Taylor Made

So lovely. So talented. So appallingly young. Can there be any doubt that Taylor Swift was sent to Earth to make the planet’s collective over-20 population feel like a bunch of aging fuck-ups? Though more than a year shy of her first legal white-wine spritzer, the ethereal pop goddess has already compiled a formidable country music legacy: two Top 10 albums (Taylor Swift and Fearless, both last year), myriad sold-out shows, a Grammy nomination, etc. In a glowing profile, the New York Times hailed the 19-year-old as “one of pop’s finest songwriters” and “country music’s foremost pragmatist,” which is a polite way of saying that her shit doesn’t pander to cowpokes. She is, potentially, one of the great all-time country crossover acts – a download-era Patsy Cline whose recent single “Love Story” became the first country song to top Billboard’s airplay-focused Mainstream Top 40 chart. Swift’s specialness was even obvious during her brief scene in Hannah Montana: The Movie – a thankless cross-promotional gimmick in which the singer’s old-soul presence felt every bit as out-of-place as, say, Daniel Day-Lewis in a Dude, Where’s My Car? cameo. So hands off, you Twitter-happy tweeners. She’s ours.
Thu., May 21, 7 p.m., 2009