Comments on: Single Review: Taylor Swift, “Sparks Fly”

By: bali home design

bali home design — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:08:40 +0000

but still, she has good voice and really nice songs :)

I dont listen to this yet but I hope this is as good as the previous singles

By: GalPal

GalPal — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:33:30 +0000

Typical Review from this site. She can write but she still can’t sing. Truly sad but still typical “cultural juggernaut”-right!

By: Troy

Troy — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:59:13 +0000

I’m not sure about this single choice. Enchanted is the song would do really great but I suppose it’s too long for radio. Sparks Fly is almost too much of the same for it to help album sales. Love the song though

Taylor dealt with sex in her very first single “Just a boy in a chevy truck that had a tendency of getting stuck on back roads” so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone!

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:32:30 +0000

Anthony- you seem incredibly biased in your dislike to Taylor Swift, which does not make your job very easy, when reviewing her singles and albums. There are plenty of things that can be admired about Taylor and her love for music.

J- this song was written 5 years ago. Maybe she was a horny teenager and became a classy woman? lol
Although she describes lust as classy as you can in this song, i guess.

By: J

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:32:31 +0000

I knew it was only a matter of time before she started singing about more intimate feelings like sex.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:23:03 +0000

I am sorry if I offended you. It was not my intention to do so. I must admit we did not research your site but our findings were based on reviews from the internet (more than just a few). We are still learning how to dot our i’s and cross our t’s. Most of the reviews were, as I stated above, contradictory and some were obviously biased. We want to be unbiased and truthful in our reviews and try to conceal our personal feelings and write a review that we can be proud of. Surely you and the staff must have run into these types of critics in your 5 or 6 years in the business. I am going to introduce your articles to my class when school starts again and hope to find them very informative. Thanks for responding to my post. I appreciate being critiqued because it helps in the learning process. I am going to go back and read some of your articles about Swift.

By: JonathanKeefe

JonathanKeefe — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:07:51 +0000

My usual policy is not to respond at length to comments on my work after it’s been posted unless a reader points out a factual error or asks a specific question.

But I’ll make an exception here. LeeAnn already touched on the fact that you clearly haven’t done your research, Anthony. And as a “journalism student,” you should be well aware of the idea that you should do more than just a cursory bit of digging before making specious claims such as the ones you’ve made here.

As LeeAnn said, the writers here at CU have done *anything* but given Swift a free pass for her pop leaning productions and her weak vocals. Moreover, my own reviews of Swift’s albums, which are linked by both Metacritic and Wikipedia and shouldn’t be at all hard for anyone who’s actually looking for them to track down, are highly critical of Swift for precisely those reasons, and I’ve made similar comments in various commentary pieces and editorials. So your assumption that I gave this single a positive review as a result of some kind of bias or of a desire to be part of a broader critical consensus simply doesn’t hold. At all. And, as a writer, it’s a petty and anti-intellectual insult that I don’t appreciate or find warranted based upon a simple difference of opinion.

(Also, no one of the staff at CU has been at this for more than 5 or 6 years, so your claims about “new blood” are equally off-base and lacking in factual support).

As an aspiring writer, I hope you and your fellow students learn the value of real critical analysis, and that not every viewpoint you happen to disagree with is the result of “bias.” In writing this particular review, I actually had to reflect on my own existing views about Swift’s music and to challenge myself to look beyond them. That’s part of a critic’s *job* when they’re attempting to do that job well.

By: Leeann Ward

Leeann Ward — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:31:09 +0000

Hmmm… Judging by your over-generalizations, Anthony, I don’t think you and your fellow journalism students have done your research thoroughly enough then, since Swift certainly does not get a free pass among all music critics. Writers from this site alone have criticized her voice and pop production when necessary. It’s like beating a dead horse at this point.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:23:43 +0000

I wanted to add to my comments above that it seems that the critics never criticize Swift for sounding TOO POP but if other artists sound just a little pop they are all over them saying they sound too pop. It seems she has gotten a free ride in country music but she actually belongs in pop–not even pop country. Truth is truth and I wonder why the critics can be contradictory in one sentence and praise her in another. New blood needed in the mix to tell it like it is.

By: shirleyc

shirleyc — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:39:46 +0000

Actually, speak now is not under performing in album sales vs. fearless. Single sales, yes (the hits haven’t been as big so that is to understandable) but it is comparable to fearless in album sales. Speak Now sold more in the earlier month and fearless sold more in the later months but both equaled out and sold about 3.5 million copies in 9 months times (so they are equal in terms of album sales). couple the fact that fearless received a re-release and had the benefit of several Chrismas holiday shopping seasons (2008, 2009 and 2010), I think it is way too early to say that “speak now” is underperforming” album sales wise, especially since right now, sales are about equal. It probably won’t catch up with fearless because the album likely won’t get as much award season love but when it is all said and done speak now will sell 5 million copies. that is a great follow up and keeps her very consistent in album sales.