Album of the week: 1989, by Taylor Swift
Much has been made of Taylor Swift's decision to move from country music to pure pop. The transition may seem natural but she is divesting herself of a security blanket: in country, she's one of a kind; in pop she's one among many. Now she stands unshrouded and surrounded by potential rivals.
Taylor Swift
Big Machine
The album 1989 is a nod to her birth year and to her new, lightly seasoned late 1980s sensibility. She opens with Welcome to New York, a celebration of the city so misguided it could only have been written by a celebrity or a tourist. It's the album's low point.
Taken under a microscope, 1989 is full of generic songwriting and clichéd couplets. But taken altogether (call it a Monet), it rings with charm and vivacity.
Swift tries on lots of styles - they are borrowed: Wildest Dreams is Lana Del Rey, I Wish You Would is Haim, and Lorde is sprinkled throughout. Plus older influences: I heard echoes of Eve 6, Natasha Bedingfield and Savage Garden.
Swift's own contributions are her flawless image ("That good girl faith and a tight little skirt") and her storytelling, which shimmers when specific ("Remember when you hit the brakes too soon/Twenty stitches in the hospital room").