Music / 1989

"I've got a blank space, baby."

^{Click to see the cover for 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023)}

"I was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1989…"

— The beginning of the album liner notes

1989 is the fifth studio album by American Singer-Songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released through Big Machine Records on October 27, 2014, almost exactly two years after her previous album, Red.

It was Swift's first official pop album, fully transitioning from her country origins to a dreamy Synth-Pop sound inspired by the music of her birth decade, The '80s. Aiming for a "sonically cohesive record," she again partnered with Max Martin and Shellback, while her longtime producer Jack Antonoff made his first contribution to one of her album releases with "Out of the Woods."^note Their first collaboration had been on the between-album single "Sweeter Than Fiction."

With its release, Swift became the first artist in history with two albums that had sold over a million copies within a week. Her eight-month 1989 World Tour was the highest-grossing tour of 2015 and was released as a concert film by Apple Music.

A re-recording of the album, 1989 (Taylor's Version), was released on October 27, 2023, exactly nine years after the original. This is the fourth of her first six albums to be re-recorded following the controversial purchase of their master recordings by Scooter Braun and included five previously unreleased tracks.

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Preceded by Red, succeeded by reputation.

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Tracklist:^note singles italicized

1. "Welcome to New York" (3:32)
2. "Blank Space" (3:51)
3. "Style" (3:51)
4. "Out of the Woods" (3:55)
5. "All You Had to Do Was Stay" (3:13)
6. "Shake It Off" (3:39)
7. "I Wish You Would" (3:27)
8. "Bad Blood" (3:31)
9. "Wildest Dreams" (3:40)
10. "How You Get the Girl" (4:07)
11. "This Love" (4:10)
12. "I Know Places" (3:15)
13. "Clean" (4:30)
14. "Wonderland" (Bonus Track) (4:05)
15. "You Are in Love" (Bonus Track) (4:27)
16. "New Romantics" (Bonus Track) (3:50)
17. "Slut!" (From The Vault) (3:00)
18. "Say Don't Go" (From The Vault) (4:39)
19. "Now That We Don't Talk" (From The Vault) (2:26)
20. "Suburban Legends" (From The Vault) (2:51)
21. "Is It Over Now?" (From The Vault) (3:49)
22. "Bad Blood" (featuring Kendrick Lamar) (Bonus Track) (3:19)
23. "Sweeter Than Fiction" (Exclusive Bonus Track) (3:57)

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Trope it off!

