[Achilles.]

Originally posted by American Songwriter

When Big Machine released the Max Martin-produced lead single from Red, “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” a big topic of conversation was how decidedly un-country the track was. Around that time, Big Machine label head Scott Borchetta did an interview with NPR’s Marketplace and gave the quote heard round the world: “Our entire goal is to make something that moves you … if you don’t want to call it country, I don’t care.”

To put it a little less bluntly, debating genre boundaries doesn’t feel terribly relevant to what Taylor Swift’s up to on her fourth studio album. She has a huge, young audience, and she’s thinking just as iPod shuffle-fluidly about music as they do.

This year, pop made by and for the below-thirty set has been dominated by two seemingly irreconcilable musical languages: the all-acoustic, warm-hearted string band impulse (as exemplified by Mumford & Sons) and the string-less, rave-friendly electronic dance impulse (as exemplified by Skrillex). Leave it to Swift to prove that a savvy performer of a tender age can be fluent in both. On Red, she breezes from finger-picked guitar to four-on-the-floor grooves; from strummed ukulele to wub wub wub bass drops.

The minute the record label started previewing tracks from Swift’s new album, people began trying to decode the lyrics to figure out which of her songs were inspired by which of her exes. That’s a sign of an engaged audience—and lots of tabloid attention—but it’s also beside the point. What’s most important to these songs isn’t their particular objects of affection, but the feelings themselves. She spells this out in her liner note letter: “…[T]here is something to be said for being young and needing someone so badly, you jump in head first without looking.”

Swift has gotten phenomenally good at capturing those moments in tangible detail, as she does during the gradually swelling “Treacherous,” the rock guitar-propelled “All Too Well” and the whimsical “Stay Stay Stay.” The title track—which splits the difference between big country-pop and propulsive, anthemic dance music, an experiment that largely pays off—is made of more sensory, synesthesia-style poetry.

Back when “We Are Never Getting Back Together” was out there on its own without the album, the song brought to mind HBO’s Girls—Lena Dunham’s show about early twenty-somethings—suggesting the way that the characters get caught up in spirals of obsession. But in the more nuanced context of the 16 songs collected on Red, it comes off as funny, even bitingly self-aware.

In addition to that first single’s jab at indie rock elitism, there’s more hipster-baiting to be found in “22.” The most striking thing about the latter song is the way Swift manages to simultaneously celebrate feeling her age—“happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way”—and implicitly acknowledge the limitations of her perspective; it’s true to now, though it will probably change. She deserves loads of credit for pulling all of that off in under four minutes.

Still, the way Swift expresses herself tends toward one-sidedness. Whether she’s cutting a callous heartbreaker down to size, or savoring how sweet, goofy and gentlemanly a guy is acting, there’s not much mutuality to the storytelling. And maybe that will come with time. There are plenty of songwriters twice her age who have yet to get there, but her gifts have always grown well ahead of the curve.

Red isn’t just a dramatic color—it’s one that carries ceremonial significance. Red the album makes official that Swift is the leading pop romantic of her generation. If you’re at a different stage of life than she is, it can be exhausting trying to keep up with the succession of emotions to which she deftly gives voice, but also downright exhilarating. 80/100

Pretty sure they count for metacritic.

[Gossip_Boy]

Originally posted by JakeKills

Pretty sure they count for metacritic.

Yes it counts for Metacritic.

Good review.

[thediscomonkey]

So the score is still possible to increase then? Lots of 80 reviews lately.

[muddysquirrel]

Spin. I remember reading some trashing piece from them at the start of the era and i was expecting a lot worse. That is really amazing!

[Tainted Blood]

So the score can possibly rise?

[Loghen]

Originally posted by Tainted Blood

So the score can possibly rise?

I was going to say I was glad it didn't decrease and stayed in 76 so far but this is great.

[dragon]

It’s not often that an album comes along which conjures associations with both Emmylou Harris and Ke$ha. But then there aren’t many pop stars like Taylor Swift. In recent memory only Shania Twain compares as a country artist made globe-straddling behemoth, and that was a decade ago. For all Katy Perry and Lady Gaga's talk of weirdness and freaks, it’s Swift who really stands out as an oddity in the current pop scene.

This makes it all the more remarkable that, as things currently stand, she is arguably the biggest pop star on the planet. In the six years since her debut she has become a bona fide phenomenon, selling millions and snatching up awards with seemingly effortlessness ease. Yet behind her country girl-done-good persona lies an undeniably steely ambition – one that has seen her music move quickly beyond the traditional boundaries of country. 2010’s Speak Now found her perfecting her persuasive country-pop while stretching her range into blues-tinged rock (Dear John) and bratty emo anthems (The Story of Us, Better Than Revenge). As an idealised version of her previous work, its success seemed almost like a creative cul-de-sac which invited either reinvention or more of the same.

