Taylor Swift’s Tinder Masterpiece
Taylor Swift’s 1989 reminds me of 2014, the year of its release, which is to say that it reminds me of Tinder. That’s when the dating app, founded two years earlier, settled into ultra-popularity: It was logging 1 billion “swipes” a day as singles smudged their thumbs over pictures of strangers, judging and being judged. Tinder turned the classic, nervous thrill of the dating experience into a game, one that millions of people could play at once. Then, with uncanny timing, Swift released an album all about fun and flaky romance, helping listeners bounce along to their next potential rejection.
The enduring success of Swift’s fifth album—now out as a rerecorded —makes it easy to forget how,” it incorporated the synthetic sounds of her titular birth year and the tried-and-true melodic tricks of the producers and Shellback. With 12.3 million units sold and three Hot 100 No. 1 hits (“Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood”), it remains her most popular release, and its rerecorded version just gave Swift the biggest streaming day for any artist in Spotify history. But the album’s incredible reach has also undercut its reputation as art: Many critics think of as lovable but generic.
