Carisma Leyva
Staff Writer
Taylor Swift cannot seem to shake off the negativity brought about by her transition to a pop sound in her new album “1989”.
The singer has established a troublesomely new pop sound which in turn makes listening exasperating and nearly a joke. Vocals, lyrics, misuse of synthesizers, and lack of guitar all added to this problem.
Swift’s career first began at age 14, with the release of her self-titled first album which debuted in 2006. Since then, she has released five studio albums and won seven Grammies.
“1989” was recorded with Big Machine Records, who are known for supporting country artists, and had an extensive amount of publicity. Swift had been intriguing fans with a countdown to both her album and her second single from it, “Out of the Woods.” She had dropped her first single, “Shake It Off,” and its video weeks prior.
Vocals on the album are, at the most, adequate. Swift’s voice tends to be nasal and pitchy, despite the aid of obvious auto-tune. With her limited range, the artist just cannot do well vocally.
Another aspect of the album that comes off as vexatious was Swift’s transition from a focus on guitar in her music to a focus on mainly percussion and synthesizers. The synths create a very loud pop sound and do not add much more than confusing background noise to nearly all the songs on the album. They tracks all lack differentiation because of the repetitive nature of the synthesizers.
The lyrics of the album is by far the worst part of “1989”, adding an extra layer of numbness to the album. Although the words seem to be heartfelt, they drone on and on about meaningless subjects and only intensify how repetitive Swift is with her songwriting. For example, in the song “Out of the Woods”, Swift repeats the line “Are we out of the woods yet?” an astounding 34 times throughout the entire song.
The track that is troublesome to listen to is “Bad Blood”. The track is entirely mundane and dreary. Swift sings about a friendship gone wrong, a childish and overused topic, and bad vocals only add to the disaster.
However, one song that is not a complete failure is “Style”. This song sticks to Swift’s style from her previous albums and maintains some kind of maturity as far as lyrics go, seeing as Swift does not bash her any of her previous boyfriends. Swift’s heartfelt vocals in the track also add an emotional aspect to the song.
Swift is trying to transform the way she is seen in the public eye but is instead sacrificing heartfelt music for pop genre tracks. She is embracing many modern ways of creating music, which do not work well at all for her. Her voice and lyrics sound overused and tired.
Taylor Swift’s new album “1989” is available for $12.99 on iTunes and $13.99 in retail.
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