My interpretation from the classic Ryan Adams album “1989”
https://t.co/YUsqkaZGjF
— FATHER JOHN MISTY (@fatherjohnmisty) September 21, 2015
Ryan Adams’ full-album tribute to Taylor Swift’s 1989 is out digitally today, and the two artists went on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show to talk about the project, their past collaboration history, and Adams’ forthcoming double-album. But one person hasn’t taken the long view of the project, and that’s former Fleet Foxes drummer Joshua Tillman, better known as Father John Misty (whose excellent second album I Love You, Honeybear came out in February). To share his feelings about the project, he took to Twitter with the news that he’d covered Adams’ versions of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and “Welcome To New York,” complete with album art peeled from The Velvet Underground’s debut album. And they’re not exactly laudatory gestures.
Tillman’s versions are basically Lou Reed homages (the melody on “Blank Space” is a riff on The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For The Man”). And there’s a little dash of Bob Dylan in there, which is a stylistic burden Adams has been carrying from decades of reviews citing his prolific output. Well, the joke’s on you, Mr. Tillman, because the more Taylor Swift covers—even ones specifically recorded to needle other folkish rock artists—the better. You know what they say, “the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” and it’s likely Swift and Adams will just shake this off—if they even listen at all.
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For a hot minute there, Ryan Adams’ cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989 was starting to look like vaporware. After the rocker heavily promoted the project with a flurry of tweets and Instagrams, things suddenly went quiet a couple weeks back. Was this thing going to be the Chinese Democracy of cross-genre cover projects? Then, last week, hope emerged. The singer announced on Instagram that the album would soon be available for pre-order on iTunes—and he teased the final product by playing his version of “Bad Blood” on Beats 1. Adams’ 1989 finally dropped today (or late last night, depending on your time zone). We asked WIRED’s Senior Taylor Swift Correspondent, Jordan Crucchiola, and Resident Ryan Adams Aficionado, K.M. McFarland, to give their snap judgements of the album track by track.
“Welcome to New York”
Jordan Crucchiola: This one was especially tough for me to get behind. “New York” is the introduction to the actual 1989, which I almost always play from front to back, and I’m so used to the gleeful, bouncy synths greeting me that I miss them here. The sound Adams constructed is definitely pretty, but the track lacks the anthemic eagerness that Swift intended.
K.M. McFarland: I’ve always found this song to be a touch too robotic, like Swift didn’t really get a feel for the sound of New York before making an anthem about moving there. So Adams’ version, which turns down a jangly, Springsteen-esque avenue, is a good way to kick off the album. Just like it immediately signaled that Taylor was making a straight pop record, it grounds everybody right away in what Adams will be doing to nudge the material back towards a more Nashville-friendly sound. Considering Adams has referenced Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska as an influence on his approach to 1989, this makes a lot of sense.
“Blank Space”
Jordan Crucchiola: The finger-picking intro to this track is so lovely I desperately want it to be a different song, because it just doesn’t quite work as “Blank Space.” There’s also some beautiful string layering that comes in about halfway through that makes me tear up it’s so stirring, but the lack of Taylor’s rally cry chorus and the missing bridge—probably her best on all of 1989—leave such gaping holes the remake can’t fulfill the promise of the original.
K.M. McFarland: Ryan Adams’ best-known cover is probably his beautiful version of Oasis’ massive hit “Wonderwall.” It’s so good that even Noel Gallagher said Adams “is the only person who ever got that song right.” Giving “Blank Space” the same finger-picking treatment doesn’t work as well (though it’s a clever choice for such a high-profile pop banger), since it comes off a little too much like a subway busker. And Jordan is absolutely right—cutting that excellent bridge also didn’t help.
“Style”
Jordan Crucchiola: Somehow, Adams managed to create his own pining urgency in this song that manages to equal Swift’s. It’s her most sexually charged track to date, and Adams fills it with a separate but equal kind of burning desire. I don’t prefer it to the original “Style”—a truly superior pop song—but I do think he understood and reimagined her intentions just right. Well played, Adams.
