So the other night Taylor Swift descends on Hollywood and shuts down the main boulevard to promote her new album on late night television.

I know I watched it. Yeah, and how did you feel? It was it was a profoundly moving experience. Yeah, and of course I had to get VIP tickets in front row.

I had to see what the spectacle was all about and there were people a mile back trying to just catch a glimmer of Taylor Swift and there I am near the front of Bearded Adult Man amongst teenagers with T-Swift T-shirts and signs, professing their love.

Yeah, I was looking for you in the audience, but no luck. I had the sign T-Swift be mine. That's very creepy. I know. And what a spectacle it was because everybody was there including the LAPD, private security, you had your height man and of course plenty of corporate sponsors.

And she only played four songs, but they were expertly choreographed with shining production for live television. And what I thought was really fun was that the crowd got to see a hint of what it was like to be a mega pop star, which is a lot of hard work and it's a lot of obsessing about your hair.

At one point the TV host even goes over to adjust her hair, which I think is in clear violation of some union rules. Before she runs off to see her true hair style as she fixes everything up. Her hair looked great by the way.

Her hair did look good, new cut. And can you blame her? There were over a thousand cell phones just in these front rows. Just a few feet away from her, capturing her every move and you know those are gonna end up on blogs.

Yeah, it's gonna end up on your Taylor Swift theme tumbler. I'm sure.

Don't tell her audience. It got me thinking how is it that at 24 years old that is proclaimed underdog living in a big old city was able to shut down the most famous boulevard in the world.

The answer to that, my friend, is brilliantly written pop music.

Welcome to episode two of Switched On Pop. Today we're gonna explore the life, the career and the musical uva of one Taylor Swift.

Probably America's biggest pop star at the moment. But unlike most people who when they talk about Taylor Swift discuss a the various men she's dated or be whether she's in a fight with any of her girlfriends or see the moment that Kanye West interrupted her.

I don't know MTV music or the most important award of all music of course we are gonna talk about the craft and as Charlie said the brilliance of Taylor Swift's approach to songwriting and how that's changed over the years.

So today on our sophomore episode of Switched On Pop we're going to look at Taylor Swift's music from two approaches.

First we're going to uncover the common elements in her songwriting her lyrical tropes her melodic sequencing the song structures.

Next we're going to chart her musical evolution. Is it Taylor's hair going from curly to straight that mirrors her musical evolution from country to pop.

We'll find out today. So to kick us off let's take a listen to some of her earlier music back when she was firmly in the world of country.

We're going to take three songs from Taylor's early country period to see what it is that makes her such a great songwriter.

We're going to do love story and you belong with me from her second album Fearless and mean from her third album Speak Now.

So what is it that we want to be listening for.

Taylor is all about theme and variation. She introduces something and just when it becomes familiar to you she changes it in a way that's so fresh and exciting that it grabs your ears and keeps your tongue open.

Yeah, I absolutely love that because I feel like in so many ways that's when pop music is at its best when you take what we know so well and then change it to surprise us.

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