Swift has been the most vocal advocate of Adams’ cover album since he began promoting it in August before its September 21 release.
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The first two tracks, “Welcome to New York” and “Blank Space“, temper that enthusiasm pretty quickly. This might seem like a ridiculous reading, but it was a theme powerfully explored in Francois Ozon’s recent French psychological drama The New Girlfriend – in which a bereaved widower, David, copes with his wife’s death by wearing her clothing.
The choice is extremely reminiscent of the Magnetic Fields’ three-disc spanning masterpiece, 69 Love Songs, the gold standard of queering gender in pop music. Swift, for her part, has been the project’s biggest cheerleader. There couldn’t be any more reason for popstar Swift to feel elated right now. Adams’s melodrama may prove too much for some, but there’s no arguing that it stands as its own work. In his 20 years in the music industry, the singer-songwriter’s sound and perspective has evolved immensely.
The Recording Academy confirmed to Mashable that his cover album – filled with fresh reinterpretations – is eligible for nominations and awards because it was released before the September 30 deadline and because it meets the requirements of being a new recording.
Swift’s “1989” from start to finish, amid a bout of loneliness.
Meanwhile, the poet wanted his “1989” cover to sound like Bruce Springteen’s 1982 album, Nebraska. Inversely, Adams scores a home run because he is gaining the attention of Swift’s fans- ballpark figure: most of the world- leading to a rise in popularity and appreciation in the mainstream media. Adams channeled his revivals through changing the pace or key, insightful piano ballads and making it a sad lullaby.
It has also launched her into the class of pop stars whose live performances are extravagant spectacles, shows with visual features that eclipse the music: lasers, lights, flash pots, fireworks, confetti, a gargantuan video screen and a long runway equipped with a platform that rose at least 20 feet above the floor and spun in every direction, delivering Swift and her accomplices to various quadrants of the arena. “He’s gotten some of the best musicians together to record this album and if the clips he’s released are any indication, this is going to be something really special”.
For the past couple months, the indie music blogosphere has been practically buzzing at the prospect of everyone’s favorite mop-haired and melancholy singer, Ryan Adams, releasing a song-by-song cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989.
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Swift also stands to benefit financially from Adams’s covers, procuring enough money for years of girl squad gatherings. The album has been widely acknowledged as an excellent piece of artistic and musical work, launching Swift into a different direction musically and feeding her successful following of fans. Adams took apart each melody and made it his own, which is commendable. At times she fell victim to the stereotypes of the genre with lyrics that were bland, repetitive and fell flat, where they used to be razor sharp, (“Welcome to New York“, “All You Had To Do Was Stay”, and “This Love”). Mandolin replaces the “Vienna”-style synth portents of Swift’s version of “Out of the Woods“, while the acoustic strumming on which his version of “Bad Blood” is built suits lines like “What was all shiny, now it’s all rusted”.
