EllieTaltonTaylor Swift 1989
Swift is back with her fifth album, two years on, and so much has changed. She has kissed goodbye to her country roots yet if you listen closely her favoured, break-up style songwriting is still prominent. No matter how much she tries to change her style she’s still stuck on the same material as she always has been. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
She can be slated time and time again for her topic of songwriting, but, as Miss Swift herself points out, no one criticises the likes of Bruno Mars, or her close friend Ed Sheeran for the same approach. She even classes it as a form of sexism, which can’t be far off considering her earlier point.
On first listen the album shocks the system of the typical, die hard Swift fan. Its sound is nowhere near the familiar and comforting country twang of the much loved ‘Tim McGraw’ or ‘Love Story’, however she’s been dropping hints for a while now about this long time coming transition. With songs such as ‘We are never getting back together’ from her last album and the first single off 1989 ‘Shake it off’ it was obvious to see she wanted to move on.
Just previous to the album being released, Swift shared the song that she thought really captured the essence of the album and told the fan base what was to come. It said this song ‘Out of the woods’, directly targeted her ex boyfriend Harry Styles. With plenty of references to things that happened in their relationship last winter. Nothing has been confirmed but, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if it were true. It’s just her style, like it or lump it.
The album is set up in a conventional way, ‘Welcome to New York’ as her first song, this establishes her new place of living and her new vision. Following this one of the strongest songs on the album, ‘Blank Space’ with lines such as “Oh my God, look at that face, you look like my next mistake” you can hear the pop type vibes reverberating off this track. With a killer video to complement this, where she plays herself, just an extremely crazy version of herself. The song and the video show that she does have a sense of humour, she addresses all of the ‘boy-obsessed’ criticisms and belts out “Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane, but I’ve got a blank space, baby, and I’ll write your name”. She then acts out in her video, destroying her love interest’s rare sports car, a Shelby AC Cobra, as well as his expensive suits. She’s really done herself proud, laughing at what others think of her.
‘Bad Blood’ may be a well known Bastille album and song, but Taylor has gone and made it her own. With hard hitting lyrics such as “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes, you say sorry just for show” it’s definitely a classic Swift break-up song. She can transform her favourite writing style to a different genre so easily it’s impressive. Her words come so naturally to her it really helps her songs come to life, the fan base can always tell that she means and feels every word.
The album 1989 having the biggest sales week for 12 years, and is therefore obviously the biggest seller of the year so far and is set to stay that way. With figures like this it only proves the global standing of this female artist is massive and her pop curveball paid off.
Best tracks to look out for on the album – As previously mentioned ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘Blank Space’, but other favourites include ‘Wonderland’, ‘Wildest Dream’ and ‘All You Had To Do Was Stay’
Watch the ‘Blank Space’ video here.