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| consider my hopes raised |
"what the fuck is that song?" but in terms of 1989 "what the fuck is that like?"
1. welcome to new york
GOD this is different, isn't it? wavy synths, angry claps, layers of autotuned vocals. there's that taylor swift feel though - lots of lyrics about boys, girls and growing up. new and exciting but familiar and comfortable. metaphors about her brave foray into real life pop music. it's alright, hoping this isn't a highlight though or this is one over-hyped album.
2. blank space
it's very sparse but in a good way. you could say there's a lot of "blank space"!!!?! some solid gold lyrics in here and it turns out the minimalistic production is working in its favour. something about "starbucks lovers" which disappoints me but i never said that our tay was perfect (EDIT: a lovely man told me the lyric is "got a long list of ex-lovers" which is better and i'm sorry for doubting you girl). her voice sounds good though, flits between some awkward spoken parts to some good attempts at hitting the big notes.
3. style
okay this is more like it. funky guitar? tick. metaphor about fire? tick. even more thundering synth? tick. james dean reference? tick. obvious hark back to her broken relationship with a certain member of one direction? tick. this is single material: a game changer.
4. out of the woods
i listened to this once before and wasn't hugely impressed but let's have another bash with it, shall we? yeah, the chorus is painfully repetitive but it's actually quite good. "IN THE CLEAR YET? GOOD" that's a good bit. it's very brooding in comparison to her banjo heavy older material but that's not a bad thing. there's another "car crash of a relationship" metaphor but, again, that's not a bad thing.
5. all you had to do was stay
8 seconds in and this already sounds like proper pop music. it wouldn't feel out of place on any katy perry album. saying that, it sounds quite "red"-esque which was her best album by a long shot. a natural progression: some old taylor with added synth happy producers.
6. shake it off
we all know about this one, i wrote about it on premiere day. it's horn heavy and a bit embarrassing but it caused enough of a buzz to get this album to sell one million copies in its first week. well done, swifty.
7. i wish you would
guitars and drum machines. welcome to 2014. it has that weird beatdown/breakdown/drop in the chorus where it's all sort of start-stop and warped. quite like it really: pensive but upbeat; thoughtful but not draining. there's some word play in there which we've come to expect and neediness by the bucketload. this is why we love taylor, isn't it?
8. bad blood
i was fucking buzzing for this song. apparently it's about her long term hate for another lady popstar. taking bets now. it sounds a bit like lorde in that it's very beat heavy and sort of dark with some computer magic added for good measure. look, i didn't study music, alright? "bandaids don't fix bulletholes" is a bit much but it resonates. my expectations were too high but it's not a bad song by any stretch.
9. wildest dreams
jessie-ware esque dreamy feel already. it's sort of like "love story"'s older sister which isn't a bad thing. just really makes you aware how far swifty has come as an artist. not much to say on it except that it's very good come the end. lovely & light: a slither of the old girl comes through, even if she's drowning in synth.
10. how to get the girl
acoustic guitar!!!!! maybe old taylor is back for good now. oh nope, here comes the balls to the wall full blown pop chorus. what a chorus too. it's sickly sweet, full of clichés, well produced, well written pop by numbers. somehow it sounds like everything else and nothing else: a memorable highlight.
11. this love
sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on fearless or speak now (those are her old albums, just fyi) but the little flickers of genius are what separate it from the older material. it's quite ethereal WHAT A WORD and references wildest dreams which is clever. it picks up over time and gets very "full" towards the end but, because she's gone full popstar now, it feels a bit out of place on this album. before, it would've been a natural taylor move but track 11 gets a bit lost in her new sound. at first listen, it's filler.
12. i know places
she's doing an "aahh ahhh ahh ahh ayyy" like the rather spectacularly underrated loved me back to life by our own celine (written by sia, ofc). something about it reminds me of maroon 5 but they're doing alright for themselves aren't they? the chorus is another smash and the song as a whole feels quite dark: talk about hunters, foxes, vultures and the like. it's different to a lot of her stuff and i like it all the more for having some balls. mmm balls.
13. clean
the clumpy and awkward production doesn't sound unlike something the postal service used to churn out. the lyrics are classic swift but she's had a few awards down the line to do with that sort of thing so there's nothing to worry about really. there's a lot of water talk in this which means my boxes are firmly ticked all over the shop. (hey greg, listen to this one maybe. you might like it)
all in all, this album is a fucking triumph. it manages to sound exactly like the taylor swift we've grown to love but more like a taylor swift that we'll learn to love even more over time. red was a belter of a release but this is the step above that. i have no idea what she'll be doing in three years time to top this but let's not lose sleep over that when we've just been gifted 13 songs of near perfection xo
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