Kiss the Nashville, heartbroken, 17-year-old girl who sang about her mean ex-boyfriends goodbye because Taylor Swift is back with an entirely new style in her new album 1989.
Swift describes it as her “first documented official pop album,” according to the New York Times; seeing as all of her previous albums fall into the country music genre, and 1989 sure does prove to be much different from her past music. Not only are the songs more 80s electronic pop-based, but only a couple of them are acoustic, with just her and her guitar.
The first single off of the album, “Shake It Off,” became a worldwide hit practically overnight. After knocking Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” to number 2 and rising to number 1 on The Billboard Top 100 (and staying there for three consecutive weeks), “Blank Space,” another single off of 1989, shot up to number 18.
My personal favorite song off of the album is “This Love,” seeing as it it one of the only acoustic songs. The synth waves in the beginning of the song are meant to symbolize ocean currents. These set up the song to center around a metaphor: if you let love go, maybe someday it will come back to you, similar to how the ocean always comes back to the shore.
While the majority of the songs still focus on men and love, there is a whole new variety of songs including, “Welcome to New York,” which is basically publicizing tourism in New York City (as if it needs any more). “I Know Places” is about being able to escape the “vultures,”or as I would assume, paparazzi. Even though 1989 isn’t all about love, I think it’s Swift’s most teenage-sounding album yet; the songs are naive and sugar-coated.
From country sweetheart to synth-pop star, Taylor swift is here to stay, no matter what her haters (or ex-boyfriends) have to say about her. She always comes back with something new, exciting her fan base more and more with each single she drops.
