Last seen around these parts opening for wrinkly old George Strait about three years back, Taylor Swift has since exploded into one of the biggest crossover stars to come out of Nashville since Shania Twain in the 90’s — like, #1-album-of-2009 big, and remarkably, she pulled it all off while writing or co-writing her material in a corner of the country music world where that’s not the norm. But after closing the door on her teen years — she turned 20 in December — her whole “precocious youngster” angle might not be as viable anymore, and one also hopes it means she’ll finally stop writing about her breakup with Joe Jonas a couple years back.

As was the case with both Springsteen and Pink back in ‘06 and ‘07, respectively, there’s a local connection here — look for former Charlottesville guitarist Mike Meadows, alum of Small Town Workers and MoneyPenny, playing that banjo bit at the top of “Love Story”.

And that particular riff actually underscores Taylor’s whole deal, in a way — it was edited out and replaced with distorted guitars for an alternate pop mix which was delivered to more mainstream radio outlets. She’s not country, folks — not enough Miranda Lambert-style backwoods-bugshit crazy in there for that, thankfully, and it also takes more than just the occasional fiddle part. Rather, she’s just another regular pretty pop tart just like any of the others oh man it’s distressing how long this could go on. Nothing wrong with that, really, but make your plans accordingly.