Taylor Swift on her “Red” tour, March 25, 2013. (Photo Courtesy of jazills/Wikimedia Commons)
Life is too short to hate pop music, period.
The talented Taylor Swift has been up to a lot in the last two years after releasing her fourth studio album, “Red,” in October 2012. After three country albums, “Red” was an unexpected deviation from what her fans were used to. But a true Swift fan will embrace every song, single and album with a warm and welcoming heart. Her fans on the academy board pulled through when “Red” was nominated for Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the 2014 56th Grammy Awards, marking Swift’s second nomination of that kind after her “Fearless” win in 2010.
And now, after years of anticipation and curiosity, the grueling wait has finally come to an end. With the release of “1989,” so named for Swift’s year of birth, Taylor has outdone herself once again.
Most people have likely heard “Shake it Off” in the last two months, which is dominating all radio stations worldwide. “Shake It Off” was released as the lead single from “1989” on in August. It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart within minutes of its release.
The album’s first single was so loved that even accepted that even a Delta Sigma Phi chapter in Kentucky filmed a lip-dub of the song. Thanks to social media, Taylor was able to watch it and praise the brothers. It must take a lot of courage for a bunch of bros to dance to a girlie pop-song. But then again, who wouldn’t want to dance to “this sick beat”?
The second single and the fourth track on the album, “Out of The Woods,” is one of Taylor’s favorite songs on the album, she recently told MetroLyrics in an interview.
“This song is about the fragility and breakable nature of some relationships,” Swift said. “This was a relationship where I was living day-to-day, wondering where it was going, never feeling like we were standing on solid ground.”
In regards to the album as a whole, Taylor notes, “These songs sound exactly the way that the emotions felt when I felt them.”
Some speculate “Into The Woods” is about Taylor’s relationship with British One Direction cutie Harry Styles. Throughout the song, Swift makes references to Styles as she sings, “Looking at it now, last December, we were built to fall apart, then fall back together.” It was last December when Taylor and Harry were together… and when are her songs not about her heartbreaks?
The opening track, “Welcome To New York,” has Swift describing the the Big Apple as her inspiration upon discovering the electric city of lights. Swift wrote this song after moving to New York, and she sings about it as a place of unparalleled freedom, where she can be who she wants and do what she wishes without being ridiculed.
In an interview about the song, Swift told Sterogum, “I wanted to start the album with this song because New York has been an important landscape and location for the story of my life for the last couple of years.”
Some people are calling “Blank Space,” the second track, an instant candidate for Swift’s best song ever. The song incorporates some techno-style beats, starting out a simple, soaring synth line and faraway-sounding steel drums on the downbeats. Taylor sings in short, cut-off sentences: “Magic. Madness. Heaven. Sin.” If you listen closely, you can hear a bit of a Lorde influence. Could this be a subtle indicator of Swift’s next album?
Some pop stars stray from making their personal lives known, yet Swift understands that given the circumstances of her very public life, that’s never really going to be an option and shouldn’t have to be. “Blank Space” is all about anticipation and attachment, with some winks toward the public’s concern with her love life – “Love’s a game, want to play?”
You don’t have to be Taylor’s age to relate to this inspiring and ingenious album. Whether you’re a T-Swizzle fan, born in 1989 or simply “searching for a sound [you] haven’t heard before,” listening to this album may just surprise you and leave you wanting to move to New York, take a hike into the woods or just shake it off.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Audrey Rodriguez at auro8713@colorado.edu.