It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that fourth album Red finds her doing a bit of both. The headline-grabbing collaboration with Max Martin and Shellback, best known for their work with Britney Spears, Pink and Kelly Clarkson, attests to a desire to fully conquer the pop landscape outside America. More familiar Swift tropes are present in the equally tabloid-friendly takedowns of famous exes, with Jake Gyllenhaal filling the role (target?) previously taken by Taylor Lautner, Joe Jonas and John Meyer. However the album initially sidesteps all of this with the surprising opener State Of Grace, an expansive anthem with strong echoes of U2. It sounds unlike anything Swift has previously recorded and is an accomplished statement of intent. Title track Red is more traditional but no less confident, bolting infectious vocal effects to the kind of driving melody which Swift excels at.

This bold opening falters somewhat with the arrival of the trio of Max Martin/Shellback songs. 22 proves the least successful of the three, with Swift’s voice sounding like a caricature of itself in an apparent effort to inject some identity into a fairly anonymous banger which you can’t help but feel Ke$ha would have more fun with. Indeed, it’s noticeable that these three collaborations are bookended by songs which could have been lifted straight from Speak Now, suggesting a hedging of bets. This sees the euphoric pleasure of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together followed by the slight Stay, Stay, Stay, a country song which has the proverbial kitchen sink thrown at it in terms of Swift idioms. All Too Well, however, proves an outstanding career highlight. Ostensibly one of the songs about Gyllenhaal, its transformation of a break-up’s minutiae into urgent and universal melodrama is a textbook lesson in both Swift’s skill as a songwriter and her appeal to legions of adolescents.

The album’s disjointedness continues into the largely self-penned second half. Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody pops up on The Last Time, recalling his sublime Put The Fire To The Third Bar (with Martha Wainwright) but making Swift sound like a guest on her own album. A duet with Ed Sheeran (Everything Has Changed) proves more of a match but it’s on her own where Swift really shines. Starlight shows that Swift can do brilliant pop all by herself while the closing Begin Again compellingly reveals the end of a relationship within the narrative of a first date.

Swift’s American fans have a noted knack of sending each of her album tracks soaring into the Billboard chart, which perhaps explains why this album is overlong and lacks flow. Taken individually, most of the songs are accomplished and engaging (though we could certainly have done without the dreary Sad Beautiful Tragic) but Speak Now was such a coherent work that Red can’t help but feel modestly disappointing. Nonetheless, it shows an artist who continues to gain in confidence and ability and excitingly suggests that Taylor Swift’s best work is yet to come. In the meantime, this is just fine.

70/100

http://www.musicomh.com/albums/taylor-swift-2_1012.htm

Counted by Metacritic. Now it's 19 critics total and still 76.

[Icannot]

Swift’s American fans have a noted knack of sending each of her album tracks soaring into the Billboard chart, which perhaps explains why this album is overlong and lacks flow. Taken individually, most of the songs are accomplished and engaging (though we could certainly have done without the dreary Sad Beautiful Tragic) but Speak Now was such a coherent work that Red can’t help but feel modestly disappointing. Nonetheless, it shows an artist who continues to gain in confidence and ability and excitingly suggests that Taylor Swift’s best work is yet to come. In the meantime, this is just fine.

Yet again.

[thediscomonkey]

New ones:

Track-by-Track review

Song Reviews for Taylor Swift's "Red"

So here are some specific thoughts on the songs of Taylor Swift’s album Red. This is meant to be an addendum to the more broad album review posted, so please read that first or in addition to this for the context of these reviews. I reserve the right to write more in-depth song reviews of any of these songs, especially if/when they are released as singles, but these are some general thoughts.

As a general thought on the songs overall, I thought there were too many of them. If you are going to release an album of 16 tracks (and there’s even more bonus tracks), they need to be solid. Instead, Red has some fat, diminishing attention from the stronger tracks. The 3 songs produced by the super pop duo of Max Martin and Shellback (“22″, “I Knew You Were Trouble”, and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”) could have been eliminated all together, and this in itself could have elevated Red dramatically.

And yes, for those too lazy to navigate over to the main review, it goes without saying that none of this is “country.”

