Speak Now

Taylor Swift released hеr second studio album Fearless through Nashville-based Big Machine Records in November 2008. The album spent 11 weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200, the longest chart run for a female country music artist. It was the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States, making then-20-year-old Swift the youngest artist to have an annual best-seller since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking album sales in 1991. Two of the album's singles, "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", performed well on both country and pop radio and brought Swift to mainstream prominence. "Love Story" was the first country song to reach number one on the Pop Songs chart and "You Belong with Me" was the first country song to top the all-genre Radio Songs chart. At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in February 2010, Fearless won Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and its single "White Horse" won Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song. The success of Fearless made Swift one of country music's biggest stars to crossover into the mainstream market. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where Swift won Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me", the rapper Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech; the incident received widespread media coverage and became known as "Kanyegate". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Swift sang "You Belong with Me" and "Rhiannon" with Stevie Nicks; some critics commented Swift performed with weak vocals. MTV News commented the MTV Awards incident transformed Swift into a "bona-fide mainstream celebrity", and The New York Times said it was refreshing to see a talented singer-songwriter like Swift "make the occasional flub". Swift began writing for her third studio album immediately after she released Fearless and continued during her Fearless Tour in 2009 and 2010. == Writing and lyrics ==

Because of her extensive touring schedule, Swift wrote her third album alone: "I'd get my best ideas at 3:00 a.m. in Arkansas, and I didn't have a co-writer around so I would just finish it. That would happen again in New York and then again in Boston and that would happen again in Nashville." Swift chose not to follow the trend of making increasingly sexualized music by artists of her age and believed such a path would be incongruent with her artistic vision. Departing from Fearless theme of fairy tales and starry-eyed romance, Speak Now explores introspection and reflections on broken relationships. On "Back to December", she asks an ex-lover to forgive her wrongdoings. Swift wrote the title track, "Speak Now", after hearing a friend's ex-boyfriend was marrying another woman; in the lyrics, the protagonist crashes the ex-boyfriend's wedding and tries to halt it. She re-recorded the song for Speak Now after she received fan request to release it at the 2010 CMA Music Festival. (pictured) inspired "Innocent".|alt=Kanye West performing, wearing sunglasses Besides love and romance, Swift wrote about self-perception. "Never Grow Up" is a contemplation of her childhood, adulthood, and future. The self-aware "Mean", in which Swift sings about facing a man who had tried to take her down, was inspired by her detractors. Because of her confessional songwriting, the media became invested in Swift's personal life and believed each song is about a real person: an ex-lover, a friend, or an enemy. She did reveal that Kanye West, who interrupted Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, was the subject of "Innocent". In the track, Swift sings about forgiving a man who wronged her; according to Esquire, the track can be interpreted as "a simple lament of a lost love, or a former friend being forgiven". Swift wrote as many as 40 songs and by early 2010, she had begun to select songs for the album. To ensure the album would be coherent, she played the songs to her family, friends, and the producer Nathan Chapman, Swift chose Enchanted as a working title but Big Machine Records' founder Scott Borchetta recommended Swift choose a different title, deeming Enchanted unfit for the album's mature perspective. She settled on the title Speak Now because she thought it best captures the album's essence: "I think it's such a metaphor, that moment where it's almost too late, and you've got to either say what it is you are feeling or deal with the consequences forever ... And this album seemed like the opportunity for me to speak now or forever hold my peace." == Composition ==

Production Swift recorded much of Speak Now with Chapman at his Pain in the Art Studio in Nashville. Although Fearless commercial success allowed Swift to engage a larger group of producers, she worked solely with Chapman because she believed they had a productive relationship. After recording finished, Justin Niebank mixed the album on Pro Tools at Blackbird Studio. Within three weeks, Niebank finished mixing 17 tracks including 14 on the standard edition and three bonus tracks on the deluxe edition. Because Swift wanted Speak Now to be a direct communication with her audience, Niebank infused monoaural reverberation inspired by 1950s and 1960s music in the mix to evoke a "vintage" and "retro" vibe that, according to Niebank, brought a sense of authenticity. Music Speak Now features a country pop sound with prominent mainstream music elements, a style that had characterized Taylor Swift and Fearless, and is typified by the lead single and opening track, "Mine"; The Daily Telegraphs James Lachno described the sound as "country bubblegum-pop". The songs' arrangements are similar to those in Swift's first two albums, but the instruments' textures are more dense and evoke strong pop and rock influences. According to the musicologist James E. Perone, the rock textures of Speak Now are derived from 1970s and 1980s styles such as new wave rock and arena rock. There were disagreements over the album's genre classification, and power pop. The banjo-led bluegrass track "Mean" is the only song that critics regarded as purely country music. "Sparks Fly" has an arena-rock and pop-rock production with guitars and subtle fiddles, and "Speak Now" is an acoustic guitar-driven pop song with a 1950s rock chorus. "The Story of Us" and "Better than Revenge" are electric-guitar-driven pop-punk songs; the former contains influences of arena rock, dance-pop, and new wave, instrumented by electric guitar riffs and subdued mandolin; The closing track "Long Live" is a heartland rock song featuring girl-group harmonies and chiming rock guitars. The guitar ballad "Never Grow Up" incorporates an understated production that accompanies its wistful lyrics. == Release and promotion ==

