What seems to swirl around much of this coverage is the thought that she's somehow wasting her time on pop music. Nearly every review agrees that Swift is a hugely accomplished songwriter. The tone of much of the writing suggests that Adams is somehow absolving Swift of her sins of pop stardomīut the tone of much of the writing around Adams's 1989 suggests (inadvertently) that the singer-songwriter is somehow absolving Swift of her sins of pop stardom. Both of these approaches reveal different facets and aspects of the songs on the album. The surface-level production of Swift's 1989 is all glimmering pop sheen, while the surface-level production of Adams's 1989 is more akin to the world's best bar band ripping into an unexpected cover shortly before closing time. On its face, Willman's statement makes sense. The "emotional resonance" argument is perhaps most succinctly described by Yahoo Music's Chris Willman:Ī collection of songs that in hands was the sunny pop album of the decade has been strangely but not unnaturally transmuted into the heartbreak album of the year. Adams's 1989 is more overtly sad than Swift's The prevailing argument seems to be that Adams found some sort of hidden emotional resonance in Swift's mere pop songs that wasn't there before.Īnd that's simply not true. (Also, since it's on Spotify, which Swift pulled her music from, it may be the only way you'll be able to hear the songs from 1989 on that service.) If you're even the least bit curious about the album, it's worth a listen.īut the way the album has been talked about - even in some corners of the press - seems to miss much of what made it possible in the first place. Swift, for her part, has been the project's biggest cheerleader.Īdams's cover album is simultaneously a fun listen, a fascinating experiment, and a defiantly weird chapter in both artists' history. If Swift's album was '80s pop gloss, Adams's album favors '70s roots rock. Adams's latest album, 1989, is a song-for-song cover of Swift's album of the same name, only Swift's pop-heavy production has been inverted in favor of the acoustic folk sing-alongs and rock rave-ups Adams favors. It’s the same kind of stuff that I love about Noel Gallagher’s writing, or classic Rolling Stones songs. It’s not minimalism, but definitely it’s, like, content by reduction. The structures that she’s building are a lot of clean lines - the songs are all ends in themselves, the top line and the song itself are usually mirrors of each other, and I like that she’s able to be very vulnerable, but she doesn’t have to be wordy to get there. He went on at length about the brilliance of her songwriting to Grantland's Steven Hyden: In promoting his newest album, folk-rock hero Ryan Adams has had nothing but good things to say about his friend the pop star Taylor Swift.
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