According to US superstar Taylor Swift, her fifth studio album, titled 1989, was inspired by ‘listening to a lot of late ’80s pop. I really loved the chances they were taking, how bold it was’. It was originally released on 27 October 2014, by Big Machine Records, and saw Swift switching her musical direction from country to mainstream pop music.
The album was titled after Swift’s birth year, mainly to signify her symbolic artistic rebirth, and was supported by seven singles, including three US Billboard Hot 100 number ones – Shake It Off, Blank Space and Bad Blood.
The fact that Swift named after her birth year also tends to corroborate the influence of 1980s synth-pop on the record. As creative director, Swift insisted the record’s packaging included pictures taken with a Polaroid instant camera – a photographic method that was significantly more popular in her birth year of 1989 than in the year of the album’s release, 2014, in