By Emma Weidmann | Arts and Life Editor
The charm of Taylor Swift is often not in the sound of her music itself but the story it tells. That’s why an album like “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” persists and remains relevant, even nine years after its original release.
Though “1989” has always been a magical, alluring album and a dream of pop mastery that many artists could only hope to achieve, its real draw isn’t in the sound but in the narrative and mystique that Swift manages to craft around herself.
This album tells the story of a girl in her early 20s emerging from years of derogatory media attention — specifically around her relationships — who is managing to “Shake It Off” and continue to turn her life story into art. For Swift herself, the move from Nashville — musically and literally — to New York City marked a reinvention.
In the timeline of albums “Fearless,” “Speak Now” and “Red,” this young protagonist has had her heart broken, been humiliated on a global stage and, with the jump to pop music, attempted to wipe the slate clean. For the young women who grew up watching Swift take each punch with grace and remain a vulnerable, seemingly-sweet person, she is like a reflection of themselves if they were a high-heeled, glittery pop star.
And that is why Swift is relevant, time and again. Though her albums aren’t always perfect, she is successful at meeting her audience where they are. It’s no wonder why something you often hear from Swifties is that “she wrote this album just for me.”
While her music is near-universal for the experience of young womanhood, it also adds a new installment into the grand, overarching tale of who Taylor Swift is with each subsequent record. It’s ubiquitous, and it’s also deeply personal.
On “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” vault tracks like “Is It Over Now?” and “Now That We Don’t Talk” give a glimpse into the diary of the every-woman. Like many women experiencing a heartbreak, Swift calls her mom, who, while sympathetic, seems to be glad the man is gone.
Swift watches as her ex-flame changes himself and chases the high of their relationship, but their estrangement is apparently an unbridgeable gap. “I think about jumping off of very tall somethings just to see you come running,” she confesses on “Is It Over Now?.” It’s melodramatic, over-the-top and fished straight from the deepest thoughts of probably millions of young girls. The damsel-in-distress, princess fantasy of youth takes an ugly turn in the mind of a 20-something girl whose first impulse post-breakup is to vie for attention.
This music has created an unbreakable bond between the singer and her fans because they’re able to feel deeply for Swift as well as pinpoint the perpetrators and villains of her breakup songs in a way that’s practically identical to how groups of girls might shun the ex of their own best friend. You can imagine Harry Styles getting a murderous look from his ex’s friends as if it were a scene from your own life.
Though the storytelling and fan bonding is what makes it powerful, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” sounds great. It always did, but something in the maturity of Swift’s vocals nearly a decade later eliminate the strain in the original songs. It no longer sounds like the singing was emotionally — and maybe a little bit physically — painful.
Songs like “How You Get The Girl,” “I Know Places” and “Out Of The Woods” are greatly improved but maintain what made them good in the first place: the catchy choruses and bridges like a high-vaulted cathedral ceiling, sweeping and airy and dramatic and gilded.
There is a thesis statement in all of this: “Being this young is art,” a lyric from the vault track “Slut!” The highs and lows of your early 20s, the grand love and ice-cold heartbreak that Swift writes about are ultimately beautiful, even though they may be confusing and anxiety-inducing and enough to make you go mad. It’s all captured here, in one album.
