2012: Red - Taylor Swift
Looking back at 30 years of music | Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Leonard Cohen, Bobby Womack, Lana Del Rey, Bruce Springsteen
From the very first second, Red feels like a shift in gears from Taylor Swift’s previous work. The first thing we hear is a stadium sized drum beat, the electric current and coursing of feedback from a plugged-in guitar. Following the acoustic country stylings of her first albums, she’s now gone electric. That guitar starts playing, high up the fret-board and drenched in echo and reverb. You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d put on the latest release from U2 until Swift starts singing.
She sounds more mature than she ever had before on opener State of Grace (more even than she does at times on some of her more recent releases). There is a tension in this music that was missing from her earlier work. There is a feeling of controlled restraint here that has not always been a hallmark of her art. There is a sense that the song is building throughout; not racing out of the tracks but growing in power and energy and impact without ever fully letting go. It’s a really well crafted song. More rock than her brand of country, and more pop-rock than we’d heard on any Swift release up until this point.
Red, the titular track, is one of my favourites of all her songs. This is Taylor Swift at her best. She’s in great voice, the lyrics are ambiguous enough to be interesting whilst still being direct enough to be engaging and universal. The song has a great and memorable refrain which you want to sing along with. There’s a bending and blurring of genres going on here - nods to country (although, like all of the country elements in her music, they lean more towards Rascal Flatts than Hank Williams) as well as to rock, Americana and pop.
I really like this song for what it is.
But I don’t hear anything in it that makes me want to draw comparisons with Joni Mitchell’s Blue, a comparison which was made by some when the album was released. Some critics pointed to the title (a primary colour) and artwork (Mitchell/Swift’s side profile) as signposts that the records were similar enough to comment on, whilst others noted that her lyrics were more mature and reflective, like Mitchell’s, of real relationships than the fantasy dramas of her previous work.
Which is completely true. This album - for the most part - is more mature than anything she’d done before. It does acknowledge that relationships end and that life can be cruel, unfair and unkind. But that doesn’t make it similar to Joni Mitchell’s opus, Blue.
Swift is capable of fantastic lyric writing, she has a good voice and is both a good guitar and piano player. She is excellent at crafting chorus’ and bridges - perhaps even unmatched in contemporary pop music at these things. She has an impeccable pop sensibility. But Joni Mitchell has an almost unrivalled, virtuosic skill with her words, with the guitar and with her voice. On Blue, she has a celestial and supernatural quality in her singing that weaves into your veins and brain; into your very being. She sings like a siren. She reaches emotional depths that I don’t feel or hear anywhere near as often in Swift’s voice or her writing (although that is not to say that other people don’t feel it).
The most important difference, to my ears, is the ease with which their songs come out. Blue, despite being highly crafted, has a life and spontaneity in its spirit which is not just missing from Red, but pretty much all modern pop music. It has more freedom and spirit in its arrangements and production. More joy in its performance, even in the moments where it is tearing you in two. Red, by contrast, feels heavily produced. Feels heavily curated. No note is out of place, no moment passes where you feel like it hasn’t been very carefully constructed, considered or controlled to sound a certain way. This is the difference between live recordings and the modern approach of layering sounds on top of each other until you have a song.
This is not to detract from Red, or get into a discussion of modern production values vs the spirit of the studio in the 60s and 70s, because the songs here are good.
Treacherous is another fine one. Another with a good vocal, a good build, another well written lyric and refrain. So far in the songs State of Grace, Red and Treacherous we’ve been hearing a new side to Swift. Slightly grittier, more mature, a little rockier. A pinch more pop.
And on the next song, that pinch becomes a pouring. I Knew You Were Trouble is pure pop. Almost out of nowhere in the album, this song sweeps away everything we’ve heard from Swift so far and replaces it all with a huge beat; a drop before the chorus kicks in with its call and response section, layered vocals and synths. Forget going electric in the first song, now she has gone electronic. This was the true new Taylor Swift, the new woman who stepped out of the chrysalis of the transition album Speak Now. This is the Taylor Swift who would go on to release 1989, Reputation and Lover.
