Grade: A-
Last weekend, just a few days before the official release of Taylor Swift’s “1989,” comedian David Rees posted to Soundcloud an album of mash-ups of some of Swift’s greatest hits with those of Aphex Twin.
Pairing the country star-turned-pop star’s twangy melodies with Richard D. James’ glitchy, fluid electronic music may seem like a bizarre choice, but as the result proves, Swift’s songwriting lends itself rather well to an approach far removed from her roots.
Swift has also been steadily removing herself from those country beginnings.
Her fourth album, 2012’s “Red,” succeeded most with its hook-heavy pop tracks and fell flat when it resembled its predecessors.
So the fact that with “1989” Swift has arrived at her full-pop moment shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s kept up with her career, nor should it be any shock that it’s by far her best and most mature release to date.
Perhaps what’s most impressive about “1989” is it comes off as a natural evolution while still fitting seamlessly into today’s pop landscape.
Swift plucks from trendy hip-hop, gargantuan synth pop and 1980s radio jams and ballads, moves that remove her from the company of sterilized chart-toppers like Katy Perry and situate her among more artful pop contemporaries such as Lorde, Haim and Chvrches.
Swift’s skill as a pop songwriter rarely extends to her lyrics, but where she lacks Ella Yelich-O’Connor’s doe-eyed sense of poetry or the Haim sisters’ effortless cool or Lauren Mayberry’s intense earnestness, she more than makes up for it by making “1989” a simply fun album front to back.
That isn’t to say Swift doesn’t care about her words.
Even her most cringe-inducing couplets seem to come from places of deep passion, and occasionally she’ll pull out a vivid gem of a line, as she does on album closer “Clean,” where she sings of droughts and butterflies turning to dust.
But the strength in “1989” is its candy-store appeal.
The songs are varied and vibrant, each as colorful and delicious as the last.
“Welcome to New York” is sort of a dumb song, yes, but gleefully so, an attitude that, when paired with a glimmering beat, sets the tone for the rest of the album.
“Shake It Off” wouldn’t be so effective as a kiss-off anthem if the music weren’t equally sassy, and “Blank Space” utilizes its minimalism — a raindrops-on-neon instrumental, some unconventional vocal phrasing — to grand effect.
To call “1989” a work of pop genius would be an overstatement, because it doesn’t offer anything particularly inventive.
What it does do is synthesize much of what’s good and right about pop music in 2014 into a highly infectious and undeniably listenable experience that proves there’s a lot more to Swift than acoustic guitar-laden romanticism.
It’s glistening, shimmering and radiant, brilliant in the most aesthetic sense of the word.
