The Taylor Swift live experience combines Nashville, Broadway and Disney into nearly three action-packed hours of aerialists, ballet dancers, stage sets ranging from enchanted forest to Gone With the Wind, and Swift wading into the audience to hug it out with fans. But Swift's a songwriting geek at heart, so she's most on her game alone with her guitar, whether doing one of her own tunes ("Mean" is especially winsome) or covering Kim Carnes and Train. This package adds a redundant live CD and DVD extras, including a home movie that chronicles every year of Swift's life and two behind-the-scenes minidocumentaries. It's a staggering amount of country-pop adorableness.

This story is from the December 8th, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'This Is the End' Brings the Goods
• 
  TV The Women of 'Mad Men'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories