The Target Deluxe Version of Taylor Swift’s eagerly anticipated 1989 includes three more songs and three demos, so of course it is a must buy and I bought it on pre-sale. And then, when the album leaked online, forgot about it. So imagine my surprise late Saturday afternoon at the news the album had been delivered.
I was on Ludlow Street and made it back home to find the hard copy CD safely tucked into my letterbox TWO DAYS BEFORE THE OFFICIAL RELEASE!!!
Since the entire Team tay have acted like 1989 was a State secret on which US allies the CIA is spying on and we the fans are Edward Snowden, why Team Taylor and Target aka the CIA if not indeed the NSA choose to actually mail the State secrets to us is a bizarre indeed misstep. I’d received a text from Target telling me the album had been shipped before the album leaked, and any way it still isn’t available on ITunes, so it wasn’t a reaction to the pirated copies.
The packaging is gorgeous, fabulous polaroid (I think I mean Instagram!) pictures, lyrics, a letter from Swift, well worth twenty bucks if it hadn’t already leaked, which leads us back to the initial question: how can it have been delivered two days early? Surely this is a more buttoned down operation than to simply beg people to pirate the damn thing.
I am still thinking on my second review, more in depth, but one problem with Taylor is clear: as great, yes it is great, as 1989 might well be, I can’t help feeling that it is emotionally cloistered. If it was to be discovered as the sine qua non pop album of the decade, it should have a hidden depth, but when your subject matter is about not having an a hidden depth, it is a tough concept to sell. If a guardedness against pain is your subject matter, you have to skirt depth. It is what it is about.
Since people are begging us to do so, compare 1989 to Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart’s Club Band: state of the art pop, but the Beatles signify more than they say and Taylor signifies less than it states.
You know what I think: 1989 is a major accomplishment, but what else is it? Stay tuned and I’ll tell you.
Meanwhile, cmon Team Tay, get your act together.
