In 2014, something new was buzzing under Taylor Swift’s skin. Following the release of Red, a record that served as a genre stepping stone for the country-adjacent darling, Swift was prepared to embrace mainstream pop with her next project. She moved to New York; she chopped her curls; she achieved It Girl status and started working with writers like Max Martin. If Red was a cocoon of her own design, 1989 was her pop star emergence.
As the latest in a string of re-recordings, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) holds a different energy than offerings like Fearless or Speak Now. There’s not the same youthful nostalgia intertwined with this record, nor the autumn-toned transitional spirit of Red — 1989 leaves young love and early heartbreaks at the door. It instead captures the spark of that first year out of school, or a big move to a terrifying new city full of strangers and possibility. It’s the album for when everything is shiny and new and also a little awful; the world is your oyster, and you’re broke as hell. When standing on a cliff’s edge, 1989 is the record for taking a leap.
Today, October 27th, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) has arrived, with five new vault tracks, a new Kendrick Lamar verse on the deluxe version of “Bad Blood,” and “Sweeter Than Fiction” on the physical version of the album.
Some Things Never Go Out of Style
With the exception of a notable lyric tweak in Speak Now with “Better Than Revenge,” many of Taylor’s versions are, by design, almost indistinguishable from their originals. Which begs the question: What happened with this mix of “Style?” (For what it’s worth, in defense of a certain bespectacled man who seems to be taking some of the knee-jerk blame on social media, this re-recording was not produced by Jack Antonoff.) There’s an odd nakedness to the new offering of the beloved hit, with most of the harmonies missing from the first verse; overall, it feels like someone took the song and stuck it under too harsh of a lamp, stripping away the dreamy pop atmosphere of the original.
Elsewhere, thankfully, the tweaks and changes are far less noticeable. “Shake It Off (Taylor’s Version)” is just about impossible to mark as different from the original, right down to the self-aware giggles peppered throughout. The previously released “Wildest Dreams” effectively captures the faraway surreality of the 2014 single.
Revisiting 1989 is a fun experiment in marking milestones in Swift’s songwriting evolution — strip “Clean” down to its acoustics and replace the “ah ah” background vocals with strings, and the song could easily fit into the fold of folklore or evermore. The shiny exterior of 1989 put many critics (and some listeners) off at the time, worried Swift was abandoning her songwriting roots in favor of even more radio-friendly outings, but, as usual, the lyricism was largely still present for those who were paying attention.
