Albums to watch

1989

Taylor Swift

1989

The popstar takes inspiration from the music of the year of her birth on her fifth album

ADM rating[?]

7.4

Label
Virgin EMI
UK Release date
27/10/2014
US Release date
27/10/2014
  1. 9.1 |   Pretty Much Amazing

    1989 isn’t a “crossover” success. It’s the album every subsequent blockbuster must now reckon with
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  2. 9.0 |   PopMatters

    1989 will sell millions of copies and make Swift millions of dollars, as it well should
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  3. 8.6 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    Her most creative and daring triumph yet
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  4. 8.5 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    This is classic pop in its basest forms...there's evolution with purpose in every fibre of 1989
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  5. 8.5 |   The Quietus

    Every other song is crammed with merit, from the complexities of her lyrics to the tight production choices which cloak her melodies and are the cause of the album's irrepressible catch
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  6. 8.3 |   A.V. Club

    Swift’s never going to be as bleak as Del Rey or as sexually frank as Madonna, but, on 1989, she’s figured out how to be an adult once and for all
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  7. 8.0 |   Time Out

    Another classy and accomplished album from the smartest pop star of our times
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  8. 8.0 |   FasterLouder

    1989 could have been a disaster – a premix pop album that was indistinct from anything else on radio. Instead, it’s still Swift at the centre, calling the shots, crafting the songs. It’s where she likes to be, and when she’s there, she’s the best
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  9. 8.0 |   The Observer

    A bold, gossipy confection that plays to her strengths – strengths which pretty much define modern pop
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  10. 8.0 |   The Digital Fix

    It's as startling a change of musical direction as any mainstream artist has dared undertake in recent years
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  11. 8.0 |   Rolling Stone

    Deeply weird, feverishly emotional, wildly enthusiastic, 1989 sounds exactly like Taylor Swift, even when it sounds like nothing she's ever tried before
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  12. 8.0 |   Digital Spy

    If you look beyond the electro-layered vocals and endlessly looped choruses, you'll find that much of Swift's trademark emotional honesty remains
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  13. 8.0 |   The Guardian

    On 1989 the reasons she’s afforded the kind of respect denied to her peers are abundantly obvious
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  14. 8.0 |   musicOMH

    A great listen for those who refuse to believe both the hype and the haters
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  15. 8.0 |   The Arts Desk

    If this is the new Taylor Swift, I'm all in
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  16. 7.5 |   Consequence Of Sound

    The melodies on 1989 rain down fast and heavy against hip-hop beats and bulging ’80s bass lines. These are the tightest turns Swift has ever cut, and they let her slice out her words with real anger, not just passive regret
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  17. 7.0 |   Spin

    With 1989, Taylor really is trying to shake off those haters and players, realizing that she has more fun dancing on her own anyway
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  18. 7.0 |   Fact

    Swift embraces the '80s on perhaps her best album yet
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  19. 7.0 |   The Music

    Swift has progressed into an oversaturated genre to carve a space all of her own
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  20. 7.0 |   NME

    The country star becomes a pop phenomenon on her flashy fifth album
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  21. 7.0 |   Slant Magazine

    Displays Swift's willingness to venture outside her comfort zone without much of a safety net (aside from some ample Auto-Tune, of course), and test out an array of sonic experiments that feel both retro and of the moment
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  22. 6.0 |   Evening Standard

    It’s starting to feel like this unique talent is playing everyone else’s game
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  23. 6.0 |   All Music

    A cold, somewhat distant celebration of all the transient transparencies of modern pop, undercut by its own desperate desire to be nothing but a sparkling soundtrack to an aspirational lifestyle
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  24. 6.0 |   The Independent

    Love is thrown into stark relief and shuts out the rest of the world, which lends a certain piquancy to the desperately inclusive electropop grooves and corporate rebel clichés
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  25. 6.0 |   Clash

    Its ambition commendable but its execution boldly flawed
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  26. 6.0 |   The 405

    A testament to Swift's transition as a woman, and it's admirable to anyone embarking on the difficult journey of finding themselves
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  27. 6.0 |   The FT

    Some ‘sick beats’ – but too many slick ones – sever Taylor Swift from her country-pop roots
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  28. 5.0 |   Tiny Mix Tapes

    "This is the fifth time I’ll release a record for you and not the last"
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Taylor Swift: 1989

  • Download full album for just £11.49
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  • 3. Style £0.99
  • 4. Out Of The Woods £0.99
  • 5. All You Had To Do Was Stay £0.99
  • 6. Shake It Off £0.99
  • 7. I Wish You Would £0.99
  • 8. Bad Blood £0.99
  • 9. Wildest Dreams £0.99
  • 10. How You Get The Girl £0.99
  • 11. This Love £0.99
  • 12. I Know Places £0.99
  • 13. Clean £0.99
  • 14. Wonderland £0.99
  • 15. You Are In Love £0.99
  • 16. New Romantics £0.99
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