Swift announced Speak Now on July 20, 2010, in a live stream on Ustream. The single peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It reached number six in Japan, number seven in Canada, and number nine in Australia. On August 18, Swift released the album's cover art, which depicts Swift with curly hair and red lipstick twirling in a deep-purple gown. On September 15, she announced a Target-exclusive deluxe edition; the deluxe edition cover features a red gown in place of the purple gown on the standard edition cover. Starting from October 4, 2010, Big Machine released one Speak Now track each week on the iTunes Store as part of a three-week countdown campaign; "Speak Now" was released on October 5, followed by "Back to December" on October 12 and "Mean" on October 19. On October 22, Xfinity premiered a preview of "The Story of Us". The Target-exclusive deluxe edition contains 14 songs of the standard; the bonus tracks "Ours", "If This Was a Movie", and "Superman"; acoustic versions of "Back to December" and "Haunted"; a "pop mix" of "Mine"; a 30-minute behind-the-scenes video for "Mine"; and the music video for "Mine". The deluxe edition was released to other retailers on January 17, 2012. To bolster sales of the album, Swift had partnerships with Starbucks, Sony Electronics, Walmart, and Jakks Pacific. in 2012|alt=Taylor Swift performing on tour in 2012, on a guitar To further promote Speak Now, Swift appeared on magazine covers and conducted press interviews. Her other performances at awards shows include the Country Music Association Awards and the American Music Awards in 2010; the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards in 2011. She also performed at a benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame, held at Club Nokia L.A. In Europe, Swift performed on BBC Radio 2 and X Factor Italy, and she had interviews with BBC Radio 1 in the United Kingdom and NRJ in France. She embarked on a promotional tour in Japan, where she appeared on the television shows SMAPxSMAP and Music Station. Her round of American television shows included Today, Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, and Dancing with the Stars. She also gave private concerts to contest winners and played a semi-private concert for JetBlue at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. After "Mine", Swift released five more singles from Speak Now. "Back to December" and "Mean", which were earlier available for digital download, were released to US country radio on November 15, 2010, and March 7, 2011. The two singles peaked at numbers seven and ten in Canada, "The Story of Us" was released to US pop radio on April 19, 2011. "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" were released to US country radio on July 18 and December 5, 2011. Prior to its single release, "Ours", together with the other deluxe edition tracks, was released for digital download via the iTunes Store on November 8, 2011. "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked atop the Hot Country Songs chart. The RIAA certified all six of the album's singles at least platinum; "Back to December" and "Mean" sold over two million copies each, and they were certified double-platinum and triple-platinum. On November 23, 2010, Swift announced the Speak Now World Tour, which started in Singapore on February 9, 2011. The tour visited Asia and Europe before the North American leg started in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 27, 2011. Within two days of announcement, the tour sold 625,000 tickets. By April 2011, Swift had added another 16 shows to the North American leg. After the final US concert in New York City on November 22, 2011, the Speak Now World Tour had covered 80 sold-out North American shows. On August 10, 2011, Swift released a music video for "Sparks Fly" that includes footage from the tour. She released the album Speak Now World Tour – Live on November 21, 2011. In December 2011, Swift announced an extension of the tour to Australia and New Zealand starting in March 2012. Concluding on March 18, 2012, the Speak Now World Tour had covered 110 shows, visited 18 countries, and grossed $123.7 million. == Commercial performance ==

