Taylor Swift, Red

Taylor Swift

Red

Reviewed by Chris Panico

Much like the rest of her career, Taylor Swift’s album Red contains a mixed bag of great songs, middle-of-the-road songs, and bad songs. Unfortunately, the album stepped off on one of the lesser tracks, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. The first single, as well a few other selections off the album, is over the top with its mainstream pop sound, trivial lyrics, and over enunciated singing. Luckily, this isn’t a reflection of the album as a whole. In many cases Taylor Swift has shown an extreme level of new-found maturity, particularly with her lyrics. She has a notorious streak of writing about run-of-the-mill teen romance (and presenting it in a run-of-the-mill teenage way). With Red, she breaks her juvenile habits a bit. “All Too Well” particularly shows a steadier hand with lyrics, incorporating imagistic lines such as, “Here we are again in the middle of the night/ Dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light”. Unfortunately, Red attempts to cater to far too many audiences over the course of its sixteen tracks. The album is a jumble of indie-powerpop-acoustic-country-rock, and even a tiny bit of electronic music (slightly reminiscent of dubstep). Whether the creative choices were Swift’s or her label’s, I don’t know. It does, however, make it hard for the entire album to be appealing all the way through.