The latter is a shrewd rewrite of the Swiftian breakup narrative, a prelude to the self-aware sendup that was ‘Blank Space’. Then there’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, which rides a twitchy guitar riff toward the beat drop that launched a thousand screaming goat videos. ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ set fire to indie boy pretensions years before Swift became poptimism’s standard-bearer, while ‘22’ was for a time the irrepressible anthem of the self-deluded post-adolescent. The three Max Martin and Shellback-assisted pop numbers, for one, are among her more enduring hits, and for good reason. That isn’t to say that the album is without its high points. ![]() Rather, the elements that bothered reviewers at the time of its release - the start-and-stop pacing, the disorienting array of styles, the moments of uncharacteristic imprecision in the songwriting - feel as true now as they did nine years ago. It’s a safe option for a listmaker who wants to honor the pop superstar without neglecting the country storyteller, and vice versa.īut in revisiting Red, it’s hard to experience the album as the stone-cold classic that critics have retroactively made it out to be. ![]() It’s more mature than Taylor Swift or Fearless, less glossy than 1989 or Lover and certainly nowhere near as brash as Reputation. The album neatly divides Swift’s early country albums from the pop records that followed, theoretically speaking to her strengths in both arenas. Red nabbed coveted spots on several publications’ best-of-the-decade lists and even cracked the top 100 on the recent update to Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. In the near-decade since its release, the album has become something of a consensus pick for Swift’s best album, at least as far as critics are concerned. It was also, depending on who you ask, either her last album as a country artist or her first as a pop star. Red was an undisputed commercial juggernaut. ![]() The accompanying tour - which remains one of the highest-grossing country tours of all time - was an out-and-out spectacle, with elaborate stage design, no fewer than eleven costume changes and a litany of cameo appearances that foreshadowed the dreaded Squad. Swift has always been a maximalist, and Red was the first album to fully capitalize on her potential for cross-promotion. It’s a relic from an elaborate and exhausting album rollout that also included limited edition Keds, a four-week countdown on Good Morning America and a Target-exclusive deluxe version that clocked in at a cool 90 minutes. Among the stranger collector’s items available to Taylor Swift fans on eBay is a Red-themed Papa John’s pizza box, circa 2012.
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