1. 1. State of Grace
   Excellent beginning track, well picked and placed. As I said in my broader review of Red, the album’s best asset is its ability to set mood, and this song is an excellent example of that, and does an excellent job setting the mood for the entire album. “State of Grace”, along with the song “Sad Beautiful Tragic” later on are the best pieces of evidence that Taylor Swift is not your standard pop fare. You would never hear anything like this from Katy Perry. Parts of the song are downright chordy (musician’s jargon for chord changes that aren’t intuitive).
   Two guns up.
   
   
2. Red
   For a pop song, “Red” regales the listener with tremendous depth of composition. The structure of the song gives Taylor’s verses freedom from rhyme so she can pick the most potent words instead of worrying with pentameter. At times the lines of the verses are too long for the music, meaning Taylor must start singing early. But instead of sounding like a mistake, the uniqueness of this structure draws you in, makes you pay closer attention to the lyrics. There’s a guitar solo folks! And it it’s not half bad. Not technically impressive, but tasteful and appropriate to the mood, which leads you into a half-timed chorus which is where if this song hasn’t reeled you in yet, hook pierces flesh.
   
   The vocal/electronico “la da da da” parts in the chorus are a little too obvious, but do their job of making this song catchy throughout. Lyrically “Red” is more mature than the pre-schoolish “ok class let’s match colors with moods” theme that presents itself on the surface. That is the base, but from there the song evolves to be about the biting pain of wanted love not allowed to progress to its fruition. For the first time from Swift, there’s a sexual dynamic to a song, however mild and veiled.
   
   The goal of any songwriter is to make you feel the same emotions they were when they were in the throes of the inspiration of the song, and this is what Taylor does in “Red.”
   Two guns up.
   
   
3. Treacherous
   This is probably the song on Red that I’m most interested in hearing the back story on or an explanation for, though we’ll probably never get it, or at least never get it in an honest form. It’s a fairly sexual song, or at least as sexual as Taylor Swift is willing to get to this point. Your imagination can run wild with “Treacherous”, and that’s what makes it work. The drug-like shot of endorphins the body emits when it knows it is about to do something either wrong or dangerous is where this song dwells, and Swift puts you right back there in that experience we’ve all felt at one point. Once again, her ability to conjure up mood is a strong suit.
   Two guns up.
   
   
4. I Knew You Were Trouble
   This is the worst song Taylor Swift has ever released in her career, and unlike some of her early songs that reeked of immaturity (because she was young at the time she wrote them), this one has no excuse. Taylor Swift knows better now, and she still did it. Just like with the 2nd worse track on this album, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” that she says she wrote it to be purposefully annoying, Taylor Swift may try to play off this track (and the other ultra pop tracks on the album) as irony, but don’t buy it. This is an obvious attempt and pop and R&B radio play.
   
   The greatest sin of this song is Taylor is not being herself. We all know Taylor isn’t a party girl. She’s gone out of her way to make that point about herself many times. If she wanted to do a song just for fun, like say “Stay, Stay, Stay” or even possibly “Starlight” it would be one thing. But we know Taylor Swift and she’s not some club jumper. This song is out of her element, and honestly, embarrassing. And unfortunately, this is one of these tracks where the awfulness bleeds over to the other tracks, diminishing them and the whole Red project by proxy. This song might make her lots of money, but in the long run it will be an albatross around her neck, weighing down her attempts to appeal to both commercial viability and substance, and certainly will be a huge turnoff to the traditional, and even moderate country crowd.
   
   This is club music parody that will even piss off the club music crowd. It feels like her answer to country rap.
   Two guns way down.
   
   
5. All Too Well
   Swift teams back up with co-writer Liz Rose–the woman who co-wrote many of Swift’s early hits from her first two albums–for the longest song on Red, and one I can’t find much fault in, but one I just couldn’t get in to. We’ll see if this song grows on you, but for the moment it’s pretty nondescript. I do like how Swift’s story builds out from a scarf still kept by an ex-lover.
   1 1/4 of 2 guns up.
   
   
6. 22
   Of the Max Martin/Shellback-produced songs, this is probably the one that is most palatable, and the one that probably started out as something much better in raw song form than the dance club Frankenstein it turned into. Swift has gone out of her way to say that she is not a party girl. I’m sure we’ll get an explanation about how this song is supposed to be ironic at some point, but I’m getting tired of that being the stock excuse every time an artist that wants to be known for substance releases a cash cow song.
   
