1989: A T-Swift Ramble Disguised As Album Review.

Slowly discovering that Taylor Swift is the best thing since sliced bread. She's like sliced bread that comes ready packed with melted butter drizzled all over it, and maybe a slick of avocado, or pesto, or heck pop a juicy, ripe tomato in there.

I didn't use to like her. Actually, initially I liked her. I thought she was a great new addition to what was then a struggling country music scene. Well, I assume it was struggling. To a country music fan it was quite possibly booming, but to the general public, also known as those whose days weren't occupied by riding horses bareback and daisy duke shopping, it was relatively quiet bordering on non-existent. Then I became tired of her heavily documented antics and seemingly endless string of 'height-of-their-fame' males. Her talent had been swept out of the picture and was replaced by her latest male arm candy (a term I'm not fond of but find appropriate in this scenario). I was being handed a way to think by the media, and it wasn't the reality.

Let's take it back to the struggling country music scene. Enter Taylor. With a swish of those bouncing curls, radiating her youthful likability and a shining smile gleaming All American wonder-talent she was the precocious teen siphoning her bullying experiences into a powerful, vocally-pleasing melody. This was a beautiful, talented teenager who wasn't the 'popular' girl, a cheerleader or a member of the high school 'in' crowd. She was like us. Relatable, authentic and with a buttery personality that suited parents' apprehension of what was consuming their children's time and energy; she created her own void that entertained and pleased an unprecedentedly large audience.

Hello, sensation.

Dominating airwaves consistently, she was making the previously high expectations placed on her by top level executives look like her preschool sandpit, she was gliding into every success story you could think of; there were no longer any 'Swift' puns left. After maxing out all country music media, she soon began to dominate the mainstream and the public consciousness. As celebrity exposure increased, focus quickly turned to her personal life and the interest was rising as speedily as her record sales.

The narrative smoothly begun to steer away from her meteoric rise in the ears of the public and turned to the famous male cohorts she's seen with. She appears on talk shows, in magazines and on radio shows promoting her music and every single interview will question her relationship status, like shameless Facebook stalking squeezing out any juice left. Her private life becoming public in order to sell CD's, but the demand never ended. Nothing was sufficient. If she mentioned a boyfriend, they wanted his name, if we got that, we weren't satisfied until we knew where he was from, or his job, or his parents ages.

The talent she possesses was replaced by entertainment fodder, "she's dating who this week?" and we forgot to appreciate that Taylor is a singer and not a character placed in trashy magazines for our Friday night reading pleasure; she is a person, but we forget to treat her like one.

This is where, almost most impressively, she hasn't been wiped out. She didn't fade into a recluse, dress in spandex and gain 20 pounds. She hasn't started replacing her studio time with visits to night clubs or pouring R-21 substances into her morning coffee before spending her entire day fighting the complex mind games that being so powerful so young can unleash; the demon of success.

Instead she triumphed. She has become articulate, confident, engaging and more upfront, raw and honest with the public, but most importantly her fans. She has kept her fans number one, and perhaps this in part has helped her sanity. She looks better than ever.

She has openly sworn she's single and focusing on keeping fit, her new home in New York and her girlfriends. I can't think of anything smarter. And this is why Taylor is such an anomaly. She seems to know what she needs, and places it in front of what she wants; both of which take precedence over anything anyone else says; not in an arrogant, A-lister way, she does it with aplomb. She is considerate of others while promoting a sense of self that remains endearing and sincere and is inspiring to every generation.

She has started answering questions thoughtfully, and has been gifted with thoughtful questions in return. She's growing up. And thankfully, she's maturing along with that; something many a teen celebrity has failed to do.

I used to be lost in the string of guys she was leaving in her wake as my eyes devoured the dating tales delivered hot from 'sources' to pages of the latest mag. I was coddled by the magazines; treated as literate but brain-less and concerned only with my latest taste of Taylor tales, placing her love life as an undercurrent of entertainment to my work-eat-sleep reality.

Then her new album, 1989 was released; and so was I; released from the cyclic track that seems to plague women in the entertainment industry, that leads the public to believe they are our amusement. Our toys to play with; rather than heroes we can admire. People with stories; rather than personalities, with faces rather than feelings.

Taylor shows they can be our heroes with hearts. Women that work hard, are good at what they do, ambitious without arrogance and dignified. She has released a pop album, her first album straying from the genre in which she found her success. She has paved her own terrain by spreading her wings further than many ever do and in doing so, has shown her level of talent and her fearlessness (album irony not intended, but the hindsight is metaphorically delightful). In breaking out of her comfort zone she has zeroed in on the reality that society doesn't define just how far we can go, we can dictate our own borders if we want and we can break through them if we want. We arbitrate who we are, tossing societal dictations and public conventions aside; beating to the march of our own drum.