My immediate reactions to Taylor Swift's newest album, "Red", were confusion: is this Taylor Swift? This sounds like indie rock, like Foster the People in slow motion, like Coldplay, like Snow Patrol (indeed, Snow Patrol's main singer makes a shocking entrance as the opening singer on "The Last Time", weaving his voice into Swift's masterfully).
All of which gets to the heart of my problem with the album: what distinguished Taylor Swift as a singer-songwriter is pretty absent on this album. First of all, the country tropes blended into her pop tunes are eschewed in favor of more stereotypical radio-rock-ready sounds. The acoustic guitars are long gone, giving way to heavy-handed production and thunderous guitar and piano powerchords. Also missing are the fantastical, whisk-you-away lyrical narratives that made teenage life a la Swift seem so appealing and so dramatic simultaneously. The songs are now firmly entrenched in realistic melodrama, not daring to break from "real relationship problems" or, at the very least, craft depth-creating metaphors around them.
In all, what Red is is a good-enough album for the Swift fans and newbies alike: it'll get rave reviews from those that love her for her, and it'll please newcomers that hear its singles when trying to distract themselves from work with Pandora. Swift's attempts to expand from her niche have hurt what made her so interesting as an artist, though, and because of that, those of us with a broader taste in listening material are left with little worth remembering once the record stops spinning.
I dunno, I think the short review is a nice change of pace from the essays on the nature of culture itself that usually go on when Sputnik wants to debate an album.
True. I enjoy writing long-winded reviews myself, but length doesn't really matter as long as you get your point across (which you did). It is nice to see a more concise review that isn't a troll/joke review and actually has substance!
Well, I'd rather have a long winded discussion of background information and stuff in the album than a long winded hyperbole of emotions of someone else I couldn't care less about. But, short and to the point is also good.
I heard "We are never getting back together" in 7-11 the other day, I thought it was dumb as I heard it but on the way home I could not get it out of my head. Now I'm constantly looking it up on youtube to listen to it.
