One Year Later: Was I Too Harsh On 1989 (Taylor's Version)?

I did indeed Shake It Off.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) holds a special place in my heart because it was one of the very first stories I published here. Likewise, I can’t believe it’s been about a year since I went independent. What a wild ride it has been and thank you to everyone who’ve sent me emails, interacted on social media, and most importantly—subscribed. I love you all.

Anyways, I’m going to try something different with my one year recap. I think by now most people know this album, even if it was the older version. What I want to do instead is get into the production side of things as it was one of my biggest complaints for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) when it first came out. I went (probably too far) in-depth with my original coverage of 1989 (Taylor’s Version). If you haven’t read that, read it and then come back. No rush, I’ll wait.

For today, I wanted to dive into what it’s like listening to 1989 (Taylor’s Version) a year later.

Mastering

I think the biggest overarching thing I noticed right away is that Taylor’s Version (TV) of this album played into the loudness war game when the original didn’t. Almost every track on this album is brick walled with very little dynamic range. I’d go a step further and say that TV is flat.

On this version of the album, there’s no such thing as ear candies. Every single track on the master is cranked up. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means you can hear all the various details while you play the album in your car driving at highway speeds. But it just means that there’s not much room to breathe if the production team wanted to do some fun layering or anything like that. It just means everyone can hear everything, regardless of the environment. Nothing stands out. Everything is in the same metaphorical space.

The best way to describe loudness wars in layman’s terms is that everything is equally loud (or quiet, depending on how you see it I suppose). The drums are as loud as the bass, which is as loud as the vocals.

Another way to think about it… close your eyes. Listen to any track. Notice how everything seems to be leveled. Whereas, on the original (“stolen”) version of the album, if you play the same track there’s more space. The bass may seem like it sits slightly higher than the kick drum, and a hi-hat might sound like it’s above everything else. Even though it’s not a Spatial/Atmos mix, and a standard stereo mix, a good master should have a level of X and Y depth, even if it’s missing the Z. Sorry if that confused some of y’all more than it helped. I’m not sure if there’s a better way to explain it.

The other piece of this puzzle is compression. Not only did the mastering team strip dynamics, it also compressed most of everything as well. I think the combination of the two is what really makes this album sound much different than the original. A great example of this is Shake It Off. On Taylor’s Version, this track really sounds like it was recorded in a box. In addition to the gain for loudness, there are some very obvious compression artifacts. Blank Space is another example. It sounds like the synths were artificially compressed and sound slightly distorted. But I can’t quite decipher if that’s because of compression or the track being mastered too hot. Y’all will have to let me know.

Vocal Performance

Credit where credit is due. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was likely recorded while she was touring. That’s a lot of dedication and work when you consider her tour runs three hours a night for at least three, four, or sometimes five nights at every stop.

Obviously, the biggest takeaway is that her vocals are substantially more mature. You’d sure hope they are. The original album was recorded in 2014, while the rerecord was done nearly a decade later. Swifties will know that once all the re-records are done, her oldest album will be Lover, which was released in 2019.

But beyond maturity, I have to give props to her being able to record everything exactly like it was before. All the runs, ad-libs, and vocals are all done exceptionally well. Of course, there are going to be some mistakes here and there. But that comes with re-recordings.

However, again, my issue is the mastering of it all. It’s not a dynamics or compression thing here. It’s a sound staging problem. Her backing vocals, while excellent, just blend into her main vocals a lot more. Whereas, in the original recordings, you could really sit there and dissect the different layers of her vocals. For example, in Blank Space, her backing vocals feel a lot closer than they were in the original recording.

I understand it’s on trend to master for loudness, but it doesn’t mean I like it.

The Vault Tracks

My fellow Swifties might come after me for what I’m about to say but... I don’t love any of the vault tracks on this album. If I had to pick, I’d say, Say Don’t Go and Now That We Don’t Talk are my two favorites of the five vault tracks. The other three don’t really stand out for me and are hardly in rotation.

And that sucks purely because I actually love the production on the vault tracks. Unlike the main album, these tracks didn’t get crushed to death by loudness and have a lot of dynamic range, space, and depth. But as a whole, I don’t really vibe with the vault tracks on 1989 (Taylor’s Version).

But I wouldn’t say they’re bad tracks. We can’t all relate to Taylor all the time. For example, I love every vault track on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). That’s a no-skip album for me, and that includes the vault tracks.

I just think sonically the 1989 TV vault tracks are outliers. In my mind, I can completely understand why these tracks didn’t make the original release.

Conclusion

Despite everything I just said, I do genuinely love listening to this album even with all of its so-called “quirks.” At the end of the day, every mastering engineer is different. Regardless of how skilled you are, it’s nearly impossible to recreate the same sound twice. If anything, I could just be showing my age. Most modern pop albums are recorded "hot" and are brick-walled. That’s just the industry. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is just another one of them. And that makes perfect sense.

Most people listen to music in their cars while driving to work or with Bluetooth headphones out and about. I understand that I’m a vocal minority. Most people don’t have a quiet listening environment and sonically treated rooms.

Change is always hard. But, at this point, I’ve just gotten used to the mastering and production. If anything, her more modern and mature vocals really carry this album in my opinion. I may harp on the production decisions, but it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy listening to the album. I do. Especially casually, I love jamming out to this album while driving to the grocery store or picking up my partner from work. It plays well, and there’s a reason why it exploded when it first came out.

We all love Taylor’s first real pop album. It’s her most recognizable album and most people know at least a few tracks from this album, even if they don’t usually listen to Taylor’s music. That’s just a testament to how great this album really is.