Speak Now
Speak Now is the third studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 25, 2010, through Big Machine Records. Swift wrote the album entirely herself within two years while touring to promote her second studio album, Fearless (2008).
For the 2023 re-recording, see Speak Now (Taylor's Version). For other uses, see Speak Now (disambiguation).Speak Now
October 25, 2010
2009–2010
- Aimeeland
- Blackbird
- Pain in the Art
- Starstruck (Nashville)
- Capitol (Hollywood)
- Stonehurst (Bowling Green)[1]
67:29
- Nathan Chapman
- Taylor Swift
Inspired by Swift's transition from adolescence into adulthood, Speak Now is a loose concept album consisting of confessional songs mostly about love and heartbreak that explore past relationships and depart from the youthful optimism on her past albums. Some tracks were inspired by her rising stardom and public experience, and they have lyrics about confrontation against her critics and adversaries. Produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman, the album combines country pop, pop rock, and power pop. Its songs incorporate prominent rock stylings, and their melodies are characterized by acoustic instruments intertwined with chiming electric guitars, dramatic strings, and drums.
After the album's release, Swift embarked on the Speak Now World Tour from February 2011 to March 2012. The album was supported by six singles, including the US Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles "Mine" and "Back to December", and the US Hot Country Songs number ones "Sparks Fly" and "Ours". Speak Now peaked atop charts and received multi-platinum certifications in Australia (double platinum), Canada (triple platinum), and New Zealand (triple platinum). In the US, it sold one million copies within its first release week, spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, and was certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Music critics generally praised Speak Now for what they deemed radio-friendly tunes and an emotional engagement to Swift's audience. Some critics found the album to showcase Swift's grown-up perspective, but others took issue with the tracks about vengeance as shallow. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Speak Now was nominated for Best Country Album, and its third single "Mean" won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. The album appeared in 2010s decade-end lists by Billboard and Spin, and on Rolling Stone's "50 Best Female Albums of All Time" in 2012. After a dispute regarding the ownership of Swift's back catalog, she re-recorded Speak Now and released it as Speak Now (Taylor's Version) on July 7, 2023.
Composition[edit]
Production[edit]
Swift recorded much of Speak Now with Chapman at his Pain in the Art Studio in Nashville.[36] Although Fearless's commercial success allowed Swift to engage a larger group of producers, she worked solely with Chapman because she believed they had a productive relationship.[36] The recording process started with a demo; Swift recorded vocals and played guitar, and Chapman sang background vocals and played other instruments. After arranging the demos, Swift and Chapman approached other engineers and musicians to tweak some elements, including overdubs and programmed drums.[36] The first track Chapman produced with Swift on Speak Now is "Mine", which they recorded within five hours.[36]
Because of his artistic autonomy, Chapman said he was responsible for "60 percent of the music on the album, including 90 percent of the guitars".[36] Much of his production for Speak Now is identical to that for Fearless; he programmed the drums with Toontrack's software Superior Drummer, played drums on the Roland Fantom G6 keyboard, added electric guitars to the arrangements, recorded Swift's vocals with an Avantone CV12 microphone and his background vocals with a Shure SM57, produced the bass with an Avalon VT737 preamplifier, and used Endless Audio's CLASP System to synchronize his editing on Pro Tools and Logic.[36] Because of Swift's country-music vision, Chapman asked other musicians, mostly in Nashville, to replace his programmed drums with live drumming and add acoustic instruments such as fiddle.[36] For instance, Chapman asked Steve Marcantonio to cut down programmed drums on "Mine" at Blackbird Studios in Nashville.[36] For some tracks, including "Back to December", Swift and her team went to Capitol Studios in Los Angeles to record string orchestration.[16][37]
After recording finished, Justin Niebank mixed the album on Pro Tools at Blackbird Studios; he had mixed some tracks on Fearless. Within three weeks, Niebank finished mixing 17 tracks including 14 on the standard edition and three bonus tracks on the deluxe edition.[36][38] 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.[36] Hank Williams mastered the recordings.[36] Because much of Speak Now was recorded and mixed in Nashville, Niebank believed the album stood out among popular records that were manipulated with contemporaneous technologies Auto-Tune and Melodyne.[36] Although Chapman was responsible for much of the production, he said Swift's co-production credit is "not a vanity credit. We were really a team, very collaborative."[36][39]
Commercial performance[edit]
Before Speak Now's release, Big Machine shipped two million copies of the album to stores in the US.[27] In the week ending November 13, 2010, the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 1,047,000 copies.[101] 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.[102] Media publications including Billboard,[101] MTV,[71] and The New York Times[81] noted Speak Now's first-week sales figures in the context of declining record sales brought about by the emergence of music download platforms. According to The New York Times, although the music industry in 2010 saw album sales "[plunging] by more than 50 percent in the last decade", the album's strong sales proved Swift "has transcended the limitations of genre and become a pop megastar".[81] The Guinness World Records in 2010 recognized Speak Now as the fastest-selling album in the US by a female country artist.[103]
In Speak Now's 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.[104] 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.[105][note 6] With this achievement, Speak Now had three songs peaking in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100—"Mine", "Back to December", and "If This Was a Movie".[107] The album spent six non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200.[108] Speak Now was the third-best-selling album of 2010 in the US with sales of 2,960,000 copies.[109] By January 2024, it had sold 4,817,000 copies in the US.[110] The RIAA certified the album six-times platinum, which denotes six million album-equivalent units based on sales, song downloads, and streaming.[111]
Speak Now was a chart success in the wider English-speaking world: it peaked atop the albums charts of Australia,[112] Canada,[113] and New Zealand,[114] and peaked at number six in Ireland[115] and the UK.[116] The album was certified triple-platinum in Australia,[117] Canada, and New Zealand.[118] In certain European markets, it charted at number four in Norway,[119] number six in Japan,[120] number eight in Mexico,[121] and number ten in Spain.[122] After Swift embarked on the Eras Tour (2023–2024), Speak Now resurged in popularity in the UK: it re-entered the top 40 (at number 23) of the UK Albums Chart for the week ending May 18, 2023, which was its first top-40 appearance since November 2010.[123]
Accolades[edit]
Speak Now was ranked 13th on Rolling Stone's list of the best albums of 2010.[129] The New York Times' Jon Caramanica ranked the album number two (behind Rick Ross's Teflon Don) in his 2010 year-end list.[130] The album appeared on lists of the best country albums of 2010; PopMatters ranked it fifth[131] and The Boot ranked it second.[132] In 2012, Speak Now appeared at number 45 on Rolling Stone's list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time"; the magazine 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."[133] In 2019, Billboard listed Speak Now in 51st place on its list of the best albums of the 2010s[134] and second on its list of best country albums of the same decade.[135] The album also ranked 37th on Spin's 2010s decade-end list[136] and 71st on that of Cleveland.com;[137] and Taste of Country named it the fourth-best country album of the 2010s.[138]
Speak Now received industry awards and nominations. In the US, it was nominated for Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards,[139] the American Country Awards,[140] and in 2011 the Country Music Association Awards.[141] At the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Speak Now was nominated for Top Billboard 200 Album and won Top Country Album.[142] It won Favorite Album (Country) at the 2011 American Music Awards[143] and Top Selling Album of 2011 by the Canadian Country Music Association;[144] and was nominated for International Album of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards[145] and for International Album of the Year at the 2012 Canadian Independent Music Awards.[146] 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.[147]
Notes