CODED  MESSAGES: Speak Now, notes L.A. Times pop critic Ann Powers, “is a concept album through which Swift sends specific messages, one per song, to significant players in her young life—an interesting twist on the confessional songwriting model in which she filters memory through the lens of moral judgment. An anthem crafter with her young hand firmly on the pulse of the zeitgeist, Swift is finding a place for herself at the center of the moment's most intense public dialogues: about bullying; about the ethics of love and sex; about what is private and what belongs to the social network.” (10/25a)