Taylor Swift marches to a new beat on her album ‘1989’
Taylor Swift’s latest album “1989” has been surprising and delighting fans everywhere. Photo by: apple.com
By Alexis Ancel, Staff Writer //
Since the announcement of a new album back in August, Taylor Swift fans (or “Swifties”) across the world have been anxiously awaiting the release of her fifth album entitled “1989”. One day after its release on Oct. 27, “1989” went number one in over 80 countries and sold 900,000 copies. It’s likely this album will reach one million sales by the end of its first week, which would be her third album to do so, an accomplishment that only 18 albums total have reached since 1991.
As with her first pop album, “1989” is unlike anything Taylor Swift has ever done before, and it is the one she’s most proud of. “This new album is a bit of a rebirth for me because it’s so new, I’ve never really made these kinds of changes before,” Swift said in a recent interview.
The inspiration for this album came largely from late 80s pop music and the different musical chances 80’s artists were taking at the time. “It was a time of limitless potential. The idea of endless possibility was kind of a theme in the last year of my life,” Swift says.
On this album, we don’t get to hear her heartbreak, her love gone wrong songs we’ve heard in the past. Instead we hear much more of her newfound confidence, independence and above all, happiness. By taking a break from relationships, she’s discovered how to be happy without one and learned a lot about herself in the process. “I feel like watching my dating life has become a bit of a national pastime, and I’m just not comfortable providing that kind of entertainment anymore.”
In fact, Swift hasn’t dated at all in the past year and a half, and that carries over to her music. Swift notes, “Different phases of your life have different levels of deep, traumatizing heartbreak, and in this period of my life, my heart was not irreparably broken. So it’s not as boy-centric of an album, because my life hasn’t been boy-centric.” Don’t be fooled though; this is still a Taylor Swift album, so of course there are still some love and relationship songs such as “This Love” and “Clean.”
The first track, “Welcome To New York,” is about her experience of moving to New York City and the impact that the city she describes as “electric” has made on her life. This comes through particularly in tracks like “Blank Space,” “Style,” “Wildest Dreams” and her number one single “Shake It Off,” a song that exemplifies perfectly the seamless self-transformation she’s made in the past two years.
There is also a deluxe version of the album that includes three extra songs and three voice memos straight from Taylor Swift’s iPhone containing the earliest, roughest versions of her songs as she was writing them, giving fans a peek into her songwriting process. She has always been known for sharing her life through her music, and these new tracks allow fans to really delve in and learn even more about her songwriting, something no artist has ever done before.
Even as a devoted Taylor Swift fan, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is the most compelling, well-written music Taylor Swift has ever produced. Time Magazine stated “…It’s the expertly crafted sound of “1989” that marks her most impressive sleight of hand yet-shifting the focus away from her past and onto her music, which is as smart and confident as it’s ever been.”