On October 27th, 2014, Taylor Swift wowed the world. On that day, her latest album 1989 was released, giving us a glimpse into the life of the new Taylor. She indulges into the Eighties techno-pop side of her life, which she has been inching towards since the beginning of her career. I would describe 1989 as her great escape. It is like the strings that have been connecting her to her country roots have been breaking away steadily and they have finally disconnected completely. But no worries, the new Taylor is still as powerful as and louder than any other artist. Even before this album, Taylor had already written enough number 1 songs for two or three successful artists. Eight years into her career and Taylor has finally decided to go pop; she never sent me the vibe as a true boot-wearin’ gal anyway. Her true hometown is in New York, not Nashville, and I think this contributes to many of the tracks on 1989, especially ‘Welcome to New York’. She takes advantage of iconic pop producer Max Martin to execute this star album. At 24 years old, Taylor has a unique quality that places her in a position with the teen pop firmament where anything she releases will be successful in one way or another. It is intriguing to think about what gives Taylor Swift this quality so that she is able to be singled out in this way. Is it her teenage fans or Taylor Swift herself?
1989 is a celebration.
Let’s take a look at where Taylor has been and how she got to this amazing place in her life. She started out her career with the amazing producer Nathan Chapman, who supposedly demos in a so-called “shack.” He has worked on every album since Taylor Swift, her debut. Then Taylor brings us to Fearless, which is her breakthrough album with her first international number 1 song, “Love Story.” She also was able to feel the bliss of holding a Grammy in her hand. Fearless was a simple album and an accurate snapshot of her life at that time while being sonically cohesive. When people criticized her and said that she surely couldn’t carry her weight during the writing sessions, that’s when she created Speak Now as a solo writer. Throughout this album, there were lots of string sections followed by banjo in the next song, but at this point in her career, Taylor was just trying new things. Red is the biggest lead up to 1989. Taylor said that “they started coming to her as pop melodies, and she couldn’t fight it so she just embraced it.” Max Martin and she worked very hard on “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. At this point, it is obvious that Taylor is still attached to being a country artist. It is not surprising because of the relationship that she had formed with the radio and community. Red really was just multiple personalities. After not winning album of the year for Red, Taylor realized that maybe she had not made the album of her career. She knew that it was time to make a more sonically cohesive album like she had at the beginning of her career with Fearless. This begins the start of Taylor’s brainstorming process.
Let’s start with “Blank Space,” which is basically a satire. In previous albums, many critics bounced around the idea that Taylor had dated too many guys, but to be completely honest, the serial dating status of Taylor Swift isn’t much different than other 22-year-olds. The media had drawn up this crazy character to represent Taylor: traveling the world looking for boyfriends, being clingy once she got a hold of them, moving in day two, but then the guys escaping shortly after because she's so crazy. Taylor decided to write this song from the perspective of this so-called character and she did so with producers Max Martin and Shellback. “Blank Space” includes some dark lyrics which is not typical for Taylor, talking about how she “can make the bad guys good for a weekend,” and how she’s looking for her “next mistake.” A production aspect that stands out is the “OH” hinted in the intro and right before the chorus, which is Taylor and Shellback just screaming “OH” over and over during recording sessions. A mellotron is also used to make the background noise in the song. It really is the simplest production of all the songs and a fairly sparse track because it is all about the lyric and vocal.
“Out of the Woods” is very complicated and produced in a completely different way. For this song, Taylor started out with the track and had to put lyrics to the music which was not her usual approach. The musical track was sent to Taylor by Jack Antonoff. The main snare is a combination of white noise he got through blowing out the EMI board, clapping his hands, and dropping his gear bag. “Out of the Woods” is all about being in a relationship where you know it probably isn’t going to last but wondering how long it could last. Those fragile relationships, where you have crazy times and you just keep wondering if you are out of this yet, if you are past this hard time. Production dominates this song, as well as “I Wish You Would,” also produced by Jack Antonoff. These songs burst with erupting drums, guitars, crazy synths, and echoed “oh-ohs.” “Bad Blood” is also another song where production is the main source of musicality where the drums are reminiscent of hip-hop vibes.
Ryan Tetter offers his expertise with “I Know Places.” This track is about when you’re in love and once the world gets a hold of it, sometimes the first thing they want to do is ruin the relationship. Being Taylor Swift, I’m sure she constantly wonders if anyone would want to sign up for all of the cameras after hearing all the elaborations of her life. This is basically a love song about someone that is really wanting the relationship to work, but is worried about all the cameras and attention, with Taylor reassuringly singing, “I know places we could hide.” Tetter and Taylor also worked on “Welcome to New York” together. “Welcome To New York” basically sounds like it was written for a commercial, but regardless, it is very catchy.
The track “Clean” was produced with the help of Imogen Heap. It is all about when you get your heart broken or when you’re trying to get over something happening in your life, resembling the same kind of struggle that someone goes through when trying to beat addiction. It’s every minute of the day that you’re breaking a habit and it is exhausting. The song is a bit of a metaphor about how there is a drought and now there is a big storm coming. Instead of ignoring the storm, you punch a hole in the roof and let all the rain come in and when you wake up in the morning, everything is washed away and you are left clean. The main hook of the song is a sort of percussion called an array mbira that Imogen had in her studio. Then boom whackers are tuned percussion that you also hear throughout the song.