This is the Taylor Swift of Red songs 22 and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
When I saw Taylor Swift with my girlfriend this year on the Eras Tour in Stockholm, these were the songs that represented the Red era (or, album). You could argue that they were the most important in the show, as they were the first true pop tracks from our generation’s biggest pop star. This was the album when she not only became a woman, but where she became the woman who would take over the world. This is the album where the ‘lore’ really started to build, and the myths were made.
The other song performed from Red on the Eras Tour, is the one which I think has an argument for being Swift’s very best song. Out of any of her work, this is the one that most justifies her comparison to those older artists. Whilst All Too Well might have been more likely to have been sung by Stevie Nicks than Joni Mitchell, this is Swift’s best work; her best writing, her most emotive vocal performance, her most real song. This is a highly dramatic, highly moving song. It feels essential, and honest. It’s open. It’s painful in its realness.
The ten minute extended version - twice as long as on the original album - which Swift performed in Stockholm was even better than the recording on the album. It had all those qualities described above, more and then some.
More than any other, I think, this will be her song that ages the best. Her Both Sides Now, or A Case of You. Her legacy with which to stake a claim as a great songwriter.
Swift is undoubtedly the biggest artist of our time. The most dominant force in music, and it was clear from seeing the Eras Tour that she is going to remain on top for as long as she wants to. Lana Del Rey put that down to Swift’s work ethic and determination, telling the BBC this year that the reason she remains on top is simply that “she wants it more than anyone”.
Something that is interesting about the modern music scene is that whilst Swift is taking over the world, a lot of the acts that previously walked in her shoes and sang from her stages were and are still active.
In the same year that Swift released Red, The Rolling Stones embarked on their 50 & Counting Tour. Dylan released his thirty-fifth record, Tempest and, of course, was on the road. Paul McCartney released his Great American Songbook album and then year a later returned with, and toured, his next album of originals material, New. Each of these acts had made their debuts 50 years previously.
If you live in the right parts of the world - or have access to enough money - you can still see each of The Stones, the remaining Beatles and Dylan onstage in 2024.
Red is Swift’s fourth album. At the same point in his career, Dylan was releasing Another Side of Bob Dylan. His work wasn’t being released alongside any artists from 48 years previously. He wasn’t competing for shelf space or radio-play time with Collins & Harlan, Prince's Orchestra, Billy Murray or Enrico Caruso, all of whom saw success in 1914. I wonder what Swift will sound like, 48 years on from Red or in a few years from now when she reaches her thirty fifth release?
We often talk about the ways in which these three acts, and others like them, revolutionised the music and cultural scenes in the 60s, but they have also been revolutionary in their longevity. That they not only set a trend and changed the scene once, but that they did it again and competed with their own history, as well as acts from their future, as well.
And whilst Swift and Dylan are not competing for the same audiences, it is interesting to see their work released contemporaneously.
Red and Tempest are two completely different records. Red is entirely polished, whilst Tempest is anything but. If Red is full of beautiful moments tempered with a sense of grit or (faux) edge, Tempest is the complete inverse; Dylan never sounded rougher, never sounded meaner or more pissed off; less inclined to see the beauty in the world or in the songs. He’s at his most violent here, he’s at his most provocative and, at times, at his most down-right scary.
Tempest is, like so much of Dylan’s modern work, rooted in something much older than himself. It’s rooted in the blues and in true folklore traditions, containing as it does, an update on the 17th century British broadside Barbara Allen and an addition to the long list of folk songs about the sinking of the Titanic. It’s rooted in the pre-rock era, and even in the pre-modern era, with all its references and borrowings. Swift, by contrast, is facing the other way; always forwards to the future. She might be singing about her recent past, but she is moving onwards into new styles and forms of pop music and production.
This is interesting as, looking at them as public figures and celebrities, Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan have more in common than she does with, say, Joni Mitchell.
Swift and Dylan are both highly aware and controlling of their public images. They have both constructed narratives and shaped the way they are perceived and have fought to keep some semblance of privacy whilst living their lives so publicly. They both have hardcore and obsessive fan bases, who pore over and parse every utterance of the artist to find the true and hidden meanings of their words. They both incorporate inter-textual elements into their work (Swift mainly in references to her own back-catalogue; Dylan with everyone else’s) and they both have a knack for draining their audiences bank accounts dry (Swift with her never-ending alternative album versions and Dylan with his never-ending touring schedule; his Bootleg Series, artworks, whiskey, books and beyond).
