(Dec. 28, PDI Entertainment)
By Oliver M. Pulumbarit
Taylor Swift transitions to a full-fledged pop princess with “1989,” a taut and playful offering that bustles with creative energy, while still highlighting her inimitable talent for writing searing confessions.
By Oliver M. Pulumbarit
Taylor Swift transitions to a full-fledged pop princess with “1989,” a taut and playful offering that bustles with creative energy, while still highlighting her inimitable talent for writing searing confessions.
It comes as no surprise that she’s fully exploring pop,
given that her previous two albums had very few country-flavored songs—it was
becoming clear she wanted to experiment with other sounds. She confirms this
“need” in the album’s foreword.
The title is the year of the singer-songwriter’s birth; she
also reveals in those notes that music from the decade interested her. About
half of the resulting album does sound like it was inspired by synth-pop
classics from the era, but the rest have either a 1990s vibe to them or a
melding of throwback touches—but ultimately, Swift’s hooks are memorable, her
songs audibly diverse and given a contemporary edge.
She opens with the strange but peppy tourism anthem “Welcome
to New York ,” an awestruck
perspective. Not as odd, she makes fun of misconceptions and rumors with “Blank
Space,” summing up how she feels about getting scrutinized, specifically on her
failed romances.
Just as self-aware is the mega-hit “Shake It Off,” which
tells off haters—she’s had tons of them, who judge her for her boy problems and
her vocal range, among other things.
“1989” has important songwriting collaborations: Swift teams
up with fun.’s Jack Antonoff on the ethereal pop-rock track “Out of the Woods”;
she crafts with Imogen Heap the soft, gliding ballad “Clean”; there’s also
OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder on the aforementioned “New York ”
and “I Know Places.”
As with her older material, the lyrics are primarily
detailed accounts about exes; “Out of the Woods” presumably speaks about a
vehicular mishap that she and an ex, One Direction member Harry Styles, figured
in. While she pours her soul out about the incident, she also sings of the
guy’s vulnerable side during the ordeal: “Remember when you hit the brakes too
soon?/20 stitches in the hospital room/when you started crying, baby, I did
too.”
Meanwhile, “Bad Blood,” some listeners suggest, alludes to
Swift’s alleged feud with fellow star Katy Perry.
Not that every song refers to someone she’s had pen-worthy
encounters with. The upbeat “New Romantics” is similarly cathartic, an ode to
singlehood that emphasizes, “The best people in life are free.”
Swift gets to be a little vain in the CD version, as it
contains “Polaroids” of her (actually sheets of glossy paper made to look like
them) posing rather playfully, with short, clever captions (her song lyrics )
scrawled on them.
If anything keeps “1989” from being perfect, it’s the set of
behind-the-scenes tracks that details her songwriting process. It’s interesting
to hear her talk about the origins of a few songs, but they could easily have
been posted online—they do disrupt the otherwise energetic flow of the
finished, polished music.
As an album, “1989” is an invaluable addition to her already
impressive discography. Swift, now fully confident and showing a keen business
acumen, establishes herself as a force to reckon with anew, coming up with
universal things to say, no matter how specific she gets with her melodic
tell-alls.
No comments:
Post a Comment