Everybody loves Taylor Swift. Even those who have not heard of her before instantly fall in love when I play her concert recording at my home. Including my 2 years old niece who clapped and danced and looked merry and gay. The most amazing thing is that Taylor Swift was only 21 when she performed the Speak Now World Tour. She looks very young on camera. But she has the maturity and musical ability to pull through 18 songs. A rather lengthy performance if you take into account of the choreography on various stage settings as well.
The bottom line is, by now, with three solid albums, she has more than enough songs to entertain. Taylor has won awards, broken records and her success factors beside being very pleasant to look at: she writes good songs and sings them well. She writes songs that are personal and yet, to her surprise, fans can relate. She writes songs that are meaningful to the youth without an element of angst that may displease the parents. She has a clean outlook, unlike some of her peer pop musicians. Her root, I would say, is country. That is what I gathered when I heard her first album. I guess in time, all [popular] things transform into pop. How powerful it is to sing country songs (that in general are more meaningful) in a pop fashion.
There are so-so artists who stand on the same spot throughout the show performing as though they are recording an album. And there are artists like Taylor Swift who covers the entire stage and beyond, played different instruments in different arrangements. She incorporated some cover songs into hers as well. The performance is stellar. As for the bonus materials, there is a rehearsal recording and there is also a heartwarming home movie. My only tiny complain is that unlike the US version, this local version is purely a Blu-ray disc without the CD. The DVD version though comes with a CD. But who buys DVD these days when there is a better format out there?
There are not many live recordings I would want to have a repeated watch. This one, I have already watched twice.