Before Speak Now release, Big Machine shipped two million copies of the album to stores in the United States. It marked the highest single-week tally for a female country artist and became the first album since Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III (2008) to sell over one million copies in its first week of release. Media publications including Billboard, In Speak Now first charting week, 11 of the standard edition's 14 tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, making Swift the first female artist to have 11 songs on the Hot 100 at the same time. After the digital release of the deluxe edition tracks in November 2011, "If This Was a Movie" charted at number 10 on the Hot 100, making Swift the first artist to have eight songs debut in the top 10. With this achievement, Speak Now had four songs peaking in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100—"Mine", "Back to December", "Speak Now", and "If This Was a Movie". The album spent six non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. Speak Now was the third-best-selling album of 2010 in the United States with sales of 2.96 million copies. By January 2024, it had sold 4.817 million copies in the United States. The RIAA certified the album six-times platinum, which denotes six million album-equivalent units based on sales, song downloads, and streaming. and New Zealand, In Europe, it charted at number four in Norway and number ten in Spain. == Critical reception ==

Initial reviews of Speak Now were generally positive. AnyDecentMusic? compiled 10 reviews and gave it an average score of 6.9 out of 10. Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Rolling Stone complimented the songs for portraying emotions with engaging narratives and vivid details. In AllMusic's review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "[Swift] writes from the perspective of the moment yet has the skill of a songwriter beyond her years." In his consumer guide, Robert Christgau commented that although the album was too long and the romantic themes did not interest him, the songs were fascinating because of an "effort that bears a remarkable resemblance to care—that is, to caring in the best, broadest, and most emotional sense". The album's dramatic themes of heartbreak and vengeance received mixed reviews. Now said although it included some memorable tracks, Speak Now was blemished by celebrity, rage, and grievances. Slant Magazine lauded Swift's melodic songwriting for offering radio-friendly pop hooks but criticized the lyrics of "Dear John", "Mean", "Innocent", and "Better than Revenge" as shallow and shortsighted. Entertainment Weekly agreed, deeming those tracks inevitable for Swift's artistic evolution. Other reviews focused on Speak Now production. Reviews published in Paste and Slant Magazine called it a catchy album with radio-friendly pop tunes; the former was impressed by the crossover appeal but deemed the overall production dull. The Village Voice took issue with Swift's vocals as weak and strained. BBC Music found the album's track list too long but called it overall a "sparky and affecting record". Now approved of Swift's experimentation with styles other than country but considered it "too safe" and said the album was tarnished by "slickly produced power pop and a sugary sameness [that is] indiscernible from any number of today's radio-oriented artists". Ann Powers appreciated Speak Now soft, introspective tracks for personalizing pop music. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times lauded the experimentation with genres such as blues and pop punk, and he called Speak Now a bold step for Swift. == Accolades ==

On year-end lists of the best albums of 2010, Speak Now was ranked 12th by American Songwriter and 13th by Rolling Stone. The New York Times Jon Caramanica ranked the album number two (behind Rick Ross's Teflon Don) in his 2010 year-end list. The album appeared on lists of the best country albums of 2010; PopMatters ranked it fifth and The Boot ranked it second. In 2012, Speak Now appeared at number 45 on Rolling Stone list of "The 50 Greatest Female Albums of All Time"; Rob Sheffield commented: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click." In 2019, Billboard listed Speak Now in 51st place on its list of the best albums of the 2010s and second on its list of best country albums of the same decade. The album also ranked 37th on Spin 2010s decade-end list and 71st on that of Cleveland.com; and Taste of Country named it the fourth-best country album of the 2010s. Rolling Stone placed it at number 196 on their 2025 list of "The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far", deeming it the "peak of her Nashville era". Speak Now received industry awards and nominations. In the United States, it was nominated for Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, the American Country Awards, and in 2011 the Country Music Association Awards. At the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Speak Now was nominated for Top Billboard 200 Album and won Top Country Album. It won Favorite Album (Country) at the 2011 American Music Awards and Top Selling Album of 2011 by the Canadian Country Music Association; and was nominated for International Album of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards and for International Album of the Year at the 2012 Canadian Independent Music Awards. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Speak Now was nominated for Best Country Album, and its single "Mean" won Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song. == Impact ==

