TRACK LISTING

01. Welcome To New York
02. Blank Space
03. Style
04. Out Of The Woods
05. All You Had To Do Was Stay
06. Shake It Off
07. I Wish You Would
08. Bad Blood
09. Wildest Dreams
10. How You Get The Girl
11. This Love
12. I Know Places
13. Clean

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Taylor Swift returns to the scene with new album 1989 and with it comes a new sound. Gone are the country pop tones and ballads and in comes a more electro pop sound that blends Robyn, Ellie Goulding & new hot thing Charli XCX with Taylor’s own twist.

The one thing that stands out is that lead off single ‘Shake It Off’ is out of place when it comes to the sound of the song but it helps to break up the album and give fans a more old school touch.

One song that instantly made me sit up and pay attention is ‘Style’, this song could be at home on a Robyn album, in fact on first listening you may think it is indeed Scandinavia finest.

On ‘Bad Blood’ there is an air of Lorde in the loose production and feel with a simple drum beat and an atmospheric pad synth that floats in the back.

Imogen Heap again shows her genius on co-written and album closer ’Clean’ which is a beautiful piece of work that is full of atmosphere and lovely bleeps and bloops and also brings in a nice airy breathless vocal that is a trademark Heap style.

I was also happy to hear that guitars weren’t completely removed from Taylor’s sound which was something I feared would be the case, Taylor has managed to fuse her guitar base from previous records into the new sound by adding U2 style echo and relays to give them a more atmospheric quality.

All in all 1989 is a fine collection of music with great melodies, it has its up and downs in style and content in the way that there are some really dark moments musically which I am a very big fan of and again gives and shows a whole new dimension to just who Taylor Swift is not just as a song writer but as an artist.

STAND OUT TRACKS: Welcome To New York, Out Of The Woods, Style, Wildest Dreams, This Love, Clean
RATING: 4/5