After eight weeks sitting pretty on the top of the Billboard charts, Taylor Swift’s Fearless finally finds itself at numero dos. The victor? Bruce Springsteen’s latest, Working on a Dream, which pushed Swift from the top spot with 223,700 in sales. For the record, the Boss’s “big” first week sales really weren’t made of dreams; in fact, 18-year-old Swift’s recession-defying first week numbers boasted 592,000 copies sold.
But here at Flavorwire, we’re not concerned with numbers. We’re more into games; and the cat and mouse game between Swift and Springsteen for the top spot suggests that these two artists might not be ask different as you might think.
Not biting? Test your music knowledge by identifying which one the critic’s talking about in the quotes after the jump. It’s much harder than you might think.
1. “The youthful energy of the album’s music collides neatly with the all-too-adult truths of the lyrics…” [Answer]
2. “_______ is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture…” [Answer]
3. “But based on the erratic quality of _______’s latest batch of songs, waiting a few more years might’ve served _______ better.” [Answer]
4. “_______ is once again a storyteller; _______ songs are narratives set to music, albeit mostly ones that concern love.” [Answer]
5. “There’s preternatural wisdom and inclusiveness in that line, qualities that shine through in _______’s other great songs…” [Answer]
6. “It’s a charmingly quixotic move; barely anyone has hits in these dark days of the music industry’s decline, and especially rockers over the age of . . . how old are the Jonas Brothers?” [Answer]