Taylor Swift
I’m not a Taylor Swift fan per se. I haven’t bought one of her albums since around freshman year of high school and I haven’t kept track of whom she’s dated since Joe Jonas.
But damn it, I can’t help but sing along every time I hear “Shake It Off” on the radio.
The song comes from Swift’s fifth studio album, 1989, which was released Monday. The album marks a major turning point for Swift, as it’s the first on which she completely abandons her country music roots for pop. It’s a bold career move, but ultimately a smart one.
A lengthy career in the music industry will nearly always lead to the same inescapable dilemma: Either evolve and risk accusations of being a sellout,or stick to your guns and get flak because “all your songs sound the same.” Even greats like The Beatles have faced the problem. Swift has chosen the former, and far better, route — with the result that eight years after her self-titled debut album, her material is fresh and still getting frequent radio play.
It’s true that 1989 is the first album Swift has openly acknowledged as being purely pop, but the transition has been a long time coming. The hits from her last album, 2012’s Red, can hardly be classified as country. Hell, “I Knew You Were Trouble” featured dubstep in its chorus. Now, Swift has officially traded in her loose curls for blunt bangs, cowboy boots for hipster wear; even her longtime love affair with Nashville, Tennessee, is replaced by a newfound fondness for the Big Apple, as evinced by the track “Welcome to New York.”
In July, Swift wrote an op-ed on the future of the music industry for The Wall Street Journal.
“These days, nothing great you hear on the radio seems to come from just one musical influence,” Swift wrote. “The wild, unpredictable fun in making music today is that anything goes. Pop sounds like hip hop; country sounds like rock; rock sounds like soul; and folk sounds like country — and to me, that’s incredible progress.”
Of course, one can interpret what Swift writes as a mere cover up for her own departure from country — but I think there’s truth in her statement. After all, how does one classify other popular female musicians today, such as Lorde, Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry? Has anyone tried, and moreover, does anyone care?
A musician’s primary goal should always be producing quality music, with aesthetics secondary at best. At the end of the day, who cares if Swift’s hair is curly or straight, if she lives in Nashville or New York or if her music is classified as country or pop, so long as the music is good?
And just because 1989 doesn’t fall into the country music genre doesn’t mean it isn’t still signature Swift. In fact, the album is chock-full of Swift’s trademark brand of love (and breakup) songs.
Will 1989 be eligible for nomination when the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Television Music Awards (both of which Swift has been a staple at for at least the past five years) roll around? Probably not. But does it have the potential to win Swift her first Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys? Absolutely.
It’s time to give up the ghost of country music past, dry the teardrops on our guitar and usher in this new and improved era of Swift.
