Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars – Safe & Sound

It’s the official tune for what’s looking like it’ll be *the* next big bucks movie series, The Hunger Games, but Safe & Sound is more than just a film tie-in. It takes delectable cheery teen pop princess Taylor Swift and morphs her usually resolutely upbeat country tunes to something far darker, far more introspective. With folk duo The Civil Wars on board too, the result is an arresting, beautifully delicate piece of pastoral tunery. It’s haunting in a way you’d never normally expect from Swift, and as with the excellent Radio 2 sessions she performed last year, proves there’s a properly mature recording artist right there waiting to be unleashed in a re-envisioned form.