As on Red and Tempest, another place they contrast is on the stage. The experience of seeing these two artists live is one of total opposites. Whilst the hysteria and mania they can each inspire in their audiences is not dissimilar, the way they conjure those feelings could not be more different.
The Eras tour, which reached its triumphant European conclusion this week, is a true spectacle. At times, overwhelmingly so. It is hugely entertaining and very impressive. It’s a highly creative show, with absorbing creative routines; dancers, costume changes, set designs, skits and pyrotechnics.
Both nights in Stockholm with my girlfriend were so much fun. We sang along, we danced together, we laughed and smiled and were overtaken by the huge sense of occasion that goes with being in amongst 60,000 people who are having the best night of their lives. I would have gone with her to see this show again and again - as she has repeatedly seen Dylan around the world with me - if it wasn’t almost impossible to even get into the sales to some of the shows, or exorbitantly expensive to get hold of tickets on the secondary market.
But, for all the fun of the spectacle, some aspects of the show felt so prepared and choreographed that they did not feel alive. The performances are so controlled, so rehearsed and so void of spontaneity that it might as well not have been a live show at all, but a recording set to play night after night.
Logistically, it would be impossible to change up too much from one night to the next when there are so many moving parts, so much scheduled to happen at precise moments in each show; so much that is perfectly planned and perfected to go off each night at the exact time that it is supposed to. But even the talk between songs felt rote and scripted the very first time you hear it; the audience reaction completely manipulated to fit the needs of the night. You don't get the sense that you are seeing something unique, or that a million people haven't seen it before you already.
At times, the music even almost felt secondary to the sheer spectacle of the show anyway. It was, in part, more musical theatre than concert. For most people, just being in the room with Swift was enough to bring on tears. For others, the impressive dance routines were enough to make up for the songs which were mimed to, rather than sung live (such as Shake It Off). I don’t think that things like that mattered much to the fans. Swift could have come out and stood still on stage for three and a half hours every evening and still the audience would scream the night away.
There were moments of real beauty and great artistry, though, too. The aforementioned performances of All Too Well were truly transcendent. The kind of performance that reaches in and moves you down to your bones. The Folklore/Evermore section of the show was beautifully staged and performed. Singing along with my partner to a song that we share, Lover, was a special moment on both nights. The single song from Speak Now, Enchanted, was, well, enchanting.
The new arrangements, fiery and forceful vocals and creative staging of the Tortured Poets Department songs was a triumph. A great crescendo to the show, and a really assertive display of why Swift is as popular as she is. It would be hard to watch this portion of the show and argue against her as a creative force, as a performer and an entertainer.
Those creative new arrangements are one of the few points of comparison that you can make between Swift’s live performance here and Dylan’s, albeit that he does something similar with his entire back catalogue while she saved it only for her most recent work.
I have seen him play six of the ten songs from 2012’s Tempest live and not only did they not always sound like the album versions, but they didn’t even always sound like the other live arrangements of them that I’d heard, either.
Sometimes it is not even the arrangements that change, but the extra gear he can kick into at any moment, which transforms the way a song affects you. On record, Early Roman Kings is far from my favourite Dylan song (so of course, cruelly, it is among the songs that I have seen him sing most frequently) but at the London Palladium show I saw in 2017 he delivered it with such intensity, such awe-inspiring power that it was among the single greatest performances I've ever witnessed. He transmitted something that night, and in that song, which I couldn’t put into words.
Similarly, I've seen Dylan do Soon After Midnight from this album more times than I would have liked to, but hearing it earlier this year in Camden, NJ at Willie Nelson's 4th July Picnic, it was like a revelation. Dylan was locked in and it was one of the highlights of the night, complete with new lyrics and a searing harmonica solo.
No matter which arrangement you heard, or which set of alternate lyrics, one of the greatest thrills on any night it was played was the dramatic, theatrical show-stopper Long and Wasted Years; Dylan centre stage and at his gripping and commanding, story-telling best.