Taylor is very well aware of what people say about her but the difference between her at the beginning of her career and her at this point is that she just doesn’t care anymore. Life is much better that way. This is how she came up with the idea for “Shake it Off.” She had all the lyrics but not the background music, which was the challenge because she had no idea what would work with the lyrics she had put together. She really didn’t want horns but initially, Shellback went to the mellotron and started playing a horn sound. The horns ended up being the perfect compliment to her party song. There’s a part in the chorus that sounds like a guitar but it’s really a cigar box with strings on it that Max really wanted to play. Taylor and Shellback created the stomping sound that you hear throughout the song. The production was meant to sound slightly bad because they wanted it to be fun and not completely professional. In the music video for the album’s first single, “Shake It Off,” Taylor surrounds herself with many hip-hop dancers and awkwardly moving/dancing around them. It is clear that Taylor doesn’t want or feel the need to be compared to any other artist, almost as if she is her own genre. As the music video progresses, she becomes surrounded by regular people shimmying and obviously not trying to impress anyone or be thought of as cool. This all sends an important message to her listeners in a completely genius way. She writes this album as though she is still the outsider. Taylor is just a small-town girl and she is still learning to navigate the big city. Let’s be completely honest, one of the most important decisions Taylor made right around the release of this album was buying a $20-million-dollar penthouse in New York. It is like Taylor is finally realizing her calling, goodbye Nashville!
Within this album, the techno-pop instrumentation shines through. Taylor doesn’t stick to mainstream pop; her idea of pop music takes us back to a time period (the 1980s) where pop was not as visibly hybridized between other genres. The stadium-filling sound from the 80s reappears in the track “I Wish You Would.” The drum and bass breakbeats bring us into the world of “I Know Places.” The hit single “Shake It Off” stars blaring hip-hop synths. “Style” and “Clean” are similar in that they are dominated by pulsing electronic beats. Because of this, Taylor was able to successfully avoid using the latest trends in music and simply put her own ideas to work.
Ultimately, Taylor is striving for the sort of timelessness that very few artists bother achieving because of the difficulty and attention it requires. Although Taylor Swift has been popularized as a self-contained singer-songwriter, this album explores other fields of expertise. Her credits look just like any other successful pop album: Max Martin, Jack Antonoff, Imogen Heap, Ali Payami, and Greg Kurstin just to name a few. Because of the exceptional cast, you would expect a jaw-dropping product, which 1989 absolutely is. I know this because even the weakest tracks sound like hits, including “I Wish You Would” and “All You Had to Do Was Stay”. This is what putting 13 tracks on a record will do. With 13 being Taylor’s lucky number, that means a few mediocre tracks made the cut. These aren’t bad songs by any means, but they are just reminiscent of Taylor’s older material which makes them seem slightly out of place.
Now, let’s talk about Taylor Swift herself. Although people like Martin and Kurstin have a reputation of making incredible albums, Taylor Swift is what gives 1989 its amazing qualities. Taylor is able to encompass the audience as well pop history in her music, and not to mention on stage. She takes clichés and somehow twists them until they sound completely original. For example, take “Shake It Off” where the subject is the haters but avoids the typical line all the while. Instead of simply ignoring their presence, Taylor takes it as a way to tell the world how their hatred has contributed to her strength as an artist. During “Wildest Dreams,” Taylor paints the man as the victim, singing about how he is doomed to be haunted by what he has carelessly lost. “The drought was the very worst,” the very first line of the track “Clean,” is absolutely striking, considering none of her competitors would ever come up with something so intriguing to open up their song. It is obvious why Taylor receives this kind of abundant respect that is not given to her peers.
Max Martin produced seven of the 13 songs on the album, and he contributes the “Saturday-night” beats. In “Welcome to New York,” she finds herself in a place singing “you can want who you want, boys and boys, and girls and girls.” During “Style,” on the other hand, she swoons, “You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye.” Jumping to “How You Get the Girl,” Taylor aggressively strums the acoustic guitar while Max Martin controls the disco surge. “This Love” is where Nathan Chapman comes in, one of her most compatible producers. Imogen Heap places backup sighs to Taylor’s electronic melancholy, singing “You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.” Most of the songs in 1989 are around three minutes which is a bit of a challenge and accomplishment for Taylor. She is used to taking five minutes to write about the simplest of subjects. Nevertheless, Taylor still finds herself strolling past four minutes on the following tracks: “How You Get the Girl,” “This Love,” and “Clean.”
Romantic relationships have always been a topic of Taylor’s music, but her perspective has changed. Instead of looking for her forever boyfriend, she’s just looking for someone to have fun with, knowing that the relationship is either “gonna be forever” or “go down in flames.” The craziest thing about 1989 is that it sounds exactly like Taylor, although she has never tried anything like this before. Taylor Swift always begins at the extremes and works her way up, so anything she is involved with, we are guaranteed to be wowed.
CS