   I may catch hell for saying this, but I think this song has a little something. What does it have? I don’t know because I can’t quite put my finger on it through the awful production. But I think Taylor might be trying to speak about the shallowness of the young 20′s party life we’re all sold as being so glamorous through popular culture. But instead, Martin/Shellback make “22″ a purveyor of it.
   1 1/2 of 2 guns down.
   
   
7. I Almost Do
   A good song, though probably a filler track on the album. Not from a sonic standpoint, but from a songwriting standpoint, this is one of the more “country” songs on Red in the way it works out from a lyrical hook. The problem is the “I Almost Do” hook really doesn’t bite like it needs to to make the song memorable on an album the contains such wild mood swings and contrast, and the music isn’t much help. But there’s nothing wrong with “I Almost Do”, and Taylor does a good job communicating that unsettled frame of mind when you’re not quite over a lover, but you’re beyond the point of knowing it will never work.
   1 1/4 of 2 guns up.
   
   
8. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
   The 2nd-worse song of the Shellback/Max Martin-produced tracks, and probably the 2nd-worse song Taylor has released in her career. Don’t buy into the idea that this song is bad to be ironic, it’s just bad. And releasing it as the lead single was another unfortunate miscue.
   
   “We Are Never Getting Back Together” is as saccharine as any Taylor Swift selection, and rivals any of her songs for being the most pop. From an artist that has shied away from voice enhancements and digital treatments, there’s something automated going on here, though I’m not confident enough to level the charge of Auto-tune. “We Are Never…” is ultra-catchy, I mean I was humming this dumb thing hours after Taylor’s fluffy presser had gone off air; so catchy that any type of redeeming creative content in the song is rendered benign.”
   1 1/2 of 2 guns down.
   
   
9. Stay Stay Stay
   See now, if this was Red‘s fun foray into the pop world, what a completely different feel the whole project would have had. This is a silly song, but that’s okay. Taylor is 22-years-old and doesn’t want her music to be all doom and gloom. This is the first of two songs (Starlight being the 2nd) that I hear a lot of 80′s pop influence in. I was under the impression that the ship had sailed on the whole 80′s resurgence, but either apparently I am wrong, or apparently Taylor is keeping it alive. Some people will complain that there’s nothing country about it, and that goes without saying. The bass guitar and song structure are fun.
   
   It’s harmless.
   1 1/4 of 2 guns up.
   
   
10. The Last Time
    There is a long-standing tradition of duets in country music, and I think it is very telling that for both the duets on Red, Taylor reached out to the rock world, and to the British Isles; about as far away as you can get from country without being obvious. This may be just as solid as a piece of evidence that Swift’s heart is truly not into country as anything. This is what she listens to, Snow Patrol and other bands like them, not the contributions from country, or the greater American roots world. Nothing against Gary Lightbody, or even this song. It’s a solid contribution to Red, and a great duet. Lightbody is tasteful in the way he comes in and compliments Swift’s style and her ability to set mood instead of trying to make his own mark. It may be a little bit too emotional and moody, but it’s one of the better tracks on the album.
    
    It’s also fair to point out that Swift has a pretty good track record when touring to pick openers from the 3rd, or even 4th tiers of musical acts on their way up the ranks, instead of trying to find acts just below her that may bolster the ticket. I think that came into play with her duet pairings as well. A duet with Jason Aldean, or Big Machine’s new toy Tim McGraw may have garnered more American interest in this track. But instead she went with a dark horse, though it may be one that will help her open up new commercial avenues in the European market.
    1 1/2 of 2 guns up.
    
    
11. Holy Ground
    This is a pretty innocuous track with an obvious background vocal track meant to make the song catchy, but instead it just comes across as rehashed from another popular songs whose name is on the tip of your tongue. Another filler track that could have been left off, but certainly not as evil as some of Red‘s other offerings.
    One gun up, one gun down.
    
    
12. Sad Beautiful Tragic
    Possibly the best song on the album, and possibly the best song ever by Taylor Swift.
    Two guns up!
    
    
13. The Lucky One
    Songs on the emptiness of the celebrity lifestyle like this have been done so many times before, but this is not a bad version of it, and a song outside of the regular Swift grooves of writing about love.
    1 1/4 of 2 guns up.
    
    
14. Everything Has Changed
    A mild track that relies too much on catchy phrasing in the chorus and doesn’t really do the duet concept justice. Near the end Taylor is forced to go way above her comfortable singing register, and even though she pulls it off, it feels strained. With some exceptions, Taylor does a good job on Red–a better job than she did on Speak Now–of staying in her vocal comfort zone and not exposing her vocal weaknesses through composition. How many stories have you read recently about Taylor singing out-of-tune? This is a demon she’s mostly slayed, but with this song, she gives a slight reminder of her vocal limitations.
    One gun up, one gun down.
    
