We’re in the new Peak Swift era – here are four key points to consider for 1989

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Rebecca Jennings, a senior correspondent at Vox covering social platforms and the creator economy, sees a connection between the 2014 eras as being “post-recession” and 2023 being “post-COVID,” a time where Swift succeeds because there’s a sort of cultural “bouncing back vibe,” a time where people want celebratory music. FROM COUNTRY TO POP: A TRANSITIONAL ALBUM open image in gallery “It was a huge risk for her to move completely outside of country – there’s no country elements on this album whatsoever,” says Spanos, who also teaches a course on Swift at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute. She says Swift’s penchant for pop songwriting is evidenced all the way back on her 2008 sophomore release Fearless in tracks like “Love Story,” but “1989” is “her first official, full-length pop project”. However, more so than a declarative move into pop, Spanos views 1989 as “more in the lineage of the kind of transitional albums teen stars tend to make when they move into adulthood”, comparing it to Janet Jackson’s Control and Christina Aguilera’s Stripped.1989 is the album where Swift divorced herself from adolescence.