K.M. McFarland: I have absolutely no problem with Adams cutting the Nile Rodgers guitar strum pattern in favor of a punky drumroll intro to each verse. Making this song a countrified barnburner as it builds to the chorus is a pretty great idea.
“Out of the Woods”
Jordan Crucchiola: Much more than 1989′s lead single “Shake It Off,” “Woods” broadcast the Jack Antonoff-contructed wall-of-1980s-sound that would define the album. Adams’ choice to tack on two full minutes of lush instrumentals to close the song was a great one. “Woods” was meant to establish a sound, and Adams uses the track to let you live inside the one he has created. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the original—and one of the best here, too.
K.M. McFarland: This is one of the more laborious songs on 1989 for me because while it has a driving beat, it’s not all that hook-y. So I was initially super hesitant to see that Adams made it even longer at just over six minutes. But it’s actually a rather ingenious stylistic choice, turning a Phil Collins-era Genesis drum reverb track into a waltz with an extended instrumental outro that would never fly in a pop single. Not my favorite song on the record, but it stands out because of Adams’ left-field approach.
“All You Had to Do Was Stay”
Jordan Crucchiola: I love the verses to this song in Taylor’s version, but the high-pitched interjections of “Staaaay” never quite jibed with my sensibilities. Adams’ pacing here and move away from the wild vocal jumps is a welcome adjustment. Lord don’t strike me down for saying so, but this take on “Stay” is a slight improvement on the original for me.
K.M. McFarland: After only a few listens, this is absolutely my favorite of Adams’ re-workings. The persistent drums, the ringing guitar strums on the one through the verses, Ryan’s playful vocal track. It’s the most straightforward pop/rock cover, and it retains the most catchiness from one of the most underrated tracks on the album. I totally agree that this is probably the one track where Adams manages to surpass the original.
“Shake It Off”
Jordan Crucchiola: I see how this accomplishes what Adams set out to achieve sonically. It’s like hearing “I’m on Fire” with the word “haters” thrown in, and that’s kind of amazing. But Adams singing “shake it off” over and over and over again with increasing fervor is too distracting to enjoy. Had he just stopped singing and let the song play out with an extra long coda like he did with “Out of the Woods” it would have been a slum dunk, but as it stands, hearing a grown-man gripe about players playing is too silly to get behind.
K.M. McFarland: This offers one of the best studies in contrasts on the record. Swift’s version is “Hey Mickey” cheerleader chanting mixed with “Hey Ya.” But Adams’ version is lower-energy and makes the lyrics even more introspective, like the narrator of the song is talking to him/herself in an empty room. Not as much of an earworm, but certainly a distinctive take.
“I Wish You Would”
Jordan Crucchiola: This is a great song, and along with “Clean” and “Stay” rounds out my top three. The thing to remember is that Swift is first and foremost a storyteller. As you sing along to her songs you can watch the mini-movies being created in your head, and I can fully envision the Adams “Wish You Would” short film playing out as this song develops. The intention is right. The sound is right. It’s all just right.
K.M. McFarland: Holy Jack Antonoff does the Swift version have too much going on with the guitar delay syncopation. Give me Adams’ far more wistful version, which sounds like he’s alone at last call finishing a glass of whiskey.
“Bad Blood”
Jordan Crucchiola: It’s a shame Adams didn’t try to incorporate Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics into his version of “Bad Blood.” This is another example of a great-sounding song that just can’t embody the intended spirit of the original. The whole point of “Bad Blood” is scream singing and imagining that person you don’t like standing across from you. Adams made a really nice lamentation about adults dealing with conflict, but I hear this song and I just want a good cat fight. It’s not you, Ryan. It’s me.
K.M. McFarland: And we’ve reached the point where Adams’ tight recording turnaround starts to highlight some minor weaknesses. This is a fantastic demo for what a fully-produced cover could sound like, full of great ideas—like the outro guitar lick hovering over the din. But the vocal track is touch-and-go, and it could use more backup singers to fill out what is a fantastic chorus. It’s the second-best song on Adams’ record, but it’s also one that shows the most signs of being rushed by the nature of the project.
