Red by Taylor Swift
Red is the fourth studio album by American singer Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22, 2012 through Big Machine Records, as the follow-up to her commercially successful 2010 album Speak Now. It was announced through Swift's live webchat on August 13, 2012, in which she revealed the album title and album cover, and answered fan questions. Four promotional singles were released in the month leading up to the album release, three of which debuted inside the top ten of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The album features collaborations with new producers and guest artists such as Gary Lightbody and Ed Sheeran, and sees Swift experimenting with new musical genres. The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", was a worldwide commercial success, topping the iTunes charts all over the world and selling 623,000 copies in the first week, becoming Swift's first ever Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper after vaulting from 72 to number one and staying atop for three weeks. The second single, "Begin Again", was released on October 1. "I Knew You Were Trouble" was released as the third official single (promoted, like "Begin Again", from promotional single status) on November 27, 2012, becoming one of Swift's highest charting singles in both the UK and the US. "22" will be released as the fourth single from the album in March 2013. Red has also spawned three other promotional singles, all of which reached top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Red has been mostly acclaimed by music critics, who praised Swift's versatility as a musician and enjoyed her experiments with new music genres. Red sold 1,208,000 copies in its first week in the U.S., debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, the second-highest debut for a female artist, behind Oops!... I Did It Again by Britney Spears. Red is also Swift's first chart-topper in the U.K., and also topped the album charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. The album sold 1.89 million copies in its first three weeks, surpassing One Direction's Up All Night as the second biggest-selling album of the year in the U.S.
After re-recording her 2008 album <i>Fearless</i> as part of a sweeping effort to regain control of her master tapes—or at least create new ones—Taylor Swift presents <i>Red (Taylor’s Version)</i>, an expanded take on her 2012 blockbuster that features nine never-before-released songs written in the same era as the original.<br /> “Musically and lyrically, <i>Red</i> resembled a heartbroken person,” she wrote in a letter to fans. “It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”<br /> The hot-blooded breakup anthems you know and love are still there (“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble” are two), but the new, full collection paints an even richer portrait of heartbreak. She wrestles with change on “Nothing New”, an alt-rock duet with Phoebe Bridgers; contemplates fate on a wistful pop song produced by Max Martin and Shellback (“Message in a Bottle”); and gets the final, piercing word on “I Bet You Think About Me” featuring Chris Stapleton, penned after a high-profile breakup in 2011. Long-time fans will be especially glad to see an extended cut of “All Too Well”, the project’s emotional centrepiece. It features new production from hitmaker Jack Antonoff, but Swift’s original lyrical genius is still remarkable. “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest,” she sings. It’s the line she’s always said she’s most proud of from this album and era. Ten years on, it still cuts deep.
