VH-1 Storytellers, Seeley G. Mudd Theater, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, 10-17-2012

I never thought I'd post a Taylor Swift album on my music blog. But I've been collecting episodes of the "VH-1 Storytellers" TV show, and I noticed she performed on the show in 2012. If you've followed this blog, you'll probably have noticed that I'm not a big fan of most modern pop music. But I have to give Swift credit that she writes or co-writes nearly all of her own songs, and she's quite talented. So I don't put her in the same category as many other modern pop stars who I think will soon be forgotten. But her stuff isn't my cup of tea, especially since it appeals to a different, younger demographic.

That said, this concert is more up my alley than most of the stuff she does. I find a lot of modern pop slick and overproduced, with more of a focus on looks and spectacle than the actual music. But for this one concert, Swift put aside all the dancing and posing and frequent costume changes and such, and just stayed seated with a guitar and performed some songs with a small band. This concert isn't going to turn me into a "Swiftie," but I think it shows she has undeniable musical talent.

As I write this in 2024, Swift is probably the most popular musician on the planet. Back when this concert took place in 2012, she was still a rising star, but already a kind of Swift-mania had set in. So this concert wasn't done in the usual way. Instead, there was a kind of contest for her to do this special concert at a U.S. college. I don't know the details, but somehow Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California won, so that's where this took place.

I found a high quality video of this full show. (There are lower quality versions on YouTube.) I was surprised that I didn't see any conversions to audio format at places like SoulseekQT, so I did the conversion myself. In so doing, I trimmed a couple of minutes at the start talking about the contest that consisted of interviews with college students and wasn't actually part of the show. I also did some editing of the applause at the ends of some songs. Unfortunately, for most of the songs, the cheering came to a sudden halt, probably so the show could go to a commercial break. So I copied and pasted in bits of applause from elsewhere to create smooth transitions.

According to setlist.fm, she played one additional song, "Begin Again," but I couldn't find that one. As far as I know, all the performances from this remain unreleased.

At the time of this concert, she was a few weeks away from releasing her album "Red." She played three songs from that, the previously mentioned "Begin Again," plus "Red" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." All three had recently been released as A- or B-sides. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" in particular went on to sell a bazillion copies worldwide, going platinum six times over in the U.S. alone.

This show is different from most Storytellers shows in that Swift had a lot of audience interaction, taking questions from audience members several times. Maybe because of this there was more banter between songs than usual, with two or three minutes of talking between most songs.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 You Belong with Me (Taylor Swift)
02 talk (Taylor Swift)
03 Red (Taylor Swift)
04 talk (Taylor Swift)
05 Ours Intro (Taylor Swift)
06 Ours (Taylor Swift)
07 talk (Taylor Swift)
08 Mean (Taylor Swift)
09 talk (Taylor Swift)
10 We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor Swift)
11 talk (Taylor Swift)
12 Our Song (Taylor Swift)
13 talk (Taylor Swift)
14 Love Story (Taylor Swift)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17053520/TAYLRSWFT2012StrytllrsSelyGMddThetrHrveyMddCllgeClrmntCA__10-17-2012_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RyaaVX5N

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.