Taylor Swift - "I Knew You Were Trouble"

If you don't like Taylor Swift at all, now would be a good time to go away and come back tomorrow.

She's been getting some flack for her new album, which has very few shades of country in it.  It's far more pop.  And I would like to know: since when can artists not cross over into new genres?  I thought many artists had been doing that since - oh, forever.  I mean, even Beethoven moved from the Classical period to the Romantic period; I think Taylor Swift can do a pop album.

When I heard "I Knew You Were Trouble", I was surprised by the elements of dub-step in it, but I still really liked it.  I'm not a huge fan of the dub-step genre in general, but T-Swift's version of it is pretty cool.  (And hey - at least it's not rap!)  The AMAs took place a few days ago, and while I didn't stay up to watch (although with how little I was probably sleeping at the time, I may as well have), one of my friends tweeted about how great the performance was.  This got me to look it up on YouTube, since this friend doesn't usually rave about Taylor.

Check it out on YouTube here.  (It won't embed for copyright reasons.)

Now, I've watched a lot of Taylor's award show performances.  Always before, if she didn't have an instrument to hide behind, she looked super awkward and did weird dances.  This one was all obviously choreographed for her, but I think it's great - and probably her best award show performance yet.  Super dramatic?  Yes.  But there's nothing wrong with that.  Theatrical performances for award shows are all the rage these days.

She did have a few moments off-key, but otherwise, I think she killed it (in the good way).  And the outfit change was really cool.  I love it when she does that.

What do you think?

Love and Macaroni,
Leah Joy