About midway through the summer, I had an epiphany. I was sitting on the bus, roaming through my playlists to find one that suited my mood that day. I stumbled upon the playlist I’d made for the last Taylor Swift album, Red, and realized that it was nearly to the two-year mark—come fall I would have a new Swift album to obsess over.
This was a ridiculously exciting moment for me. I’ve been a huge Swiftie since the first time I heard “Teardrops on My Guitar” in seventh grade and every two years, when the new album is released, I realize once again why I fell in love with T-Swift’s music. Monday’s 1989 was no exception.
1989 is, without a doubt, my favorite T-Swift album so far. Now, this could be in part because it’s still new and I haven’t had several years to digest everything to love and hate about the album. But I also think it’s because it is, in a lot of ways, the most fun album Taylor Swift has released to date.
The week before school started, I watched the “Shake It Off” video and tried to process the new sound Swift was giving me. For a second, I wasn’t entirely sure I liked it—where were the lovelorn lyrics? The guitar-based harmonies? And why did she break it off in the middle to emulate some sort of hip-hop artist?
By the third listen, I was a convert. It was fun—I could dance to it with all of my terrible dance moves and feel like that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. After all, it’s what she does throughout the entire video.
“Shake It Off” was an instant hit and I’d venture to say everyone and their mother has heard the song at least twice by now. Even self-confessed Swift haters find themselves dancing along to the song.
It was the fact I learned the day she announced her album that made me smile. “Shake It Off” was great but she’d studied 1980’s pop for the entirety of 1989 and there’s nothing I love more than 80’s pop.
My expectations were high on Monday when I finally got around to listening to the album. “Out of the Woods” had me instantly hooked and while I wasn’t in love with “Welcome to New York,” I was pretty convinced my favorite song on the album wouldn’t be a single. My favorite Swift songs never are.
The first listen of Swift’s album was nearly overwhelming. It’s a profusion of sound and beats—so fast-paced it was easy to forget that yes, this was Taylor Swift. She’d never been quite country but there was a time when it was debatable. She’d always relied on guitars to make up the core of her musical accompaniment. Even “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” which foreshadowed her shift in sound, didn’t quite prepare me for the array of sounds and mixes that 1989 gave me.
The stand-out tracks on the first listen are “Blank Space” and “Style,” tracks two and three on the album. “Blank Space” is reminiscent of “Shake It Off.” Swift is unapologetic, reflecting on her reputation in the media as a serial monogamist shifting from one boyfriend to the next. The hook, “I’ve got a long list of ex-lovers/they’ll tell you I’m insane,” echoes nearly all the media criticism we’ve heard of Swift and the very next line tells us how Swift has embraced it, “But I’ve got a blank space, baby,/And I’ll write your name.”
The lyrics reflect, once again, on the same theme of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” The subject is described from the beginning of the song as her “next mistake.” But this is a new Taylor Swift—she’s no longer upset about it. 1989 is about accepting the parts of love that are a game and learning to love playing it, even when it leads to heartbreak. There’s something freeing in that sentiment and I think the sound of the album as a whole reflects the liberty Swift has found in realizing this for herself.
“Blank Space” and the rest of 1989 for that matter are Swift at her most cynical. No longer is she the vulnerable girl from “Should’ve Said No” or “White Horse”—there’s something about this Taylor that can take care of herself. She can navigate relationships that blow up and accept it. 1989 gets to be upbeat and catchy but still startingly poignant. She’s free but she’s not naive and she knows what it’s like to feel broken. She also knows how to pick herself up again.
“Style” slows down from “Blank Space,” giving the listener a sound that comes to resemble Lana Del Ray (though the track that does this most starkly is “Wildest Dreams”). Swift almost reverts to her classic, romantic imagery, comparing the boy to James Dean. But she stops herself—this is no serious, long-term relationship. It’s secret, clandestine and seemingly built to fail. But it’s beautiful, nonetheless.
By the end of the album, I began to miss the sound of old Taylor Swift, just a little bit. I was lamenting the absence of an “All Too Well” (the heart wrenching ballad that remains my favorite track on Red) and while I loved everything she gave me, I wondered if I’d ever hear that same type of sound from her.
The final track on the album, “Clean,” hearkens back to an earlier Swift. It’s not quite the same—the backing sounds are more electronic, it’s not entirely guitar-based, and there’s something too cynical about singing about being “10 months clean” for the song to ever be at place on any of her four previous albums. Still, the sound is slower, the guitar is there, and I’m suddenly hearing the echoes of “Innocent” and “The Lucky One.”
I’m not ashamed to admit (okay, maybe I am a little bit), but I nearly cried. It was exactly what I needed at the end of that album. A song to remind me of where Swift came from, even as she stepped boldly into a future that promised bright things firmly entrenched in the genre of pop.
As I moved away from that first listen, I remembered my favorite thing about new Taylor Swift albums: I can listen to them ten times and hear something new each time I listen. Once, my favorite track might be the angry “Bad Blood,”; the next, I might be obsessed with the romantic “How You Get the Girl,”; and the next, the only thing I’ll be able to think of is “All You Had To Do Was Stay.” Her albums, and her songs, are layered.
It’s what I experienced with “Shake It Off” on first listen—it was new, it wasn’t quite what I’d grown to expect and I wasn’t sure I’d like it. But after giving it another couple tries, I was definitively hooked. I liked 1989 from the get-go, but every time I listen to it I find something else new to love and sing along with.
I’m not going to get involved with speculation about who the songs might be about. That is (and always has been) one of my least favorite parts about listening to Taylor Swift—I don’t always know or care about the actual identity of the subject. I cannot tell you but I probably do know how good the song is and how many times I’ve sung along to it loudly and off-key. Swift’s talent at layering her albums is not about the actual subject but, rather, is work of a lyrical genius that manages to express the emotional rollercoaster we all ride in relationships. Her songs are relatable and chances are, when I listen to her latest hit, I’m not actually thinking about who she thought fit the bill.
Taylor Swift’s new album is a smashing success. She somehow manages to balance fun and cynicism in a way that entices listeners and holds their attention. Far from being disappointing because of its new sound, it is refreshing. The Taylor Swift I heard from in 7th grade is still there but she’s grown up—but that’s okay, because I have too.
P.S. The bonus track, “Wonderland,” captured my heart within moments. Maybe it’s partially because I love Alice in Wonderland almost as much as I love Taylor Swift but it’s honestly one of the best songs on the album and definitely well worth a listen.
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