#393 Taylor Swift, '1989' (2014)

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This entry is going to be incredibly polarising. Nothing invokes passion in people like Taylor Swift, regardless of which side of the fence you sit. I’ll preface this by saying that pop music is massively important to the ecosystem and economy of music. Simply put, thanks to artists like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran etc., labels, publishers, touring companies and the like are able to release music/tour artists with less commercial appeal. I’m not saying that without them the others wouldn’t exist, but they help.

Now to the album. ‘1989’ is one of the biggest albums of our time and for it to not be included on this list would be a huge oversight. The album delivered 7 singles, including the monumental ‘Shake It Off,’ ‘Blank Space’ and ‘Bad Blood.’ It on the Grammys for Album Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal album and has sold in excess of 10 million copies worldwide. It featured contributions by hitmaker, Max Martin, as well as rising star, Jack Antonoff (remember him from the Lorde record?).

This is an iconic album. One of the biggest of our times. So did I like it? To be honest, other than the hits, the rest of the album kinda sounded samey to me. Some of my favourite albums are samey. 

Some of my favourite albums have thematic melodies throughout the record but this samey-ness and that samey-ness are a bit different. I got a bit bored with this. Not bored enough to want to turn it off, but bored enough to have no real desire to listen again. If the album had to come on randomly, would I turn it off? Probably not, but I wouldn’t put it on again of my own volition. Swiftie test result: negative.

#rs500albums