Manufactured Accent

While listening to one of the generic pop stations on the radio recently, "Our Song" by Taylor Swift came on. I wouldn't have classified the station I was listening to as "Country" at all, but I wasn't surprised to hear something in the pop-country genre. Often the only difference I can tell between regular pop and pop-country is the accent of the singer and maybe some slide guitar. In Taylor's case, the accent raises another issue. While obvious she was attempting to sing with a southern twang, she struggling mightily with it and ultimately failed to pull it off. After hearing a song so clearly aimed at the pop-country market with such an unnatural accent I had couldn't believe she was from The South. According to everyone's favorite Wikipedia, Taylor Swift was born in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, then started to "regularly visit Nashville" at age 14. Seriously? Visiting Nash at 14. Good recording engineers can do amazing things, but providing a southern accent when you don't have one doesn't appear to be on the list. If you haven't heard the song yet, here's a YouTube link.