Review Summary: A girl no longer at home...
This was probably the first year I openly embraced my guilty pleasures. As someone who prides himself on his impeccable taste in music, it was admittedly difficult to realize that the brainless synth-pounding of today's clubs had slowly wormed its way into my head. I stopped listening to Meshuggah and started listening to Ke$ha. Katy Perry's “Teenage Dream” replaced Mastodon's “Blood And Thunder” as the most played song on my iTunes, and my Porcupine Tree collection remained largely untouched for a good portion of the year. I even stretched out so far as to discover Blood On The Dance Floor, and while I obstinately believe that there is a point at which artistic expression should be put down like a rabid dog (and Blood On The Dance Floor have most definitely reached that point on multiple occasions) I've been able to pick out one or two listenable songs in their discography.
One of these guilty pleasures was “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” I was sitting around one day and remembered a few moments in a friend's car, ironically shouting along to Taylor Swift's poppy chorus. I did a quick listen on YouTube and it took me by surprise just how good a song it actually is. Naturally, I decided to part with some of my hard-earned cash and appropriated Ms. Swift's entire discography. Most notably among the CDs was her latest offering, 2012's Red (the deluxe edition, in case you were wondering).
And you know what? The first few listens were the most disappointing listens of my life. I'd always loved Taylor's poppier songs and radio singles far more than her more country-oriented pieces, but even though Red pushes the definition of “country” farther than its been pushed in mainstream music for a long time, nothing really popped out to me upon a first listen except for “Never Ever” and Taylor's dubstep debut, “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Simply put, this was a record of uninspired lyrics over top of generic pop-country instrumentals. Unwilling to believe my ears, I kept at it. It wasn't until about the fifth playthrough that it hit me.
This is a good album.
Taylor Swift has come a long, long way since her self-titled debut. As the country slowly seeps out of her sound, a new, mature style pushes its way in. Songs like “Treacherous” bring the songwriting of the great Canadian Royal Wood to mind, and continued comparison to Royal Wood's pop-folk songsmithing accentuates the importance of multiple listens. Red isn't a pop album in the vein of Teenage Dream, it's more like Said The Whale's “Little Mountain.” Every song has its place on the record, and while not every song is able to free itself from some slightly awkward lyricism (the awkwardly stretched “now I see” in “I Knew You Were Trouble” feels slightly forced, for example) and not every song reflects equal degrees of strength, there aren't any songs that leave you questioning their place on the record.
This new, mature method of songwriting is almost certainly thanks to the collaborative efforts of her co-songwriters. While “Red” is an alright song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is better, and this pattern essentially continues throughout the entire tracklisting. Even though I've grown continually more infatuated with the album as a whole, the lack of writing collaborations on tracks later in the listing leads to a certain drop in excitement towards the end. “Everything Has Changed” introduces the welcome presence of Ed Sheeran on a very Sheeran-esque track, but the album as a whole feels very top-heavy and slightly uneven. The exceptions are, as they so often are, the bonus tracks (available on the deluxe edition). These are, whether or not they are collaborations, some of the most mature tracks on the album. Whether or not you want to factor this into the rest of the album is up to you, but keep in mind that the quality of bonus tracks sometimes completely changes the feel of an album. Consider “I Know You Know,” from Punch Brothers' Punch, which was the most accessible track on the album (despite only being available on iTunes) and a song that, for some people, moved the album from an A- to an A.
That being said, Red is what I like to call a grower. It takes multiple listens and a certain degree of bias (or obsession, depending on who you ask) to really appreciate the album unless you leap into it already a die-hard (which, if you're not when you start, you will be after five spins or so). Like some of Transit's later offerings and even some of the Beatles' work, it takes a lot of time to truly realize the majesty of the album as a whole. Does it have flaws? Of course! But they disappear when you immerse yourself in the sea of Red.
All in all, Red introduces Taylor Swift's matured, poppier side. She's still the perky sixteen-year-old we heard on her self-titled, but she's surrounded herself with enough musical influence and learned how to grow up, trading country curls for mainstream pop star power, producing an album that punches you in the face, albeit with varying degrees of efficiency, throughout its sixteen tracks. This is an album that wants you to enjoy it, and will do everything in its power to ensure you glean at least some satisfaction from it.
