In 1989 I was listening to The Stone Roses, The Pixies and Public Enemy. The biggest chart hits were Black Box's Ride On Time and Jive Bunny's Swing The Mood. It was also the year Taylor Swift was born and, consequently, it's the title of her new album. Unsurprisingly she doesn't refer to any of the above, despite claiming she's recapturing the sound of pop music in the 1980s.
Lead single Shake It Off clued us in to how this might work, although in actuality it's a bit like a La Roux vocal set to a skippy Toni Basil drumbeat (and Mickey video riff) - the bubblegum pop abandon of then tied to the crafted pop know-how of now.
The new album is a world away from the country music that made Swift's fortune; it's not even in the same ballpark as crossover hit We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (although certain tracks share a similar communal party vibe, with synths replacing guitars).
As a singer-songwriter in any genre, Swift has an incredible ear for an instantly graspable melody, and the best of 1989 marries this to retro electro-pop songs that claim the middle ground between Madonna and Lana Del Rey: a neat sidestep towards world domination.
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