw Boyce Avenue do a cover which is very impressive.

The composition and creativity on of this performance is quite unbelievable. I shall leave it here with 3 videos.
1. THE VIDEO
2. Viva La Vida by Boyce Avenue <-- Check this out
3. Taylor Swift's Crazier for the Hannah Montana Movie.









Thanks again to Sylvia for sharing.
enjoy
~deyao~

Taylor and Fearless Win Big !

Read the good news in the papers. Congratulations to Taylor Swift for her 3 awards won at the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards

ALBUM OF THE YEAR (AS ARTIST AND PRODUCER) and

CRYSTAL MILESTONE AWARD

The Crystal Milestone Award is awarded for Outstanding Achievement in Country Music. Only Garth Brooks,Tim McGraw and Faith Hill has won this award. Btw, she is also the youngest ever recipient of the Album of The Year at 19 years old.
Not surprising as Fearless has gone Triple Platinum (3 million copies) and is the best selling album in 2008!Videos from the event







More details will be added later like pictures.

~deyao~

The Biggest Cover Yet

Taylor Swift will be appearing on March's edition of Rolling Stone !! This is surely her biggest one. It is definitely in my radar..haha.


Full Story and more exclusive photos below.
http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1073

Mind the Taylor madness
~deyao~

Taylor's New Video

"The Original Video got banned by YouTube"
This song is called White Horse and it was said to be her favourite song in the album. And also the song she cried most to while singing it.
Btw, she will be on the cover of Teen Vogue this March.
And..........here's a link to a video of an interview and photoshoot with Women's Health
INTERVIEW LINK


~deyao~

Amazing Taylor Swift !

Exams are done and finally I can do the review on the new Taylor Swift album. Been listening to the album since the release and oh my.... this girl is insanely good. Still days away from turning 19 and she just delivered an incredible album. I thought her debut album was already unbelievable, and now her sophomore album Fearless is at the next level and the world has done nothing wrong for doing this..

I made some screenshots from Billboard and it appeared like that.Yes, the fans all made this happen. Top of the Billboard 200? You can't be serious. I wasn't expecting that either. Now she is top of the world!
So here's the list from the album.

Fearless - The opening song and it is definitely an opening song. Great song.
Fifteen - Taylor teaching someone to love? Not a good idea.
Love Story - Romeo and Juliet theme with a happy ending.
Hey Stephen - Taylor's plain jealousy.
White Horse - This song blending with Grey's Anatomy's scene and Taylor Swift crying over the excitement her song was played, can really feel the song
You Belong With Me - One lucky guy I suppose which is similar to Mr. "Teardrops on My Guitar"
Breathe - With Colbie Caillat, but it was not quite the duet I expected. But it went well.
Tell Me Why - Probably the best song of the album.
You're Not Sorry - The title tells the story.
The Way I Loved You - Another guy...
Forever & Always - Song for that bloody Jonas guy.
The Best Day - Song for her family especially for her mum. Very sweet song.
Change - Written for the US Olympics team

Recommended: ALL tracks.
This album is arguably one of the best albums I've listened to. The songs are just very different and every song just gives you a story. The instruments in most of the songs also just wonderful. Yes, many of the songs about the guys in her life and imagine at the age of 18, there has been so many of them. Lol. I just ran out of good words describing the album...

Rating : 9.8/10

Some pictures to end.

I just can't get enough of those curls.




TAYLOR SWIFT IS TOURING AUSTRALIA !! THOSE IN AUSTRALIA, PLS GO!! I AM GOING INSANE HERE.

~deyao~

Hot N Cold by Taylor Swift

Here's a video posted by Taylor with Kate Perry's Hot n Cold.
Check the rest of her videos at her
MySpace Video Channel

They are really funny, she does really good acting. A good experience what goes behind the scenes.

You change your mind like a girl changes clothes.


Philadelphia :)


Ending part was good.

~deyao~

Who Needs Joe when You Can Have JT!

Taylor: "This makes it all better.."
Album review is coming up in a week.

~deyao~

Awaiting Fearless Taylor!

In a week's time, Taylor Swift would be releasing her new album Fearless, her second album. Love Story , Fearless and White Horse all have been released as singles and surely the rest would be as good. Previously in my review, I heap praises for her unbelievable debut self-titled album. She is so talented and I am very certain her album would be nothing but top notch again. Not mentioning her great personality too.
Cover of the album
I also can't wait to listen to her duet with Colbie Caillat, one of my other favs recently. It's called "Breathe". Found a pic from Coco's(Colbie) MySpace with her and Taylor during their writing session. You won't find this pic anywhere else.haha.
I love them both! Awesome musicians.

