1989 (Taylors version) review
2014 may have felt like a lifetime ago, with Tumblr and skinny jeans being a thing of the past, but as of October 27th, us swifties (and everyone else) have been able to relive lost time with the 1989 (Taylors version) re-release. After spending the last few years in the woods with her albums “Folklore” and “Evermore”, its finally time for her to come out of them (again). The first release of 1989 took the world by storm, creating a huge shift in pop. It had her best music videos, and possibly ever, from “Bad Blood” to “Shake it Off” to her most streamed song ever, “Blank Space”, with over 1.5 billion streams. It is fair to say that she has a lot to live up to. Here are my opinions on whether she made the same mark she did back in 2014.
To start we will compare the best and worst new re-records to the originals. My favourite re-record is “Out of the Woods”, being one of my favourite songs, it is just perfect. It is arguably one of the best Taylor bridges to scream and it is certainly a travesty that it isn’t on the eras tour setlist. The re- record not only offers the same level of power and emotion but an added sense of maturity, fitting Taylor’s older voice. Another favourite of the newer recordings is “New Romantics”. Everything about this song makes you feel like you have no problems and all you want to do is dance around all day, which remains the same with the re-recording. An additional song which comes out better in the re-recording’s is “Clean”, with the album now owned by Taylor as opposed to the stolen version, the lyrics fit the meaning of the song as the album is now ‘finally clean’.
Moving on from this, let’s talk about the songs on the album that are still good but are no match for the originals. In my opinion these are, “Shake it Off”, “Bad Blood” and “Style”. I think the impact these original songs have is very hard to replicate, so it is through no fault of their own. With these songs in particular, I do believe they better fit Taylor’s younger voice. Taylor’s voice now is less screamy and bold and is much less understated, but it still has a pop element, nonetheless.
Next, we’ll talk about the Vault tracks. These are possibly the best vault tracks to come from the a re-recording, which is a very strong claim considering the fantastic Red vault tracks. Firstly, the best one is, “Is it over Now”. We certainly got robbed of this song in the first release. It is the perfect emotional and screaming song, though at Mr. Styles’ expense. The next best song from the vault is ‘Slut.’ There was a lot of speculation once the title got released so the hype was already there, and it definitely lived up to our expectations. It is a fantastic addition to the pop vibes throughout the album. The other three vault tracks, ‘Now That we Don’t Talk,’ ‘Say Don’t Go’ and ‘Suburban Legends’ are all on par. All three are fantastic and add a bit extra to the album.
Overall, this album is very good, possibly Taylor’s best re-records so far. Now we only have “Debut” and “Reputation” left to be released and she will own them all, I look forward to hearing what Taylor has in store for us.
By Hayley Seagrave
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Edited by: Jessica Dixon