Taylor Swift’s New ‘1989’ Pop Album Has Many Scratching Their Heads

Taylor Swift is shaking off her old country style for something entirely new, and the switch has a lot of fans scratching their heads. The first video from the new album – 1989 – is for the aptly titled song, Shake it Off. The title of her album, 1989, is not only Taylor Swift’s birth year, it’s also the setting for the style of most of the songs on the album.

According to the New York Daily News, Shake it Off sounds more like something from Katy Perry than Taylor Swift. There’s not a trace of Swift’s original country genre on the album, say reports. Admittedly, Taylor’s style was never that reminiscent of Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn. Taylor Swift has been steadily omitting any trace of her country sound over the course of her last four albums, culminating with the country-free 1989.

The interesting thing about Taylor Swift is not that she’s switching genres from country to pop, it’s that she’s already the biggest pop idol in the land before she even made the full conversion. Entertainment Weekly writer Kyle Anderson says this about Taylor Swift:

“Swift is arguably the most powerful pop presence in the United States, and her worldwide reach continues to extend. She has bottomless reserves of money, cultural cache, critical fawning, and a rapidly growing fan base that seems to stick with her at every turn.”

However, Anderson went on to say that Shake it Off tends to cheapen Taylor Swift’s past work:

“Here’s my fundamental problem with the song: If this is who Taylor Swift really is, and we’re meant to take everything in Shake it Off at face value, then not only do I not want to spend any time with her, I also feel cheated. This weakens her past work, which I always perceived as being genuinely honest. If Swift is merely playing a blown-up pop character, then the song isn’t nearly big enough to justify its existence in 2014 – not with the sheer number of starlets we currently have filling the airwaves.”

Taylor Swift’s new album 1989, her follow-up release to 2012’s Red, will be released on October 27th. Swift described the two years of her life between releases to Rolling Stone:

“Two years gives you enough time to grow and change; change what you believe in and what’s influencing and inspiring you. In the process, my music changed. I woke up every single day not wanting, but needing, to make a different style of music. This album is a rebirth for me.”

Here’s the video from the first single of Taylor Swift’s new album, 1989.

images via YouTube and 1035 kiss fm