Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989. She was raised in Wyomissing, PA and when she
was fourteen moved to Nashville to pursue a career in country music. The rest, as they say, is history. She has won 7 Grammy’s, 12 Billboard Music
Awards, 11 CMA Awards, and 7 Academy of Country Music Awards. Some of her more popular songs are: ‘Tim McGraw’,
‘Love Story’, ‘Mean’, ‘Red’, and ‘22’.
Her latest album 1989 came out on October 27, 2014 and is her first all
out pop album. She was inspired by the
likes of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Annie Lennox, Madonna, and Fine Young
Cannibals. It sold over a million copies
in the first week and debuted at No 1 on the Billboard 200. Here I will be reviewing the Deluxe Edition
of 1989 which contains 15 tracks. In the
liner notes Taylor writes: “In the world we live in, much is said about when we
are born and when we die. Our birthday
is celebrated every year to commemorate the very instant we came into the
world. And a funeral is held to mark the
day we leave it. But lately I’ve been
wondering...What can be said of all the moments in between our birth and our
death? The moments when we are reborn?”
The album opener ‘Welcome to New York’ is a co-write with
OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder. It has
a decidedly 80’s pop feel to it and is based on Taylor’s relocation to the Big
Apple and opens with these words: “Walking through a crowd/The village is
aglow/Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats/Everybody here wanted
something more/Searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before/And it
said/’Welcome to New York/It’s been waiting for you/Welcome to New York
(3X)/It’s been waiting for you/Welcome to New York’”. Taylor’s co-writers on ‘Blank Space’ are Max
Martin and Shellback. This song includes
shouts and stomps and these intriguing lyrics: “Got a long list of
ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane/Cause you know I love the players and you
love the game/Cause we’re young and we’re reckless/We’ll take this way too
far/It’ll leave you breathless/Or with a nasty scar/Got a long list of
ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane/But I’ve got a blank space baby/And I’ll
write your name”. ‘Style’ is a
smooth-flowing pop song that includes these frisky lyrics: “He can’t keep his
wild eyes on the road/Takes me home/Lights are off, he’s taking off his coat/I
say ‘I heard-oh/That you’ve been out and about with some other girl’/He says
‘What you heard is true, but I can’t stop thinking about you’/And I said ‘I’ve
been there too a few times.../Take me home (3X)’”.
‘Out of the Woods’ is a co-write with Jack Antonoff, who
also provides backing vocals. This
highly contagious pop ballad is likely about Taylor’s failed romance with Harry
Styles of One Direction: “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon/20 stitches
in a hospital room/When you started crying, baby I did too/But when the sun
came up/I was looking at you/Remember when we couldn’t take the heat/I walked
out/I said ‘I’m setting you free’/But the monsters turned out to be just
trees/When the sun came up, you were looking at me”. ‘All you had to do was Stay’ is addressed to
an ex-partner: “Here you are now calling me up/But I don’t know what to
say/I’ve been picking up the pieces of the mess you made/People like you always
want back/The love they pushed aside/But people like me are gone forever/When
you say ‘Goodbye’”. ‘Shake it Off’,
written with Max Martin and Shellback, is the album’s debut single that has a
swell video to go with it. This
infectious pop/dance number makes use of trombone, saxophone, trumpet, claps,
and shouts. The lyrics are directly
addressed to Taylor’s critics: “I stay out too late/Got nothing in my
brain/That’s what people say...mmm (2X)/I go on too many dates, but I can’t
make them stay/At least that’s what people say...mmm.../And the haters gonna
hate, hate, hate, hate, hate/Baby, I’m just gonna/Shake, shake, shake, shake,
shake, shake/Shake it off/Shake it off”.
‘I Wish You Would’ is a song of regret: “I wish you would
come back/Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, wish you knew that/I’ll
never forget you as long as I live/And I wish you were right here/Right now
it’s all good/Wish you would”. ‘Bad
Blood’ is a pulsating pop song that reminds us of the serious harm that we
humans can inflict on each other: “Did you think we’d be fine?/Still got scars
on my back from your knife so/Don’t think it’s in the past/These kinds of
wounds/They last and they last now.../Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes”. ‘Wildest Dreams’ is an airy, atmospheric
ballad with strings arranged by Mattias Bylund and Taylor Swift credited with
‘heartbeat’. The song finds Taylor
frolicking with a guy: “I said ‘No one has to know what we do’/His hands are in
my hair/His clothes are in my room/And his voice is a familiar sound/Nothing
lasts forever/But this is getting good now/He’s so tall and handsome as
hell/He’s so bad but he does it so well...”.
‘How you get the Girl’ is a catchy pop tune that offers
advice: “Remind her how it used to be/With pictures in frames of kisses on
cheeks/Tell her how you must have lost your mind/When you left her all
alone/And never told her why”. ‘This Love’
is the only song on the album written solely by Taylor. Nathan Chapman plays electric guitar, bass,
keyboards, and drums. This quiet ballad
looks at relationships as marathons and not as sprints: “This love is good/This
love is bad/This love is alive/Back from the dead/Oh, these hands had to let it
go free/And this love came back to me.../When you’re young, you just run/But
you come back to what you need”. ‘I Know
Places’ speaks of how hard it is to preserve romantic relationships that are
always under the microscope of the public eye: “I can hear them whisper as we
pass by/Bad sign/Something happens when everybody finds out/See the vultures
circling, dark clouds/Love’s a fragile little flame/It could burn out
(2X)/Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes and guns/They are the hunters/We
are the foxes/And we run”.
‘Clean’ closes out the standard
edition of 1989. It is a co-write with
Imogen Heap who plays several instruments on the song, including the
vibraphone, and performs backing vocals.
This one is about letting go of another person: “Rain came pouring down
when I was drowning/That’s when I could finally breathe and by morning/Gone was
any trace of you/I think I am finally clean”.
Two bonus tracks are found on the deluxe edition. ‘Wonderland’ has an R&B influence and
recalls a modern tragedy: “I reached for you but you were gone/I knew I had to
go back home/You searched the world for something else/To make you feel like
what we had/And in the end in wonderland/We both went mad”. ‘New Romantics’ has a happy pop sound and
includes these optimistic lyrics: “We are too busy dancing to get knocked off
our feet/Baby, we’re the new romantics/The best people in life are free”.
With 1989 Taylor Swift has done something few artists can do
effectively with ease. She has changed
musical genres, in her case, from country to 80’s pop. These new songs are pure magic musically and
vocally. They will draw old and new fans
in alike. Her songs still tell stories
to good effect and that is what makes her music so relatable and
endearing. Taylor is easily my favorite
female mainstream artist. The pics of
her (and there are many) included with this deluxe edition of 1989 are
beautiful. I’m rating 1989, the deluxe
edition, 95%. For more info visit: www.taylorswift.com and www.bigmachinelabelgroup.com.