MANILA, Philippines - There’s a long history of muses inspiring the greatest of art: Dante found light in Beatrice; Salvador found weirdness in Gala; and Pattie Boyd had George Harrison and Eric Clapton tied up in their guitar strings. But what do you do when you’re a 22-year old wide-eyed, country girl who always ends up with “self-indulgent takers” who take out their problems on you and then forbid you to write a song about a kerfuffle?
Well, naturally, when you’re Taylor Swift, you go write an entire f**king album about how Jake Gyllenhaal broke your heart. Thus, we have “Red,” the fourth album from the biggest country-pop-rock star on this side of the galaxy.
Supreme spent some quality girl power time with Taylor’s newest and biggest album to find out whether it deserves a spot on your music shelf or to be burned forever in the fiery depths of hell.
Squeaky-Clean
Taylor Swift has maintained a squeaky-clean, aw-shucks demeanor throughout the course of her career, a consistent path that rarely happens in pop music. In contrast, by the time Britney Spears came out with her fourth album, she was dancing with nothing but diamonds on her naked body. Meanwhile, Christina Aguilera was slutting it up as she got down and dirty with “Stripped.” If the “Fourth Album = Maturity” path were to be followed, Taylor should have breast implants and p** p*k shorts by now — but no. Swift’s idea of maturity lies in the themes of her songs and the variation of her sonic palette. If "Fearless" was about fairy tale romances and "Speak Now" was a stride towards a more pop sensibility, then "Red" is what happens after the fairy tale is shattered and after the pop side had been fully embraced.
In the two years that she spent writing this album, Taylor traded her sparkly dresses for sartorial choices, dumped the werewolf for the Prince of Persia, and shifted from the shimmer to Instagram filters. In the wheen-fectious first single We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Swift maneuvers through the murky waters of pure pop to great effect. A Nashville artist releasing a thumping, Max Martin-produced pop anthem with very little fiddle? That’s so not Country Strong. But Taylor throws a homerun to her girl pals and scores a win on the charts. Why? Because country is all about storytelling and emotions, you dummy. So no matter how Ke$ha-esque the party song 22 is, every song on "Red" is still very much on the country side due to the delivery of Taylor’s experiences that are incorporated within her songs.
To say that this is Taylor Swift’s poppiest album is an understatement. "Red" goes boldly where no country lass has gone before. Meaning: Dubstep. I Knew You Were Trouble, an obvious riff on John Mayer’s machismo (as if Dear John wasn’t painful enough), breaks down into baffling Skrillex-esque chorus filled with awkward Ahhs; this certainly is not this album’s finest moment. As if dubstep wasn’t enough, the track Starlight, with its cheesy laser pew-pew samples and ABBA affectations would make you squirm. Add the fact that Taylor basically wrote this disco-friendly tune for her 84-year-old BFF, Ethel Kennedy, and you’ve got this album’s biggest head scratch.
It’s obvious that Swift needs to push her imagination further when working on songs that utilize other perspectives. The Lucky One, a cautionary tale about pop stardom suffers from Taylor’s often boxed thinking about situations that happen outside her own experiences. Unlike Fifteen from the album “Fearless," which tackles similar themes about girly loneliness and bouts of confusion, The Lucky One feels like an unlucky exercise in third-person narrative.
“Red’s” brilliance lies in the ballads and painful ruminations about romance. Nine out of 16 songs are about Jake Gyllenhaal, so sucker up and prepare those tissue boxes if you happen to stumble upon a song about him. In the album opener State of Grace, Taylor goes full-on Bono as the song crescendos into a sweeping declaration that “love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right.” The title track “Red” starts off with a very familiar banjo until it erupts into an “Oh, Jake!” moment that proves that love can end just as strong as it began (Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met / but loving him was red). Tracks like Treacherous and Sad Beautiful Tragic can be considered as Swift staples, because you can never really have a Taylor Swift album without at least two down-tempo songs about how sad breaking up is. Boo-hoo.
Glittery fangs
As a novel gesture, Taylor swipes Ed Sheeran and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody to suck the talent out of them with her glittery fangs. Also: it’s much more dramatic when you include the imagery of a guy breaking down in the same intensity as you. The Butch Walker-produced The Last Time (with Lightbody) is the better of the two duets in Red simply because of the killer orchestration that swoops you into a lake of sadness and heartbreak.
Perhaps All Too Well is the crown jewel of “Red.” The six-minute opus takes the listeners through Taylor reminiscing on their walks in the park with Maple Lattes in tow (You tell me about your past thinking that your future is me), dancing in the kitchen lit by the fridge, down to the moment when he tore that masterpiece all up (You called me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest). This track alone, laid down with a heart-wrenching hook that an awkward blonde girl could muster, is solid proof that "Red," in all its man-shaming, female empowerment glory, is the best Taylor Swift album out there.
And as the “rain falls on the grassy knoll” of Taylor Swift’s heart with her recent break-up with a Kennedy, we know that this time next year there will be more songs about love, and tears, and hopefully something sexier-than -red lipstick.
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Tweet the author @junellhernando.