Taylor Swift: Red

Red

Best song: All Too Well

Worst song: Everything Has Changed unless you have the deluxe edition

Overall grade: 6

I really expected to be seriously unimpressed by this. The sheer number of bands I discovered in the time between ‘Speak Now’ and this one alone means it’s automatically going to be at more of a disadvantage – at one point I was doing a band every week and listening to their entire discography in that time. You can tell I never do my schoolwork. Anyway, much to my surprise, this turned out to not only be the best collection of songs Taylor Swift has put out, but one of the best records of 2012, full stop.

The original album brief was that it would detail “the rise and fall of a relationship”, so I did wonder if it would be a kind of rock opera – well, pop opera, I suppose. Popera? That term must already have been coined by someone. But that didn’t turn out to be the case, as these stories don’t follow any kind of thread. Which was a minor disappointment at first, but then I realised that if they did, there couldn’t be any of her songs that tell the tale of an entire relationship, which are always so effective.

Unlike the last album, a handful of these songs are written by Swift in collaboration with other people. For the album’s fifth track, ‘All Too Well’, she returns to her original writing partner Liz Rose, who helped her edit the song down from 10 minutes in length. Not that I would have minded if she’d kept the length. Despite appearing fairly early on it acts as a centrepiece of the album, and although it follows the same basic pattern as many of her songs have before – starting with two verses that introduce the story, then a really powerful, swelling middle eight before a quiet, mournful section and then the eventual emotional finish – this guitar-driven confession only improves on what has come before. Musically and lyrically she knows exactly what she’s doing, getting her audience involved in the story before delivering the crushing though unavoidable blow that this relationship can never work out: ‘Cause there we are again when I loved you so/Back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known.’

Elsewhere, a freshness is brought to the songwriting process by other artists joining Taylor in a duet. The first of these is with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, and together they come up with the amazing alt-country song ‘The Last Time’, a dark look at an on-off relationship that both parties swear is now on for the last time. The two play off each other well and parts of it feel spontaneous and conversational, like the great exchange ‘This is the last time you tell me I’ve got it wrong/This is the last time I say it’s been you all along/This is the last time I let you in my door/This is the last time I won’t hurt you anymore’. But the other duet is with Ed Sheeran, and though I expected the two of them to be a perfect match, the song they came up with is bland and uninteresting, making it easily the worst thing here (although on the deluxe edition there’s a bonus track called ‘Girl at Home’ which is the worst thing she’s written, ever. Don’t listen to it)

The most commercial, chart-topping songs come courtesy of pop writing/production super-duo Max Martin & Shellback, although Swift still takes first credit and manages to bring her own voice to them. They’re all winners but I’m most interested by ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ because it shows she’s trying to push boundaries, maybe not in music as a whole but within herself. The dubstep influence is as far removed from country as you could get, but she performs convincingly on this purposefully messy song.

Most other material here is entirely Swift’s own (she also helps produce!) and it’s here that she slips back into her country ballad and pop rock tendencies, with consistently good results, although I’m going to dock points from ‘Holy Ground’ – I like it, but it doesn’t have any real hook, and isn’t the whole point of a pop song to get into your head? Other than that, solid stuff. ‘I Almost Do’ and ‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ are the emotional tearjerkers and the second one in particular is very evocative, skilfully remaining general enough as to apply to many people’s memories. A change in subject matter comes in the form of ‘The Lucky One’, the ‘fame-isn’t-so-great’ song that every Serious Artist is obligated to record at one point in their life. As one of the world’s biggest pop stars, she’s earned the right, and the comparison of her own life with Joni Mitchell’s keeps things interesting, along with a particularly dynamic vocal performance.

 ‘State Of Grace’ opens the album with a killer drum and guitar introduction and a lyric that does basically sum the whole thing up: ‘Love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right.’ The game is only played good and right in three songs; lighthearted bubblegum country ‘Stay Stay Stay’, escapist pop anthem that’s sure to be lots of people’s wedding song in ten years’ time, ‘Starlight’, and closer ‘Begin Again’. Contrary to the last two albums, it’s not a massive arena rock track with a far-reaching message, it’s a snapshot of an unsure, intimate moment between a couple who are just starting out and thinking that maybe, this time, things might work. It’s like Swift saying to us after all the negativity: ‘Don’t worry – I still believe.’

Right now, I can’t imagine Taylor Swift ever putting out a set of songs that equals or betters this. But then, I’ve said that before.