Swiftly Climbing: Taylor’s Journey Through the Pop Charts

Judgement Day: Monday October 27th, 2014, release of the latest Taylor Swift album, 1989.
Swift was brewing and molding this album for two years, she told MTV.
As she so excitedly professed: “Haters gonna hate,” so I’ll try my hand at hating.
First, I should preface this with the fact that I am not a big advocate of T. Swift. Her over-the-top bubbly persona mixed with an underlying sadness is a little synthetic for me, much like her latest over-the-top bubbly, sadness synthetic music that is 1989.
Let’s start with her first single “Shake It Off.” This is a prime example of her pushing positivity. Swift is one of the most recognizable faces in the world; she gets a lot of “haters.” While I appreciate the attempt at not caring what said haters think, the song is reminiscent of a low-quality pop star that performs on a cruise ship. It’s very bouncy, “Oh Mickey, you’re so fine,” type thing. But it gets better!
Her other singles “Out of the Woods” and “Style” proved to have a deeper meaning, while still maintaining the pop-beat-driven album. The heavier beats, mixed with somewhat obvious references to ex-boyfriends (classic Taylor) works in these two singles. Plus her teaming up with a wide variety of other artists like fun.’s Jack Antonoff and Max Martin, helped her create a more diverse sound.
Another classic Taylor move is her complex lyrics. She gives a plethora of opportunity for moody, adolescent lyrical tweets and Instagram posts for teens. For example, in her song “New Romantics,” she profess “Heartbreak is the national anthem/ We sing it proudly.” In the same song, she says “We’re all bored/We’re all so tired of everything.” “We never go out of style,” will be the new line of Millenials across the nation.
This album drifted away from her typical sound. She took chances! But every song still sounds like every other Taylor Swift song. Swift has managed to change her image from the underdog, think of her previous songs like “You Belong with Me” or “Mean,” to the new and empowered, full-blown adult.