    
15. Starlight
    Not as evil as the Shellback/Max Martin tracks on Red, but a close runner-up that is only saved by some of the retro elements and creative layering Swift and long-time producer Nathan Chapman cram into this confusing song that seems part dance club soundtrack, and part Pat Benatar 80′s revival routine (especially the way Swift inflects the way she says “moooved”). There seems to be a love story here, but the music sort of distracts you from it. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to just feel the groove and start dancing, or pay close attention to the words. It stars off sounding like pacifier-sucking glitter club music, until Taylor’s acoustic guitar comes in and she starts singing about the summer of ’45. Then you feel like you’re transported to a discotek circa 1984 blasting power pop. Did I hear a little Rush “Tom Sawyer” synth too?
    
    I don’t know, it sure is catchy. I’m not sure if this is another instance of music producers run amuck, or if Taylor and the producers were as confused as the song sounds like they were to find a clear direction for her demo track. Just as the 2nd song on an album is almost always reserved for what the label believes to be the album’s best song, the next-to-last is usually reserved for the weakest, and that’s probably where “Starlight” belongs.
    1 1/2 of 2 guns down.
    
    
16. Begin Again
    “Though on the surface this song is positive and about renewed love, Taylor Swift still gets her characteristic jabs in at old flames: “He didn’t like it when I wore high heels, but I do.” “He always said he didn’t get this song, but I do.” “I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny cause he never did.” But overall, it portrays the seldom seen, other side of Taylor Swift in a sweet little song that works, but probably isn’t a world beater or a mega hit waiting in the weeds.
    
    “Many are wanting to tout how country “Begin Again” is. But let’s be honest, it’s only country when compared to Taylor Swift’s other works. On that sliding scale yes, with some steel guitar and mandolin (though fairly down in the mix and dilluted with strings) this is the Johnny Paycheck of Taylor Swift’s lexicon. But in the grand scheme of things, it is still solidly pop country.”
    1 1/4 of 2 guns up.

SOURCE

Album Review

Album Review - Taylor Swift's Red


The first thing that needs to be pointed out is the same exact thing I started the review of Taylor Swift’s Speak Now with, that Red is not country. In fact to save some time, I’ll just cut and paste the same verbiage from that review, because it is just as relevant here, if not more.

I have individual thoughts on each song of the album, but these are the the biggest, broadest points I want to make about Red:

In this album, Taylor takes another step toward maturity. She takes another step towards more in-depth composition and songwriting. She evokes a remarkable sense of mood in her music, and an uncanny ability to lift you out of your perspective and deliver you to an empathetic place where you feel the very emotions that were the impetus of her songs.

And as Taylor Swift stands right at the precipice of delivering of what could be one of the greatest popular music albums of our generation, rivaling some of the great legacy projects from females dating back to the 70′s, she all of a sudden, out of the blue, delivers some of the most ********, idiotic, overt, and reprehensible panderings to pop radio the likes of which I have never seen before from any artist that in any way could be construed as “country.”

Red is really the tale of two albums: A gorgeous evocation of human emotions set to enchanting music and delivered in elevated modes, and awful pop **** that leaves you almost embarrassed for Taylor from the sheer obviousness of the ploy.

To Taylor’s credit, it is the good stuff that makes up the majority of this album. But that’s also one of the frustrating things about Red, that it is right there, that this was such an opportunity for Taylor Swift to lead popular music in a positive direction. And because of fear, she blew it.

There is no bigger artist in all of the music the world right now than Taylor Swift. She must lead, and with Red she does, until she starts listening to others, and lets the fear of being rejected creep into her psyche and fool her into thinking she needs the safety of moronic pop singles to help sell her more heady material. Instead of listening to herself, she listens to others, attempts to mimic what they do instead of giving audience to her own internal inspirations and dialogue.

As an example I give you the first four songs of Red. “State of Grace”, “Red”, and “Treacherous” start where the stellar tracks of Speak Now like “Dear John” and “Enchanted” leave off, setting you on a journey that crosses both visceral and carnal boundaries, wholesale selling you on the mood that Taylor Swift wants to convey. Forget songwriting or chatter on genre styles for a moment, Taylor simply is able to evoke mood like few other artists in our generation can or have. By the end of “Treacherous”, I’m sold. I’ve totally bought into Taylor Swift and her music. Imagine your dirty, filthy Triggerman flying through the air, propelled on ivory wings by the power of Taylor Swift’s enchanting pop music in blind musical ecstasy…

…and then comes the absolutely vomitous, dubstep-inspired “I Knew You Were Trouble” and its blatant submissive posture to the powers who control pop radio, and it’s like slamming into the side of a building, or falling face down on the floor. Boom! Fantasy over. And you wake up once again to the reality that no matter how much you like Taylor Swift as a person, no matter how much you squint and tell yourself she is “the one” to elevate the popular music world, she is just another pop star.