Swift has said that she wrote Speak Now by herself as a reaction to critics' doubts about her songwriting ability. While reviews had emphasized the importance of co-writers on her past albums, Speak Now granted Swift the definite credentials to assert authorship over her music and career. Some academics have upheld how the album solidified her artistry with its nuanced observations, confessional and confrontational songs about grappling with young adulthood and fame; many retrospective reviews have considered it a groundwork to her consistent songcraft of later albums. Its commercial success contributed to her fame as a pop star transcending her self-identity as a country-music artist. Pitchfork Sam Sodomsky, reviewing the album in 2019, contended that her country-music identity served as an indicator of her autobiographical songwriting rather than musical style. Several critics reflected on Speak Now in the context of Swift's celebrity. Many of its songs were inspired by experiences that were routinely documented in the press, such as short-lived romantic relationships and the 2009 MTV Awards incident. This set a precedent to not only the confessional songwriting on Swift's later albums, but also the media speculation on the subjects behind her lyrics. Maura Johnston opined that these songs laid the groundwork to her 2017 album Reputation, which focused on her image and confrontation against critics. According to the gender studies professor Adriane Brown, the songs about idealized romance and her innocent, "good-girl" image made her stand out in a contemporary pool of sexualized female pop artists. Brown commented that Swift's unwillingness to openly discuss sex and tendency to criticize females who "whore themselves out", as in the lyrics of "Better than Revenge", was problematic. In November 2020, after a dispute over the ownership of the masters to her back catalog, Swift began re-recording her first six studio albums. On May 5, 2023, at the first Eras Tour show in Nashville, Swift announced the re-recorded version of Speak Now—''Speak Now (Taylor's Version), and its release date on July 7. Speak Now (Taylor's Version) consists of re-recordings of all fourteen songs from the standard edition, the deluxe tracks "Ours" and "Superman", and six previously unreleased "From the Vault" songs. After Speak Now (Taylor's Version)'' was released, the original album reached new peaks in Switzerland (number one), == Track listing ==

Notes • The international deluxe edition features the US versions of "Mine", "Back to December", and "The Story of Us" as bonus tracks. == Personnel ==

Credits were adapted from the liner notes. Musicians • Taylor Swift – vocals, acoustic guitar, handclapping, vocal harmony, banjo • Nathan Chapman – banjo, bass guitar, Fender Rhodes, electric twelve-string guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, handclapping, mandolin, organ, piano, synthesizer, vocal harmony • Tom Bukovac – electric guitar • Nick Buda – drums • Chris Carmichael – strings • Smith Curry – lap steel guitar • Eric Darken – percussion • Caitlin Evanson – vocal harmony • Shannon Forrest – drums • John Gardner – drums • Rob Hajacos – fiddle • Amos Heller – bass guitar • Liz Huett – vocal harmony • Tim Lauer – Hammond B3, piano • Tim Marks – bass guitar • Mike Meadows – electric guitar, handclapping • Grant Mickelson – electric guitar • Michael Rhodes – bass guitar • Paul Sidoti – electric guitar • Tommy Sims – bass guitar • Bryan Sutton – acoustic guitar, twelve-string guitar, ukulele • Al Wilson – handclapping, percussion Production • Taylor Swift – background vocals direction, liner notes, songwriter, producer • Nathan Chapman – engineer, producer, programming • Chuck Ainlay – engineer • Joseph Anthony Baker – photography • Steve Blackmon – assistant • Drew Bollman – assistant, assistant engineer, engineer • Tristan Brock-Jones – assistant engineer • David Bryant – assistant engineer • Paul Buckmaster – conductor, orchestral arrangements • Jason Campbell – production coordination • Chad Carlson – engineer • Chris Carmichael – composer, string arrangements • Joseph Cassell – stylist • Steve Churchyard – engineer • Mark Crew – mixing engineer • Dean Gillard – production, mixing, additional instrumentation • Jed Hackett – engineer • Jeremy Hunter – engineer • Aubrey Hyde – wardrobe • Suzie Katayama – orchestra contractor • Steve Marcantonio – engineer • Seth Morton – assistant engineer • Emily Mueller – production assistant • Jemma Muradian – hair stylist • John Netti – assistant engineer • Bethany Newman – design, illustrations • Josh Newman – design, illustrations • Justin Niebank – engineer, mixing • Mark Petaccia – assistant engineer • Joel Quillen – engineer • Matt Rausch – assistant • Lowell Reynolds – engineer • Mike Rooney – assistant engineer • Austin Swift – photography • Todd Tidwell – assistant engineer, engineer • Lorrie Turk – make-up • Matt Ward – production, mixing, additional instrumentation • Hank Williams – mastering • Brian David Willis – engineer • Nathan Yarborough – assistant mixing engineer == Charts ==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts All-time charts == Certifications and sales ==