• Action Girl: Not just Taylor, but no less than twenty women in the music video for "Bad Blood". The whole video is some sort of sci-fi noir set up, complete with explosions, hand-to-hand combat, swordfighting, and numerous Quentin Tarantino references.
• Adam Westing: "Blank Space" and even more explicitly in its music video. Taylor's character is the media's perception of her: A girl who lures boys in, dates them for song writing material, gets jealous and clingy, goes Ax-Crazy, and, as the current boy escapes, has another one lined up.
• Album Closure: The final track, "Clean", is about finally getting "clean" from a toxic relationship—complete with Redemption in the Rain.
• Alice Allusion: The bonus track "Wonderland" uses shout-outs to Alice in Wonderland to describe a fairy-tale romance that descended into madness.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • "Blank Space":
    I can make the bad guys good for a weekend
  • "Wildest Dreams":
    He's so tall and handsome as hell
    He's so bad, but he does it so well
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: On New Years' Eve 2014, she performed "Welcome to New York" and "Shake It Off" on a stage in Times Square that had colored lights glowing aplenty.
• Arc Number: Swift's favorite number, 13, appears as the number of tracks on the album.
• Ascended Extra: "This Love (Taylor's Version)" was released as a promotional single for the (Taylor's Version) of the album despite it was never released as a single for the original album cycle nor a particularly beloved track. Most people think that is because the song is featured in the soundtrack of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
• Ascended Meme: Fans noticed that the bridge of "Out of the Woods" ("Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?") fit in the instrumental break of "Is It Over Now?". Remixes and TikTok videos were made about it. When Swift sang "Is It Over Now?" as a surprise song on the Eras Tour during the Buenos Aires stop, she added the bridge of "Out of the Woods" to it.
• Ax-Crazy: Her character becomes this in the "Blank Space" video, tearing up paintings and destroying her boyfriend's car with a golf club.
• Between My Legs: Taylor crawls through a tunnel of legs in the music video for "Shake It Off".
• Beware the Nice Ones Combined with Bitch in Sheep's Clothing in "Blank Space".
  Rose garden filled with thorns ...
  'Cause, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream
• Big Applesauce: "Welcome To New York", based on her having moved to an upscale apartment in New York City.
• Bittersweet Ending: The final track of the album's standard edition is "Clean", an emotional farewell to an unhealthy relationship.
  The rain came pouring down
  When I was drowning
  That's when I could finally breathe
• Black Widow: Her performance of "Blank Space" for the American Music Awards was themed after this. The music video proper takes on a more Yandere feel.
• Break-Up Song: Noticeably fewer than on Red, a particularly sad album.
  • "All You Had To Do Was Stay," a melancholy song to a lover who shouldn't have left.
  • "I Wish You Would" is about her regrets about her ex and how she wants them back.
  • "Clean," about the relief of finally getting over a toxic relationship.
  • "Say Don't Go" is about her lover leaving her because he loved her less than she loved him, and she's begging him to stay.
  • In "Now That We Don't Talk," the narrator is glad her relationship is over, but does have some regrets about how poorly it ended.
  • "Is It Over Now?" has the narrator question whether her relationship is finally over now that both she and her ex-lover have moved on with other people.
• Breather Episode: "How You Get The Girl", a very uptempo song, is sandwiched between "Wildest Dreams" and "This Love", both of which are much slower and have sadder tones.
• The Cameo: The video for "Bad Blood" is more or less just a string of cameos of various female actors, singers, and models.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Taylor undergoes this in the video for "Out of the Woods", her dress getting ripped up quite a bit as she struggles through the wilderness.
  • Taylor deliberately destroys her boyfriend's clothes near the end of the video for "Blank Space", although the point is more humiliation than fanservice.
• Cover Version: Ryan Adams covered the entire album.
• Darker and Edgier: The (From the Vault) tracks are much sadder, more emotional, and more serious in their subject matter than their main album counterparts.
  • Compare the approach to societal slut shaming in "Blank Space" (which sarcastically mocks the concept) to "Slut!" (which stoically accepts the inevitability of other's judgment).
  • "Is It Over Now?" is a harsher take on the breakdown of the relationship from "Out Of The Woods."
• The Diss Track: "Bad Blood" is a song about an artist who tried to hurt Swift's career. Considering her falling-out with Katy Perry, and the fact that some of her tour dancers were hired out by Perry, most believe the song to be about her. (Another substantial rumor that plagues the song is that she's resentful of Perry's on-off relationship with John Mayer, who also dated Taylor, and that she's bitter over someone she thought was a friend is dating her ex.)
• Double Standard: In "Slut!" the narrator laments that she'll suffer society's consequences for her relationship with her love interest (including being called a slut) but he won't.
• Easter Egg: In 1989 she carried on her tradition of hiding secret messages in the liner notes. In the lyrics to "Blank Space", it's:
  There once was a girl known by everyone and no one
• Empathic Environment: The "emotional landscape" in the video for "Out of the Woods".
• Face on the Cover: Near-miss in the original release; we see Swift's torso (and the seagull shirt she's wearing) and the lower half of her face, but not her eyes. Played straight with the Taylor's Version release, where we see her face front and center smiling and facing to her left.
• Femme Fatale: Her character in "Blank Space" has elements of this, promising her new lover heaven only to turn on him (as the media had portrayed Swift as doing).
• Forbidden Love: "I Know Places" is about this. It's a dramatic take on the experience of dating while in the public eye.
  Something happens when everybody finds out
  See the vultures circling, dark clouds
  Love's a fragile little flame, it could burn out
  It could burn out
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the "Out of the Woods" video, if you pause at the right time, you'll see the vines spelling out the song title.
• Gay Aesop: One of the aspects of New York City she praises in the album's first track is that:
  You can want who you want
  Boys and boys and girls and girls
• Golf Clubbing: Destroys her boyfriend's car with a golf club at the end of the "Blank Space" video.
• Has a Type: In "Is It Over Now?", Taylor calls out her ex (likely Harry Styles) for only dating girls who look like her after their breakup.
  Your new girl is my clone
• Here We Go Again!: The music video for "Blank Space" ends with another suitor arriving to fill the blank space left by the previous guy who just took off running.
• Hope Spot: The first of the vault tracks, "Slut!", has the narrator acknowledging that she'll be branded a slut and made the subject of cruel rumors for dating her new boyfriend, but that he's worth it. The next four vault tracks are breakup songs that all but say that he was not.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: One of the vault songs is titled "Slut!".
• Intercourse with You: From "Wildest Dreams":
  I said, "No one has to know what we do"
  His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room ...
  You'll see me in hindsight, tangled up with you all night
  Burnin' it down
• I Warned You: From the bridge of "Blank Space":
  Boys only want love if it's torture
  Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn you
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art: The back covers of the first four editions of the "Taylor's Version" re-release each have one of the numbers of the album title on the back, so that they form the the album title when lined up together.
• Kubrick Stare: Demonstrates in the videos for "Blank Space" and "Bad Blood".
• Location Song: "Welcome to New York" is an ode to her new home, the Big Apple.
• Love Is a Drug:
  • "Clean" plays with this, comparing getting over a toxic relationship to going through withdrawal.
    Ten months sober, I must admit
    Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it
    Ten months older, I won't give in
    Now that I'm clean, I'm never gonna risk it
  • "Slut!" plays it straight:
    And if I'm gonna be drunk
    I might as well be drunk in love
• Love Nostalgia Song:
  • "I Wish You Would," where the singer looks back on a relationship that ended badly and hopes that it might be renewed.
  • "Wildest Dreams," where the singer anticipates this:
    Someday when you leave me
    I bet these memories
    Follow you around
  • "Out of the Woods" captures the anxiety, excitement, and unsureness of a relationship that the narrator experienced and clearly treasured.
  • "Suburban Legends" has the narrator reminiscing about a relationship from her younger years, despite the pain it caused her and the fact that her lover wasn't entirely faithful during their time together.
• Miniscule Rocking: Coming in at just 2:26, "Now That We Don't Talk" retroactively dethrones the Midnights track "Glitch" as the shortest song in Taylor's discography. Along with "Suburban Legends" (2:51) and "Slut!" (3:00), three of the vault tracks are the shortest tracks on the album and are all fairly short by her standards.
• Misery Poker: from the bonus track "New Romantics":
  It's poker
  He can't see it in my face
  But I'm about to play my Ace
• New Romantic: One of the bonus tracks being titled "New Romantics" suggests that this period was an influence on the album's aesthetic.
• New Sound Album: Her official departure from Country Music. 1989's production was mostly electronic, making use of drum machines and synthesizers.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • The protagonist of the "Wildest Dreams" video is clearly based on Elizabeth Taylor, with her unknown co-star standing in for Richard Burton.
  • Taylor's character in the "Wildest Dreams" music video is named Marjorie Finn, an obvious reference to her grandmother Marjorie Finlay.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Referenced in "New Romantics":
  We play dumb, but we know exactly what we're doing
• Please, Don't Leave Me: In "Say Don't Go," the narrator begs her lover not to leave her and calls him out for leading her on.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • "You could've been gettin' down to THIS. SICK. BEAT."
  • The title of "Slut!" is always spelt with quotation marks and an exclamation mark.
• Punny Title: "Style" is widely thought to be about Harry Styles.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "Bad Blood", which was rumoured to be about Katy Perry.
  Did you have to do this?
  I was thinking that you could be trusted
  Did you have to ruin what was shiny?
  Now it's all rusted
• Questioning Title?: "Is It Over Now?", where the narrator asks her ex-lover if their relationship is really over.
• Record Producer: Much of the album's new sound came from Swift's behind-the-scenes decisions on who would assist with the production. The majority of the album was produced by Max Martin and Shellback, dominant songwriter/producers of 2000s-2010s pop who had previously worked with Swift on the major singles from Red. Other songs went to similar giants in the then-contemporary pop field, with Jack Antonoff co-producing "Out of the Woods", "I Wish You Would", and "You Are In Love", Ryan Tedder being behind "Welcome To New York" and "I Know Places", and "I Wish You Would", and Imogen Heap producing "Clean". Notably, Nathan Chapman, who produced almost all of Swift's first three albums and many songs on Red, only had a production credit on "This Love", which would prove to be his last collaboration with Swift.
• Redemption in the Rain: The conceit of "Clean"
  The rain came pouring down
  When I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe
  And by morning
  Gone was any trace of you; I think I am finally clean
• Romance on the Set: invoked The starlet in the "Wildest Dreams" video has one with the male lead. It doesn't end happily, as it turns out he was already married to someone else.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The video for "Shake It Off" has her surrounded by skilled dancers of all types and her just being . . . not. The song's lyrics also highlight common criticisms of her image:
    I stay out too late
    Got nothing in my brain
    That's what people say ...
    I go on too many dates
    But I can't make them stay
    At least that's what people say
  • "Blank Space" is one long, sarcastic Self-Deprecation song, based on the media's image of her as a psychotic maneater.
    Got a long list of ex-lovers
    They'll tell you I'm insane
  • All of the celebrities picked the names of the alter egos they played in the "Bad Blood" video themselves. Taylor's alias is "Catastrophe".
• Self-Referential Track Placement: The final track in the standard edition of the re-release is called "Is It Over Now?"
• Silly Love Song: Being an album that celebrate fun and carefree romance, naturally has a lot of these:
  • "Style" is about a relationship that the narrator know would not end well, but she is so consumed by how good he looks she can't stop. This song is as blatant about Harry Styles as it can be without actually name dropping him.
  • "How You Get The Girl" is about the narrator telling a guy he needs to try better if he wants to gets his ex back and what he should do. Taylor acknowledges in an interview that the song is exceptionally silly and might get the guy a restraining order if he follows it.
  • "This Love" is about an on-and-off relationship that the narrator is pondering the good and bad of, ultimately concluding that it is worth it.
  • "I Know Places" is about the narrator wanting to run away from the hungry public to protect a romance that she cherishes.
  • The romance in "Wonderland" is so consuming that the narrator lost herself in it.
  • "You Are In Love" is about a slow building romance that the narrator and her love interest eventually falls in love with each other. Swift stated that this song is based on her friend (and frequent collaborator) Jack Antonoff's romance with another one of her friends, Lena Dunham.
• Shout-Out: "Bad Blood"'s music video references several films.
  • The bikes, for instance, are a reference to TRON.
  • The opening scene, in which Taylor gets thrown out a window and lands on top of a car, also closely resembles the opening scene of the horror-comedy Detention (which, notably, was also directed by Joseph Kahn), right down to the way in which she's splayed out atop the car◊, as well as the fact that the character in Detention who suffers that fate is named Taylor.
  • It also calls to mind the famous photo of Evelyn McHale, known as "the most beautiful suicide" because she landed on top of a car the same way after jumping from the Empire State Building. Made especially resonant with New York as a city prominently featuring in 1989, the Spiteful Suicide mentioned in "Is It Over Now", and McHale's note imploring that she not be seen postmortem (but the photograph keeps getting circulated anyway), which echoes the album's minor theme of being hunted by the media.
• Slut-Shaming: The narrator of "Slut!" feels so strongly about her love interest that she's willing to endure the slut shaming to be with him.
• Spiteful Suicide: "Is It Over Now?"