I have seen Dylan live far more times than I have Taylor Swift - coming up to fifty now - so have had more opportunities to be surprised by him, even when he has been largely playing the same songs every night, but that sense that anything could happen was very much missing from the two Swift concerts I caught.
If the music occasionally felt like a side-show on the Eras tour, that has never been the case when seeing Dylan live. What minimal staging and set design he has is always in service of the song. The musicians on the Eras tour are hidden away, off-stage and out of sight for the most part, whilst at Dylan’s show they are as important as he is. The music is his life-blood and the basis and inspiration in everything that he does. As he told Jeff Slate in 2022, “I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music”.
Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan offer entirely different spectacles; entirely different styles of show and performances to almost entirely different audiences, but both of them impart and inspire that sense of religiosity in their fan-bases when they perform, in their way.
They take you there, and it’s rare. You’ll remember it all too well.
Elsewhere in the year…
Fiona Apple released her extraordinary follow up to 2005’s Extraordinary Machine, simply titled The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do.
The Idler Wheel… played on the more experimental aspects of Apple’s work and heightened them to dramatic effect. At times more percussive than her previous releases, Apple’s voice is the dominant force throughout. Songs see her moving away from the piano and allow her lyrics and the emotion in her delivery a little more room to really drive home the message of each song, whilst others like Werewolf stay true to her trademark vocal-and-piano combination.
One of my favourite things about exploring Fiona Apple’s catalogue is that with each release you can hear echos of where she has been, and see the signs of where she is going. Overall, this album is more Fetch the Bolt Cutters than When the Pawn… and at times, it feels like stepping into a haunted hall of mirrors. It’s disorienting and challenging. It is disjointing and visceral. Moving, painful and life affirming. Fiona Apple is a genius through and through; one of our greatest contemporary poets and performers.
Perhaps the greatest poet in the rock canon, Leonard Cohen released his first album since 2004’s Dear Heather. Old Ideas capitalised on his renewed and heightened popularity and success following his triumphant return to the world’s stage, and became Cohen’s most successful album in North America by reaching Number 3 in the Billboard charts.
Songs like Going Home, Show Me The Place and Come Healing see him at his yearning and moving best and perfectly showcase his ocean-deep voice, whilst Darkness and Crazy to Love You are quintessential Cohen, and would have been equally at home on Songs of Love and Hate or Songs of Leonard Cohen respectively as here on Old Ideas.
Another legendary singer and songwriter deep into their career to release an album this year was Bobby Womack. These songs would not fit on a record alongside his classic works such as Across 110th Street, Woman’s Gotta Have It, That's the Way I Feel About 'Cha and Lookin’ for a Love but they look to tread entirely new ground. Produced by Damon Albarn and Richard Russell, the album incorporates elements of Trip-Hop and electronica which will probably date the record. Womack’s voice, and legacy, though is timeless.
The Bravest Man in the Universe was Bobby Womack’s final album. The fourth song features a guest vocal from Lana Del Rey, who in 2012 released her major label debut record, Born to Die.
A great Americana record for the modern age, Born to Die was an innovative and groundbreaking release. Blending the traditional with the modern, Born to Die balances the grandiose of your dreams with the minuscule every day of your life, the darkness that comes with your hedonism and an attitude of “who cares anyway?” with a feeling of caring too much. The cinematic with the real. Well, none of it’s real, anyway. Not really. It’s all a story. It’s all made up, even down to the character, and the act. But that does’t make it feel any less real when you’re listening.
Bruce Springsteen came in like a Wrecking Ball with his new album. Let me hear you say Bruuuuuuuuuuce.
Notable Releases
Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
Grimes - Visions
Jack White – Blunderbuss
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city
Lianne La Havas - Is Your Love Big Enough?
Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again
Sharon Van Etten – Tramp
Tame Impala – Lonerism
The xx – Coexist
Next Up - From one pop sensation to another, we’ll take a quick look at Paul McCartney’s New.
Great piece. As a fan of Taylor, Joni and Bob (and others you mention here) it's good to see them being evaluated together and in context.
What a great article