Or is she? Because if you took away the four forays into the radio-pandering world that tarnish Red, and maybe even nixed one or two of the weaker tracks, what you’re left with is some of the most elevated and inspiring pop music we’ve heard in quite some time. Taylor Swift is right there. She climbs 9 rungs up the 10 run ladder, and then gets scared of heights. And though Red as an album leaves you saying “if only…,” it’s because it communicates such promise, in Taylor Swift, and the always-fleeting idea that pop music can actually be good, or get better.

Now excuse me for a moment as I leave all regularly-accepted music reviewer protocols and ethics behind, and just get this one little thing off my chest.

So the Swedish producers Max Martin and “Shellback,” the two guys responsible for producing the three most ridiculous songs on the album, those being “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22″, and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”? Those guys? Yeah. **** them.

What the **** are they doing on this album, and what the **** are they doing screwing with Taylor Swift’s cute little pop songs? How dare they take someone’s creative expression, and turn it into passionless drivel to sell to the spoon fed masses? These dudes are worse than Scott Borchetta. They are like belligerent warriors of music homogenization and creative reduction, out there actively looking for good music to **** up so they can make more money.


Max Martin and his frosted tips are responsible for such awful pop acts as N’Sync and the Backstreet Boys.

Max Martin and Shellback should be the first ones with their backs against the wall when the music revolution hits. They think that you are so stupid as consumers that you won’t listen to Red and hear the blatant discrepancy between their songs and the others, or see their fingerprints all over the crime scene that is the murdering the souls of these 3 Taylor Swift tracks.

In the end, yes, Taylor Swift is responsible. She’s gone out of her way to represent herself as the one writing and helping to produce all of her music and calling the shots. But Max Martin and Shellback are like a music Cancer, and should be cut out, radiated, and never spoken of again. What an absolute abomination their “contribution” to this album is.

I don’t want anything touched by Max Martin or Shellback to ever be heard by my ears again, to ever come in to the four walls of my home, or infect any of my friends, relatives, or neighbors. Max Martin and Shellback not only need to go back to Sweden, they the to take their N’Sync, Backstreet Boys ******** and get the **** off this planet.

So do yourself a favor. Take your copy of Red, and erase the 3 Max Martin/Shelldrake tracks from it. It’s okay, I promise, I’m giving you permission to do so. Just delete them out of your iTunes or wherever you keep your music. Or if you have a physical copy, take a magic marker and just scribble them out with maybe an asterisk beside them and a little warning: “Produced by the Cancers of Max Martin & Shellback. Do not listen.”

And if you do this, what you are left with is a great pop album with some amazing musical moments that really touch you. A lot of folks will laugh this album and Taylor Swift off as a matter of habit. And you know what? The joke is on them. If you’re a true fan of music, you don’t care what anybody else thinks, and you don’t care where it comes from. If it’s good and it’s real, then that’s all that matters, because there’s so much out there that isn’t, thanks to folks like Max Martin, Shellback, and others.

We can only guess at what “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22″, and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” would have been if some intrusive production team hadn’t done their worst with them, but they are part of this album. That ship has sailed, and they will forever sully what otherwise is an elevated piece of work.

While reactionary Taylor Swift critics can’t seem to pull their focus from the fact that “all she does is write songs about lovers” when this observation pretty much covers nearly every pop star in history, or they go back and harp on the immaturity of her songs like “You Belong With Me” that was released now almost 4 years ago, Taylor Swift has elevated her game to where her musical peers are no longer the Brittney Spears’ and Katy Perry’s of the world, but the great female pop performers of modern music, like Carly Simon, Carole King, and Sarah McLachlan. There is deep substance to this music.

Taylor has handed over her critics four new pieces of indispensable ammo on this album, at the same time announcing her presence as one of the premier popular female songwriters of the modern musical era. And so she is destined to remain an enigma in popular culture. Everyone got what they wanted from Red: critics, apologists, radio, and fans alike. And so we’ll see how time judges Red, but it would be wrong to not recognize that the good on this album outweighs the bad.


