The Boys Listen to the New Taylor Swift Album (The Return of the LC's "Country Corner!")

As you know, we tend to spend our time listening to bands that are so hip you've never heard of them (Chip: "I'm really into a band called Panty Lions right now."). But occasionally we wonder if we're missing something important in the mainstream, especially when we come across lines like this from Rolling Stone's review of the new Taylor Swift album, Speak Now:

"Where are all the older people who are supposedly making better pop records than Taylor Swift? There aren't any. In a mere four years, the 20-year-old Nashville firecracker has put her name on three dozen or so of the smartest songs released by anyone in pop, rock or country."

The review also speaks of Swift's maturity as a songwriter (and a woman!). She is now "slipping more grown-up details into her love stories. It's tame by country-radio standards, but it's still weird to hear T-Sweezy sing lines like "There's a drawer of my things at your place."

Chip: "As soon as T-Sweezy turns 21, I'm totally going to fantasize about boning her."

Let's take a look at a few lyrics from "Sparks Fly," off the new album:

"Gonna strike this match tonight
Lead me up the staircase
Won't you whisper soft and slow
I'd love to hate it
But you make it like a fireworks show"

Our feminist readers: "This song exhibits a fascinating tension beteen female power and female submission. Notice that the lyrics begin with Swift in control: SHE is going to 'strike this match,' to control the relationship. Yet this immediately gives way to a relinquishment of control, as she desires, no doubt due to centuries of conditioning, for the man to take the 'lead.' This troubling dynamic intensifies with the line 'I'd love to hate it,' which is suggestive of her inability to assert her will against male sexual power, which may begin 'soft and slow' but soon gives way to violence, 'a fireworks show.'"

Chip: "Wait. I thought the 'fireworks show' referred to her orgasm? Who's right here?"

Richard: "I'm pretty sure you are, Chip. And maybe we'll get a chance to ask her in person if she makes her annual visit to KU this year to see her best friend."

If you're too hip to dig T-Sweezy, however, go here and listen to Panty Lions:

http://www.myspace.com/pantylions

Here's the picture from their Myspace page. Yes, that's a tiny little kitty!