The release is on 11/11/08. Make sure you catch if you can. You are assured of great music. I'm done here......

~deyao~

Taylor Swift and Grey's Anatomy

One is my current craze in music and the other is the best series I've watched yet. Why are they on the same title? Read on... As big tv fans welcomed the return of Grey's Anatomy Season 5 on Friday, I barely knew where was I. In short, I was really sick, accumulated sleep for the day was abt 16 hrs, quite sure I screwed up my presentation in marketing as I was preparing it in "fever shivers", the "fastest thing that takes me down"(Tag Post). Then Saturday came, things improved, opened up EZTV and was like "Grey's is back?", so unlike me, I even wrote the date down on my previous post. This shows how drained I was. So downloaded Top Model as usual too. Havent watched the last 2 episodes. Seriously I can shelve Top Model anytime now, I haven't missed it on week to week basis almost ever. And since the show has showing dwindling signs that it is really deteriorating, I am just not that interested as b4. Coupled by the last season's winner, a friendly conclusion would be 'Fashion experts make mistakes too'.


Grey's Anatomy is back with a 2hr premiere and producers of the show should really do a better job than pretending to kill Derrick!! I was like yea yea, just an imagination. Then....hey this imagination looks pretty long for an imagination. Then when you get the first signs of worry they snap you out of the imagination. Conclusion, they mostly likely caught you out being worried. bloody hell.



So here's the point, as usual when you watch shows you get songs and you'll be concentrating on the shows rather than the songs unless its a familiar song. We almost never remember what song was played. It was a 1 hr and 24 min show so it must have been a little tiring. But it came this moment where just 3 secs of this person singing, I was like "HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON", I told myself "THAT IS SO TAYLOR SWIFT!, FOR SURE". I've listened to enough of Taylor Swift for the past many weeks to sing any of her songs. She is just so talented. 43 secs of the song was played.
True enough, I looked up her MySpace Post and bingo. The song is called White Horse which will be in her upcoming album Fearless. She must so happy being a big Grey's Anatomy fan.
3 days of productive time used. Back to work again...have a nice day.


~deyao~

The New Face of Country Music

It's been rather long since I had my last music album review. I wanted to do this review for some time now but I just haven't got real "spare time". University hours may be short but damn hell it takes a lot more of any free time. I don't think I could even manage 1 post per week for the moment, but hopefully things settle a little more and I can post more often.

That aside, this young and fabulous country singer has really surprised me. I knew her for awhile now but only recently I got to experience her entire album, which was a wonderful experience. When it comes to modern country today, I would say Carrie Underwood rules most of it. Carrie came out with her Some Hearts album and it sold like mad, not sure how many platinums she got for "Before He Cheats". But she has tremendously successful. But now comes a new artists and I feel she IS the new face of country. Already nominated for "Best New Artist" in the Grammys, she is no other than Taylor Swift. Her first album and it is already brilliant. There's just not enough words to describe this album. I'll start with Fantastic? For those who like country music , Taylor Swift would be at the top. Not at the at Trisha Yearwood, Leann Rimes or Faith Hill level yet. But believe me, her songs are unbelievable for a new artist turning 19 only at the end of 2008. There's a huge lag between this album's release and this review. But it's definitely worth it.

Let's go to the album, here's the cover.
It is a pretty nice cover. But pictures aren't audible so you really gotta check the album out.

Now to the songs. We all heard Teardrops on My Guitar. Some of us felt it was quite nice and some may have thought it was bad. I can't represent anyone's view but I liked it.

The album is like many of the new albums around, the young and ambitious ones.
Here's the list of the songs. The ones highlighted in ORANGE are the excellent ones. The others are rated 8/10. Check out the videos too.

1. Tim McGraw
   
2. Picture to Burn Video link
   
3. Teardrops on My Guitar
   
4. A Place in This World
5. Cold as You
   
6. The Outside
7. Tied Together with a Smile
8. Stay Beautiful
9. Should've Said No
   
10. Mary's Song
    
11. Our Song Video link
    

I have listened to it about 5-6 times on repeat to make sure it was how I thought it was. Our Song , Should've Said No has already made it big on the charts. Those songs are just wonderful to listen to. The lyrics are very creative too. It's really amazing for a new artist to start off at such a high level. I am totally impressed. Songs are very uplifting, vocals are powerful and everything in this album seems to just fit in perfectly. Anyone has to check this album out.
My rating would be 9.3/10.

I'll leave it here with some pictures.



Elegance.


The shinny guitar in the "Our Song" video.


Nice curls.


And lastly, a full shot.

~deyao~