1989 (Somebody's Version, at least)


I shared my real Halloween album this morning, but as i'm sitting here now enjoying the post-atmospheric jazz rock of Komorebi, it dawns on me that we can do something truly terrifying. We can go listen to Taylor Swift's version of Ryan Adams's version of Taylor Swift's 1989.

Oh gawd, that intro is bad, even for crappy synth pop. Why am i not just listening to a Ke$ha album? Ok, is this any different than the original? Nope, at least not the first track. Or the second. Or any of them. Yes, there's some tweaking and knob fiddling, sonic expansion, different filler tracks "from the vault," but absolutely nothing about it is reimagined or new. It's purely a behind the scenes, quantifiably provable in court, copyright reassertment and if you know anything about me then you know i'm 100% ok with that. It's her music, she should get to be the biggest millionaire from it. Plus, it's not bad. The melodies are catchy, the songs aren't stupid, i don't hate Taylor Swift's voice at all. No, nothing about the person or the songs or the style bothers me at all. Which of couse means something really fucking bothers me, and that thing is that she was born in December of 1989.

I didn't let Glass Animals go unBottle-clobbered, nor the 1975, nor Fall Out Boy, nor Arcade Fire, nor any of the other albums that come from the concept of "the year i was born was the end of awesome, and it's not fair i have to be miserable." That's crap, it's a terrible concept, no 20 year old in the history of human beings has ever not experienced the Badflower album. Not one single time has the world actually ended. C'mon kids, it's a sarcastic REM joke. Jesus Christofferson, is Billy Joel going to come out of retirement to rerecord his own version of 1989? Don't laugh too hard, I'd seriously consider buying that one. Honestly tell me you can't imagine his version of Blank Space.

No, what really bothers me is that the new cover has A Flock Of Seagulls on it. The original was all polaroid photographs and typical art-house nostalgic subtelties. This is more like Taylor Swift found out she really likes cocaine.

Yes, yes, i completely understand that you are in fact now living in a big old city, whilst all i'm ever gonna be is mean, but i'm tired of hearing people talk about how much you like going to football stadiums.

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