Review: Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ is a classic of sorts

Taylor Swift’s music needs no introduction. Neither does her boyfriend history.

Unbeknownst to most, Swift is only 11 months older than me. Her earliest childhood hobby was English horse riding. She later attended a private school and spent her summers at her parents’ vacation home. Having regularly traveled to Broadway for vocal lessons, Swift started recording music before her teenage years. She released her first full-length LP at age 16. Much like my roommate’s aging thermos of hot chocolate, one might say Swift was spoiled.

Now it’s 2014. I’ll be 24 in two weeks, Swift will be 25 in December. As I type this, I have no car and no working phone, while she has the No. 1 album in America. I just consumed a can of beans, mixed with self-sliced cheese and Smith’s brand salsa. Swift’s new album was consumed by 1.287 million people in a week. I loathe your success, Taylor Swift. I’m not trying to sound mean, it’s just that “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” you know?

So “1989” has become one of the top 10 fastest-selling albums in U.S history. It joins the ranks of her 2012 release, “Red,” 50 Cent’s “The Massacre,” and two Eminem albums. It also joins the ranks of Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again,” two Backstreet Boys albums and two *NSYNC albums. Clearly, aside from 50 Cent and Eminem, all these albums have one thing in common: parents bought them for their 10-year old daughters.

In case this wasn’t obvious, I have no girlfriend. I live in the notoriously innocent state of Utah and I have extremely low chances of dating a girl who doesn’t like the notoriously innocent Swift. Not that I wouldn’t mind dating a T-Swift fan, it’s just ironic that Swift is the 18th richest person in the world and Utah has one of America’s worst pay gaps between women and men. Female T-Swift fans from Utah idolize someone they don’t have the opportunity to become. Try to shake that one off, Gov. Herbert.

I saw the “1989” album cover and at least expected some “wannabe hipster” music falling somewhere between Passion Pit’s wardrobe and Lindsey Sterling’s glasses. No, “1989” is pretty much just a pop album. The horns section on “Shake It Off” sound faker than fake. Album-opener “Welcome To New York” has nothing to do with New York or the rest of the album. “All You Had To Do Was Stay” unfortunately isn’t a dark sequel to her 2012 song “Stay Stay Stay.” “Clean” sounds like a One Direction song. The lyrics to “New Romantics” could have been written by Taylor Swift circa 2008.

This album isn’t selling millions of copies because of the actual music on it. It’s selling for all the things surrounding it. Taylor Swift is America’s blonde-haired sweetheart. She just released a poppy song about not caring what people think about her. She’s also abandoned country music — oh, how rebellious. She made enough changes to keep fans interested. The popularity of “1989” is as overbearingly sensational as her childhood upbringing. Musically, it’s an average album. Theoretically, it’s a a shrine to commercialism bleeding with money. Kudos to her for ditching Spotify, though.

I’m not going to rate this album with a number. That’s irrelevant. All you need to know is that “1989” is an everyday classic. A classic commercial victory. A classic representation of American pop culture. My odds are 1-2 that it’s a classic fad.

— Scott E Hall is a USU stage management major who talks about music too much for his own good. Contact him at scottehall3@gmail.com.