Tom: Taylor Swift’s new single leaked online the other week, and was swiftly released properly in response. It’s just hit the US Billboard charts, and no doubt it’ll be over on these shores sooner or later; the official video just came out, too.
In related news, I have just discovered how to be a complete dick at karaoke. Here is the karaoke backing track for Love Story by Taylor Swift: your challenge is to sing You Belong With Me over the top of it. Provided you nail the key change at the end, and can deal with the harmony singer on the backing track throwing you off, they fit perfectly.
Tim: Oh, you and your… you-ness. Good work. You been doing karaoke?
Tom: If by “karaoke” you mean “singing along too loud while wearing headphones” then yes. The two songs have the same structure and same chords.
The new one’s got roughly the same structure, but then so does every schlager song in existence. At least it sounds a bit different, even if it’s the same “oh look, we’re in love, and despite some setbacks we’re still in love at the end” that describes most of her songs.
Tim: In a similar vein, did you know Tik Tok and California Gurls are the same song?
Tom: Not surprising – they’re by the same producer.
Tim: Do we need to bother reviewing Mine? It’s absolutely nothing special at all: if people liked Love Story and You Belong With Me they’ll like this as well, and if they didn’t they won’t. I think we should leave the summing up for YouTube commenter MoonfulBlue, who seems to live in her own little world of fluffy bunnies and pink clouds, but has an appropriate take on Taylor Swift’s music:
‘I love how Taylor’s songs always talk about things in life that could actually happen and they don’t talk about drugs/sex/violence and instead, love is in place.’