393. Taylor Swift, "1989"

 

Since I started doing this, we've hit a couple of landmarks: first album I actually owned, first album that was a Very Important Album in my life, and now the first album that contains a song my almost-8-year-old daughter likes, namely "Shake It Off."

It may seem hard to believe now, but Taylor Swift started as a country music star, and it was this album where she finally and totally severed her ties with country in favor of the shimmery, glossy pop this record exemplifies.  Obviously, Max Martin was the co-producer because when you want shimmery pop, you want Max Martin!  And besides "Shake It Off," there are a bunch of super catchy songs on this album, like "Blank Space" and "Bad Blood."

A lot of people like "Welcome to New York," the album opener, which is obviously about Taylor's own move from Nashville to NYC and very obvious reinvention of herself.  The song itself contains all the tropes about moving to the big city and reinventing yourself ("When we first dropped our bags on apartment floors/Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer/Everybody here was someone else before"), but seems somewhat disingenuous in light of the fact that Taylor's move was to a $20 million Tribeca townhouse.  Not exactly the hissing pipes of a fourth-floor walkup, but you do you.  

As for "Shake It Off," it's undeniably a great pop song, but that absolutely cringey rap break in the middle - whose idea was that?  It almost - almost ruins the song.  Apart from "Welcome," which sounds like it was written by committee, a lot of the songs on here lyrically right in Swift's wheelhouse, which is writing about her relationships and their inevitable breakups.  It's a good mine to plumb, but it requires a constant stream of new relationships so I wonder when that gets old.  

Two more thoughts: now-disgraced Ryan Adams did a song-for-song cover of this album that is, I begrudgingly must admit, beautiful and feels like another emotional take on the whole album.  The funny thing is, Pitchfork reviewed the Adams cover album when they still hadn't reviewed the original and then had to go back and hurriedly review all of Swift's albums to make it look like they cared.

The other thing is that I once saw Swift in the Nashville airport and not only is she very, very tall, she looked like she was literally sparkling, which I don't know whether was some kind of makeup or just the ethereal aura that all beautiful artists have.  She sort of floated above the people around her asking for her autograph or whatever, a beautiful cork bobbing in a sea of fans.