Taylor Swift Era #3: Jumping Genres
Our next stop on the trip through Taylor Swift’s discography may just be the most relevant of our time (unless there’s another surprise album drop). This week we’ll be looking at Red and 1989, discussing how Taylor took the leap between country and pop and how it worked so well she had no reason to look back. In my life this era was all about change too, and perhaps that’s why 1989 remains my favorite album Taylor has released.
In 2012 I was just entering middle school and was struck by the same realization everyone faces during this time—Oh no, who am I now? The same things that worked in elementary school no longer proved successful, and the challenge became to find something to get excited about in an environment that seemed nearly joyless. Cue Red’s release, and I was all over it.
Red was the first Swift album I was able to listen to on my own volition. Before, I either heard it on the radio or out shopping. Now, with the internet in the palm of our hands, the door opened up, allowing me to choose what I listened to anytime and anywhere. I have very distinct memories of listening to “I Knew You Were Trouble” while playing Minecraft, “We Are Never Getting Back Together” while on the way to a soccer game, or “22” at a school dance. All these songs gave me great joy, but there was one thing still missing from the equation.
I never told anyone about it.
It may seem silly now as we enter an age of empathy and compassion for people who are dealing with much larger changes than simply listening to Taylor Swift music, but for a 12-year-old kid trying to remain friends with people who believed in things like strict gender norms and what was and was not acceptable for a male to do or enjoy, there was a real problem with being able to open up about what actually excited me.
That’s one of the many reasons why I was so excited for Red (Taylor’s Version) to come out late last year—it was an opportunity to relive that excitement in an environment that didn’t care what was or was not ‘guy music.’ There’s not even much else I can say about the rerecording either. It blew the world away without even having a single released ahead of time. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” became the longest song to ever be at the Billboard’s No. 1 spot, proving that this music meant the world to fans like me, and that we’re more willing than ever to show up when she releases something, new or old.
However, even an album like Red (Taylor’s Version), something that holds so much emotional value nearly a decade later, will never match the perfection that I see in 1989.
As Taylor’s first single on the album and one of her best upbeat songs says, “Just think, while you've been gettin' down and out about the liars / And the dirty, dirty cheats of the world / You could've been gettin' down / To this sick beat.”
I downloaded 1989 and listened to it over and over again, and I didn’t stop at just the hits and singles like with her previous albums. I knew all the songs inside and out, knew the stories behind them and knew that this was music that was important to me.
I think this music is just as important to Taylor herself as well. 1989 was her first album officially categorized as pop music rather than country (whether or not Red should have been as well is an entirely different conversation). It was massive, too. I don’t know a single person that doesn’t at least recognize “Shake It Off,” if not “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood” too. Hit after hit after hit, making this the only album of 2014 to sell over a million copies in its first week.
However, this album goes deeper than the hits. Songs like “Welcome to New York” and “Clean” didn’t have quite the same burst in popularity as other tracks but were deep and emotional rides through important aspects of Swift’s life. “Wildest Dreams” garnered so much attention in 2021 that Taylor dropped the re-recorded version as a single before even announcing when 1989 (Taylor’s Version) will come out. Just the synthesized, amazing aura of any of the songs only is enough to give me goosebumps.
Swifties also quickly realized that having such a massive, unprecedented success like 1989 meant the backlash Taylor received would be doubled if not tripled in size.
Does she end up backing down? Does she go back to a genre that no longer fits her style, or prove her critics right by giving in? Most of you already know the answer to these questions, but next week we’ll take a deep dive into arguably Swift’s most complicated and awe-inspiring era.
Her response proved to people like me that you shouldn’t be afraid of being yourself.