Album Review: Taylor Swift - 1989

Taylor Swift has graduated from her country roots to full-on pop on 1989. This is Madonna synths and Fun. stadium pop, in an authentic broadening of taste and style. No doubt Swift has calculated her musical transition meticulously, with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback, Ryan Tedder (One Republic) and Jack Antonoff (Fun.) on her side. Yet what’s most exciting is her precise diversion into a new way of songwriting, most pronounced on frontrunner for best pop song this year, Shake It Off.

Let’s consider 2012’s All Too Well as the pinnacle of pining Swift’s songwriting, littered with striking couplets and aching allusions. With that in mind, she’s hitting those heights consistently here; the lines of “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon/Twenty stitches in a hospital room” on Out Of The Woods or “Say you’ll remember me standing in a nice dress/Staring at the sunset” on the Lana Del Rey-esque Wildest Dreams both allude to a clandestine narrative but retain the vagueness that make her songs so universally relatable.

Best yet is the Kavinsky-circa-Drive-soundtrack vibes of Style, Swift slick and sensual as she sings, “Takes me home/Lights are off, he’s taking off his coat”. At times she’s seemingly overcome by her newfound freedom, resulting in the overtly earnest Welcome To New York and all-bark, no-bite of Bad Blood.

Mostly though, this is taut, clever music by a powerhouse songwriter, and Swift has progressed into an oversaturated genre to carve a space all of her own.