As a country album: 2 guns down

As a pop album: 1 3/4 of 2 guns up



SOURCE

Praise Jesus for the Max Martin drags. I live. I love every single word of it.

[UpAllNight]

Originally posted by thediscomonkey

New ones:

Track-by-Track review



Album Review



Praise Jesus for the Max Martin drags. I live. I love every single word of it.

I love how he just explains everything.

[Gossip_Boy]

20 reviews and the score is now 77/100.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift

[atishvaze]

Originally posted by Gossip_Boy

20 reviews and the score is now 77/100.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift

Yass!!!!

[atishvaze]

Review by All Music Guide (Counted on Metacritic)

Alone among her peers, Taylor Swift appears genuine. Which isn't to say she's without affectation or that she avoids artifice. She uses both when it suits her, as any real pop star would -- and if her 2012 album Red intends to do anything, it's to prove Taylor is a genuine superstar, the kind who transcends genre, the kind who can be referred to by a single name. Uneven as it is -- and it is, running just a shade too long as it sprints along in its quest to be everything to everyone -- Red accomplishes this goal with ease, establishing Taylor Swift as perhaps the only genuine cross-platform superstar of her time. Naturally, in order to accomplish this transition from country ingénue to pop star, Swift takes her country bona fides for granted, ignoring Nashville conventions as she rushes to collaborate with Britney Spears hitmaker Max Martin and Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody. Red isn't sequenced like a proper album, it's a buffet, offering every kind of sound or identity a Swift fan could possibly want. Taylor deftly shifts styles, adapting well to the insistent pulse of Martin, easing into a shimmering melancholy reminiscent of Mazzy Star ("Sad Beautiful Tragic") and coolly riding a chilly new wave pulse ("The Lucky One"). Combined with the unabashed arena rock fanfare of "State of Grace" and the dance-pop of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and the dubstep feint "I Knew You Were Trouble" -- not to mention the ludicrous club-filler "22" -- Red barely winks at country, and it's a better album for it. It is, as all pop albums should be, recognizable primarily as the work of Taylor Swift alone: her girlish persona is at its center, allowing her to try on the latest fashions while always sounding like herself. Although she can still seem a little gangly in her lyrical details -- her relationship songs are too on the nose and she has an odd obsession about her perceived persecution by the cool kids -- these details hardly undermine the pristine pop confections surrounding them. If anything, these ungainly, awkward phrasings humanizes this mammoth pop monolith: she’s constructed something so precise its success seems preordained, but underneath it all, Taylor is still twitchy, which makes Red not just catchy but compelling.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/red-mw0002414735

80/100

[muddysquirrel]

Originally posted by Gossip_Boy

20 reviews and the score is now 77/100.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift

Coming for 'Speak Now'.

[thediscomonkey]

OP updated. It goes up (even tho just one point).

[castle13]

Originally posted by Gossip_Boy

20 reviews and the score is now 77/100.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift

yes!

[jose168]

[Hunter_13]

Originally posted by Gossip_Boy

20 reviews and the score is now 77/100.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift

I've missed so much

I'm glad it went up, even if by a point.

[Albany Guest]

Its strange that the critic ranting went up, but the user reviews are not that hot, unless there is some issue with the aggregation.

[Gossip_Boy]

PopMatters Review:

You can make a strong case that the secret to Taylor Swift’s unparalleled success has come from her ability to control her musical identity as well as any other in-their-prime artist. Focusing on developing her craft ever since she hit the scene in her teens, Swift has always possessed the skills and an ethic that belie her age, coming off like an old hand in her music even when her subject matter was young adult. So instead of worrying about keeping up with her peer group, Swift seemed like she kept her eyes on the prize for the long run, rather than simply cashing out for short-term gain. In the end, she’s gotten her cake and eaten it too, since not only has Swift been able to build her reputation as an honest-to-goodness songwriter to the broadest audience possible, but she’s also leapfrogged the Hannah Montanas of the world in notoriety and trendsetting.

As a result, the shrewd choices she’s made in prioritizing her music and generally doing the right things the right way have made her a sympathetic and admired public figure, her real-life popularity lending credibility to the heroines of her songs, even when they’ve been wronged no more than they’ve done the wronging. After all, Swift’s no less snarky than the petty girls she dings when she gets the last word in on “Mean”, nor is she just the aggrieved party on “You Belong to Me”, which is as much about getting the dreamy boy as it is about one-upping the cooler girl. And as for all the guys she disses and dishes on, it’s definitely easier to side with Swift, even though you have to keep in mind her little black book is probably just as big as the lotharios she’s shaming. By defining herself as an artist first and foremost, Swift has been able to shape and manage her image as well as anyone in such a glaring spotlight has, cast—whether by herself or everyone else—as America’s sweetheart even as she airs her dirty laundry in more public a way than most.

