Music Review: Taylor Swift's 1989 (Deluxe Version)

Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989 was released today and being a Swift fan I purchased the album immediately upon discovering it had been released earlier than the expected time of midnight on the 28th of October.

The first single from the album, Shake it Off is similar to Speak Now's Mean, in that it is about dealing with bullies and 'shaking off" their comments.  There have been rumours that it was about her feud with Katy Perry, which she hasn't confirmed or denied.  It's the first single she's released that's a major departure from her traditional country pop sound and is up tempo.  The track was highly successful going to number one in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The second single, Out of the Woods is a typical Swift song.  It's about a break up she went through.  The relationship was going through a period of turbulence and she was wondering "are we out of the woods?".  That's the general premise of the song.  The mainstream media has reported this song is about One Direction's Harry Styles.  Taylor hasn't confirmed or denied this only saying that she thinks questions about her love life are sexist.

My favourite song on this album, Welcome to New York is very upbeat and about Swift's move to New York.  Like most songs about New York she sings about how it's a place of opportunity with people having opportunities they otherwise wouldn't have.  It has a very catchy beat and Swift is singing about her experiences upon moving to New York.  She sings that New York has been waiting for people.  Despite not being officially released as a single, it went to number 6 on the New Zealand charts and 23 on the Aussie charts.  It reminds me a bit of Red's The Lucky One which was about fame and success.  This is a song for anyone who wants to move forward in their life and reach success.  It is the first track on the album and really sets the tone of being upbeat.

New Romantics, track 16 on the deluxe version is a reflective song where Taylor sings about how we're constantly learning in life but trying to show off and appear to be cooler than everyone else.  She describes everyday as a battle.  The lyrics on this track are actually quite dark, but because of the structure of the song in that it's upbeat and uses warm notes it doesn't appear that way.  It has elements of hope.

There are three voice memos at the end of the album where Swift goes into details about the song writing process on a few of the songs which feature on this album.  They give you some insight into how Swift works with her producers and song writing crew.

It's an odd comparison but Wildest Dreams reminds me of tracks from Lana Del Rey's album Ultraviolence.  The only differences between Swift and Del Rey are that Swift tends to sing at a higher pitch and slightly more upbeat than Del Rey, but there are certainly echos of her.

My only criticism of this album, is that although it is very polished it is too polished and it looks like Swift has sold out from her original style.  Her voice is more edited than it has been on other albums.  This said, as someone posted on Twitter last week - she sold out, but we still purchase the music despite this.

Overall I think this is a really great effort from Taylor and it will be on high rotate on my iPhone.  I give it a 4.5/5 stars.