Cultural Critique on Taylor Swift's Album 'Red'

An astounding fourth album by Taylor Swift, well done! Her album Red leaps away from songs filled with firsts: first kiss, first boyfriend, first breakup. Now Taylor Swift is in her early twenties, far away from the scene of high school and fairytales. It’s safe to say that when I listen to this album, I don’t envision a teenager singing, like I have during her first couple of albums Taylor Swift and Fearless. Taylor's success continues to skyrocket. Her three Grammy nominations were no surprise after she sold 1.2 million copies of Red during the first week. This album was released in October of 2012, the month when the world was reminded about how talented Taylor Swift is. Red is not just catchy, its compelling. Just as Taylor says, "It's this patchwork quilt of different sounds and different emotion." This album encompasses her toxic relationships from the past two years. Surprisingly, Taylor wrote 30 songs for the album, only including 16 of them. She took advantage of several of her favorite songwriters like Max Martin and Shellback. She also featured singers Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody (from Snow Patrol), a strategy that I particularly like. What is intriguing is that both songs that are duets are fairly slow in tempo. I would have liked to see a more upbeat duet because I really enjoy the idea of Taylor expanding her horizons to include other artists, but I also respect a song that is exciting to listen to. At first I thought the album name 'Red' was supposed to represent her red lipstick, because I always look at the album cover to guess about what the album will be about. Just like how you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, Red actually is about something completely different. "Red" is used to describe the destructive feelings that Taylor felt from the previously discussed toxic relationships of her early twenties. Jake Gyllenhaal, personally responsible for the song "We Are Never Getting Back Together," was Taylor's way of "cleansing" herself after her relationship with John Mayer. Can you imagine... just dating someone to "cleanse" yourself from your last relationship? 

Let's take a walk down memory lane...

2012 was the year that everyone thought the world was going to end. Take Jay Sean's song '2012', it sets the mood for the whole year. He sings "we gonna party like, like it's two thousand and twelve." Thankfully, we are all still here, alive and listening 

to Taylor’s new songs. The song that I feel captured the essence of 2012, at least in Taylor's life, is her song '22'. Singing things like, “make fun of our exes,” “fall in love with strangers,” and "everything will be alright." One particular line from the song provides the outline for every one of Taylor's relationships: “miserable and magical.” My most-loved song from the album is “Begin Again.” The soft and sweet tone of her voice makes it easy to listen to, not requiring any extra effort. This song delineates her life from the past eight months struggling with a breakup and transforms it into a lyrical song, happily singing, “On a Wednesday, in a café, I watched it begin again.” This song's name relates to the album and The Red Tour in a very thought-provoking way. “Begin Again” just makes me think of her going out on another tour and tackling the struggles and excitements of all the hard work that accompanies it. She began a new relationship in the song and began a new tour in real life. The culture of 2012 isn't too much different than today, but we know that for some things like Taylor Swift's The Red Tour, people would do and pay absolutely anything to go to her concert. Later on in 2014, Swift completed The Red Tour to support this successful album and it "became the highest-grossing tour of all time by a country artist, grossing over $150 million." The Red Tour was a way for Taylor Swift to prove to the world who she was: a powerful role model.

Taylor’s comments spell out the whole gist of the album perfectly: “all those emotions – spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, all of that – in my mind, all those emotions are red." The song 'Red' in the album uses a fascinating strategy to describe her feelings: color-coding. The first line of 'Red', “Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street,” is the ideal way to put the album into words. The exhilarating experience of driving in a Maserati contradicts the heartbreaking feelings that Taylor has after every one of her relationships end. The remaining lyrics of the song use colors like grey and blue to connect to other places in her relationships.

An interesting side note – around the time when this album was released, Instagram was becoming very popular and widely used. You can imagine the amount of fame Taylor gained through Instagram and people’s posts at The Red Tour. The culture of Taylor Swift fans, mainly teenage girls, is centered around social media outlets like Instagram and being liked by others. When teenagers are in the stage of maturity where they only like/listen to things that other girls listen to, Taylor Swift is a good way for girls to relate. Music is a sizable part of our culture -- it is how we relate through worship, fellowship, and entertainment. It is also ever-changing, with new songs coming out everyday, altering the way we view music as a whole. 

I feel like Red was just released and it’s hard to believe it has been almost 5 years. I am continually amazed at how many new ideas a songwriter can dream up. Sometimes I think about writing a song, but realize my mind is so closed off to music that has not yet been produced. When I hear new songs, there is usually something new and exciting within the song that I think, ‘wow, I never would have thought to do that.’ Kuddos to Taylor for her endless imagination, or maybe just her endless boyfriends. Now, I'm sure any album that Taylor names after a color will become a tremendous hit. White, Pink, Blue, Silver, Gold, what’s next?

CS