Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - Taylor’s Version of Country, Part 1
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
Taylor Swift’s new album is a reboot of an old album: Fearless, her 2008 chart-topping juggernaut that made her the biggest star on the Billboard charts. But Fearless (Taylor’s Version)—filled with banjos, steel guitars and fiddles—is also a reminder for those who forgot: Swift was once the top act in country music, too. From Dolly Parton to Shania Twain, the Chicks to Faith Hill, no country artist has ever crossed over to pop the way Taylor did, utterly dominating one genre before she took over another.
In this episode, Chris Molanphy focuses on Taylor: the country years, dissecting how she gradually, step by step, became the new queen of pop one irresistible song at a time. She went from interviewing bigger stars on MTV’s red carpet one year, to being the talk of the Video Music Awards the next—even before Kanye took that microphone away from her. He told Taylor he would let her finish, but the game was already over. Swift had the most played song in the USA.
Podcast production by Asha Saluja, with help from Rosemary Belson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.4 | Hey there, hip parade listeners. |
| 0:05.8 | What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. |
| 0:09.5 | Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. |
| 0:13.3 | Would you like to hear this episode all at once? |
| 0:16.4 | Sign up for Slate Plus. |
| 0:17.9 | It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's journalism and podcasts. |
| 0:24.0 | Just go to slate.com slash hitparade plus. You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full |
| 0:31.1 | the day it arrives. Plus, Hit Parade The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, |
| 0:40.2 | and pop chart trivia. |
| 0:41.4 | Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hitparade plus. |
| 0:47.2 | Thanks. |
| 0:47.9 | And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. |
| 0:51.8 | Music of this hit parade episode. |
| 1:05.7 | Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. |
| 1:07.1 | I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series? |
| 1:13.6 | On today's show, you're listening to one of the biggest hits from a woman who has been, far and away, the top album seller of the last 15 years. |
| 1:24.1 | And I feel I need to say this. |
| 1:26.7 | This is the original version of this song, recorded in |
| 1:30.8 | 2008. Let's add some vocals. |
| 1:47.6 | Love, Love Story is one of the top selling pebbles, and my daddy said, stay away from Juliet. |
| 1:52.1 | Love Story is one of the top selling singles by Taylor Swift. |
... |
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