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Album Review: Taylor Swift’s Red

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The six-time Grammy winner Taylor Swift recently released her fourth studio album, Red, which is full of songs about heartbreak and turmoil. Fans from the beginning have witnessed her signature country style slowly fading into pop music, and this has changed her fanbase. Billboard Top 200 claimed Red to have reached number one within the first week of its release.

“Losing him was blue like I’ve never known/Missing him was dark wgray all alone/Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met/Loving him was red,” Swift sings in the song “Red”. In these lyrics Swift’s usual straight-head narrative lines are replaced by figurative metaphors.

The song “Red” fully describes what it felt like to be in the middle of a quick relationship that burned out too fast. She did this by using colors such as blue, dark gray and red in her lyrics to illustrate her range in mood.

Another thing Swift did to change her original style was to collaborate with different artists. “The Last Time” features Gary Lightbody, the lead singer of Snow Patrol. Also, “Everything Has Changed” features British folk singer Ed Sheeran. Both songs sound like Lightbody and Sheeran’s musical styles rather than Swift’s. “The Last Time” is similar to Snow Patrol’s “Run” with soft vocals and calm instruments. In the meantime, “Everything Has Changed” has sweet harmonies and falsetto vocals, like most of Sheeran’s songs. All in all, Swift might be attempting to get a different sound by collaborating with the musical talents of Lightbody and Sheeran.

“Hey you called me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest/I’m a crumpled up piece of paper laying here/Because I remember it all all all too well,” Swift cries in “All Too Well”. Through these lyrics, Swift captures the pain of heartbreak.

In this song in particular, Swift shows a different side to her music. The song starts out with a bold guitar melody, and she sings her first verse, after which, the beat kicks in quietly as her vocals stay the main focal point of the piece. As the song progresses, the guitar strums louder and her voice becomes a bit vulnerable, which based on the lyrics, was the mood Swift was trying convey.

Much like on her previous albums, there is no shortage of heartache on Red. Some songs talk of gaining confidence and first love, but she frequently jumps from broken relationship to broken relationship throughout the album. This is, until “Begin Again”.

“I’ve been spending the last eight months/Thinking all love ever does/Is break and burn and end/But on a Wednesday/Ina cafe/I watched it begin again,” Swift sings in “Begin Again”. In stark contrast from lyrics on her first album, Taylor Swift, “Our song is the slamming screen door/Sneakin’ out late, tapping on your window/When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow/’Cause it’s late and your mama don’t know,” one can tell that Swift is dropping the country twang in favor of straight-up pop sound.

Being the 16th song on the album, Swift does a good job of wrapping up the album full of anguish by showing listeners that there is still hope for love. Even after everything she has been through, she finds it again, a perfect ending to what Swift would call a perfect “Love Story”.

In the end, Swift may have changed her image and her musical style, but by doing so, Swift has made her music more appealing to a bigger audience. She put herself and her reputation on the line to take a chance at success. Red is not in her country style, but that is exactly why it is a fantastic collection of music. It goes to show how diverse Swift is as a musician, making her talent shine even brighter than before.

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