  Oh, Lord, I think about jumpin’
  Off of very tall somethings
  Just to see you come runnin’
  And say the one thing I’ve been wanting, but no.

• Synth-Pop: Her first album in the genre.
• Take That!: "Now That We Don't Talk" narrator only pretended to like acid rock music to please her love interest.
• Team Power Walk: The music video for "Bad Blood" features one, with both opposing armies advancing slowly in formation.
• Terms of Endangerment: "Blank Space" addresses the romantic subject as "darling" as it takes a turn for the darker: "'Cause, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream." In the music video, the line is delivered by Taylor's character as she grabs her boyfriend's face threateningly.
• Title by Number: 1989, the year of Swift's birth and also the musical era she was trying to emulate.
• Took a Level in Badass: The "Out of the Woods" music video is essentially about Taylor doing this, being chased into an apparently-enchanted forest by some wolves and surviving treacherous conditions.
• Troperiffic: The "Bad Blood" music video is chock-full of Action Girl tropes and references to Sci-Fi and Spy movies, to the point that io9.com published an article enumerating them.
• Unflinching Walk: The climax of the "Bad Blood" video shows two opposing armies advancing on each other slowly, with explosions erupting behind them.
• Uniformity Exception: Out of all the album covers of the Taylor's Version re-recordings, 1989 is the first to include the album's name on the cover.
• Valley Girl: Her "ex-man's new girlfriend" apparently speaks like this.
  She's like, "Oh my god"
• Villainous Face Hold: In the "Blank Space" music video, as Taylor's character takes a turn toward Ax-Crazy, she grabs her boyfriend by the face threateningly with both hands and gets in his face.
• What Beautiful Eyes!:
  • "I Know Places":
    In the dead of night, your eyes so green
  • "Wonderland":
    Didn't you flash your green eyes at me?
• Whole Costume Reference: The video for "Shake It Off" has Taylor dressed up as Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga, Skrillex, and Fergie as they appeared in various music videos.
• Your Makeup Is Running:
  • "New Romantics" says, "We cry tears of mascara in the bathroom."
  • In the "Blank Space" video, Taylor's makeup begins to run heavily as she loses it.

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