On her fourth album Red, however, Swift encounters something she has yet to in her career, going through, at least musically speaking, the growing pains you’d thought she’d gotten past because she never seemed to have them in the first place. More varied in its offerings, but also more disjointed than her previous work, Red sounds like a transitional album for Swift, her musical profile in the process of undergoing a makeover rather than coming off as the finished product it usually does. Releasing the teenybopper insta-hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” as the lead single signaled that change in an all-too-blatant way, as drastic a departure from her familiar country-ish stylings as she could possibly have made. While ears have probably grown accustomed to the head-scratching first impression “Never Ever” made when it first flooded the airwaves a few months ago, the collaboration with Swedish hitmaker Max Martin still seems like a puzzling move, its mass-produced tech-pop pandering to a tween audience that Swift had already conquered on her own terms. Even more perplexing than “Never Ever” is what Swift describes as her foray into dubstep on another Martin production “I Knew You Were Trouble”, a trainwreck of styles with her strummy guitar layered on top of too-brash synths and overly crisp rhythms that may or may not approximate dubstep. The real upshot of both pieces is that it feels like Swift is chasing after what’s trending rather than following her own intuition and setting the pace for the first time in her career.

The thing is, the actual, more convincing transition that Swift makes on Red is much less brazen and over-the-top, as she attempts to reinvent her country-pop as beefed-up modern rock. Indeed, the shift in the inflection of her sound is something you can’t help to notice right at the top of the album with the opener “State of Grace”, a muscular arena-pop number that chugs along to gleaming guitars that split the difference between Swift’s earlier anthems and radio-friendly alt-rock, and the title track, as its banjo picking works up to some power riffs. “All Too Well” is an even better example of how Swift has amped things up, combining the kind of drama that has come natural to her songwriting with a widescreen guitar-driven approach. And if there’s any doubt that Swift was trying to horn in on Coldplay territory, consider “The Last Time”, not simply because it’s co-written with Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, but more because it’s a brooding romance that’s shrouded in atmospheric feedback and moody emoting.

But even with all the changes in her musical outlook, Swift’s innate strengths as a songwriter still ring true in the way her storytelling uses fine-grained touches to make her individual experiences feel universal—if anything, that ability is all the more striking when compared to the clichéd vocals that are par for the course for mainstreamed alt-esque rock. For instance, the anthemic scale of “All Too Well” doesn’t overwhelm or obscure Swift’s eagle-eye for poignant scenes and vivid images, like the way the cold air of an empty house, a lost scarf buried in a drawer, and stolen glances at a traffic light tell the tale here. On the regret-tinged L.A. story of “The Lucky One”, she gives you an idea of what Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino would be like if she paid more attention to detail both musically and lyrically, as Swift meditates on how fleeting fame is and lets you envision it in her own shoes: “And they tell you that you’re lucky but you’re so confused / Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used / And all the young things line up to take your place.” And while the breakneck ditty “Holy Ground” works just fine as a peppy three-minute pop-rock song, Swift has a knack of giving you a mental picture that makes the feelings her music evokes come through even more strongly, as she blissfully sings, “Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress, we had this big wide city all to ourselves.” While her contemporaries are willing to settle for more generic love song lines, what sets Swift apart is her version of the story, at its best, builds a narrative and fills in the specifics.

At 16 songs long, Red could use more editing and streamlining with a less-is-more mindset as a guiding principle, particularly since the quieter numbers—which also happen to be some of the album’s strongest moments—get lost in the sound and fury of Swift’s grand gestures. So while the whispered melody of “Sad Beautiful Tragic” lives up to its name and the pretty “I Always Do” is a big-hearted, soft-spoken ballad, there’s not as much room on Red’s crowded tracklist for them to shine like they should. Still, you can’t blame Swift for indulging her unbridled ambition and overactive imagination, especially considering she has the means to do so. Ultimately, Red might be about getting a few things out of Swift’s system in order to figure out where she’s headed. If that’s the case, the title of Red’s patient, pitch-perfect closing number might be even more auspicious in predicting what’s yet to come for Taylor Swift than in describing what’s happening this time around: “Begin Again”. 60/100

Her Metacritic score is now 76/100.
http://www.metacritic.com/music/red/taylor-swift