Taylor Swift
Red

INTRODUCTION

Red is the fourth studio album by Taylor Swift. This artist began as a country singer with the image of the typical "girl next door" who dreams of true love and suffers from broken relationships. This album, in my opinion, breaks that image of hers.

TAYLOR: THE HIPSTER GIRL AND HER LYRICS

You can see the renewal in Taylor's appearance: red lipstick, hipster clothes, straight hair. She is no longer the country princess who projected herself into fairy tales or imagined her Romeo. She's a girl who knows how to say no ("We Are Never Getting Back Together"), who knows how to have fun ("22"), who recognizes she's a bit moody ("Stay Stay Stay") although she hasn't forgotten her romantic side. However, it's a new kind of romanticism: no more Georgia stars or Verona balconies. Now her love is "like driving a Maserati" ("Red").

The lyrics of this album tackle historical themes of her songwriting (broken relationships, regrets, young loves) but with new energy. Less self-pity, less illusion, more action. Maybe even a bit more melancholy. However, the style in which she writes the lyrics is always hers, the one that touches you, makes you feel the same emotions, that makes you live the SWIFT experience.

GOODBYE COUNTRY

To objectively analyze the musicality of this album, I had to forget about the previous ones because this has nothing of country. We are talking about an album with two faces: one more pop-rock, the other more acoustic, somewhat folk. The more pop side of this record is in songs like "We Are Never Getting Back Together," "22," and "I Knew You Were Trouble," which also contain synthetic sounds. Notable are the rather bold vocal experiments Taylor has done to be "up to par" with these pieces, especially the falsettos. In my opinion, the result isn't bad; the experiment is moderately successful, although it's TOO TOO far from Taylor's original style. These are songs containing choruses and effects that remind me a bit of Avril Lavigne's latest productions. It's not really a nice thing.

Let's talk about the more folk aspect of the album. I could cite representative pieces like "All Too Well," "I Almost Do," "Everything Has Changed" (ft. Ed Sheeran), and "Begin Again." These songs have a somewhat flat sound; there's not much instrumental variety, but the overall result is a series of ballads that create the right atmosphere for their lyrics.

That pseudo-folk is the very spirit of the album.

Songs to note are:

"Red," which is one of the pieces, in my opinion, most successful, even if perhaps it is the new "Mine." I think it is, along with "Begin Again," the song closest to the country genre (though still quite distant).

"The Last Time," written with the singer from Snow Patrol. You can feel Gary Lightbody's influence in the composition of the song. It's the only track on the CD with an evident piano.

"Stay Stay Stay," a very original little song with fun sounds. Not really original but definitely unexpected. It's cheerful, dynamic, almost Christmas-like. Listen to it to understand what I mean.

THE VERDICT

Overall, I love defining this album as "The first studio album of the NEW TAYLOR" because it's something new for her, even if the instrumentation references can call back her second and third albums (nothing to do with the first one. Absolutely not). Perhaps from "Taylor Swift" to "Fearless" and from "Fearless" to "Speak Now" there was a gradual evolution, but this album marked a total break with everything that came before. It's a "New Testament" of her career. I don't blame her for this.

It's not the festival of originality when it comes to music, even if the final result is decidedly captivating. I expected a disaster, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The lyrics are truly well done.

Rating: 8 out of 10 on my CURRENT POP scale (where 1 stands for "Up All Night" by One Direction and 10 stands for "A Thousand Suns" by Linkin Park).