“Wildest Dreams”
Jordan Crucchiola: The lyric switching here really threw me for a loop, but once I adjusted I really appreciated Adams’ interpretation of this song, which is one of Taylor’s absolute best on the album. People who don’t think they like Taylor Swift like this song, and Adams takes the chorus up in this Roy Orbison-y kind of way that makes me wish I could hear an entire Roy Orbison version of 1989. It’s not as sexy as Swift’s original, but it is as dreamy in its own way.
K.M. McFarland: How do we feel about gender-switching lyrics in cover songs? I’m not staunchly opposed to it, but for some reason, it bothered me here. Nobody is mistaking his covers of Taylor Swift to be his own words, so I just don’t understand the logic behind why he’d change a single lyric and not just sing them like character songs. Other than that, it’s a pleasant cover that injects some energy into a pop ballad.
“How You Get the Girl”
Jordan Crucchiola: Considering this is the song that makes the least sense on Taylor’s album—it sounds a lot more like a Fearless track than a 1989 one— “Get the Girl” actually benefits a lot from this cover. Adams isn’t doing anything exceptional here, but his version would have fit better on the real album than the one Taylor made. Weird. But also, thanks, Ryan Adams!
K.M. McFarland: Perhaps the most quintessential Taylor Swift track on 1989, in that it sounds like it could’ve come from any of her previous records, “Girl” turns out to also be one of the toughest to cover. This version has nothing to really make it a Ryan Adams track, so it ends up sounding a bit like Jimmy Fallon doing his Neil Young impression.
“This Love”
Jordan Crucchiola: Damn this is sad! Like if Taylor Swift had been 80 percent more drunk when she wrote “This Love” it would have descended to this level. In the original version, Taylor sounds like she is singing about her feelings from a cloud that’s 30,000 feet in the air. With Adams it sounds like his lover is in the process of driving him to the emergency room because she found him on the floor surrounded by pills. The considerably slower pace also gives greater attention to Swift’s lyrics, which have a beautiful pain she doesn’t often get credit for. Adams’ “This Love” makes me like Taylor’s even more, and for that I’m a big fan.
K.M. McFarland: Turning this into a solo piano ballad reveals the inadvertent work Adams accomplishes with his full-album covers project. In general, Taylor Swift—like other pop artists with younger fanbases—gets pigeonholed as trivial and unworthy of critical analysis. But Adams’ covers are nothing if not wholly serious, proving that the underlying foundation of Swift’s songs merit this kind of meticulous attention. “This Love” is mournful but unspectacular in Adams’ hands, but it highlights the larger merits of this endeavor.
“I Know Places”
Jordan Crucchiola: Adams promised a “sort of western movie/greaser vibe” when he originally posted a clip for “I Know Places,” and while the result certainly delivers on that promise it’s a largely forgettable number. That’s too bad, because it was a totally cool idea! Swift presents “Places” with more edge in her voice than she does on almost any other 1989 track. It feels urgent and it feels like she’s really fucking annoyed by those paparazzi. The whole thing is powered by the sly smile you can imagine her flashing as she sings, and Adams just doesn’t have anything comparable to that here.
K.M. McFarland: Adams employs a unique blend of country western cinematics (think a Robert Rodriguez soundtrack) and latin guitar on the verses, but the chorus sounds generic. This is where Swift working with a handful of different producers helps, because every few tracks there is a song that sounds wildly different from the bulk of the album. Adams, condensing his version down to a limited number of sessions, didn’t have that luxury, and this song is one of the casualties.
“Clean”
Jordan Crucchiola: Of all the tracks on offer here I think “Clean” is the most believably translated by Adams. It sounds like he could have written this song, even if it is Taylor’s most personal effort on the album, and as such I liked hearing him deliver these lyrics more than any of the others. Sonically it was one of his least interesting takes, but I wanted to sing along with him, and that’s the clincher for any Taylor track.
K.M. McFarland: I feel almost exactly the same about “Clean” as I do about “I Know Places.” Taylor’s version is an unmistakable collaboration with Imogen Heap thanks to the production touches. But Adams’ version gets lost as maybe the sixth-best jangly sort-of country version of a Taylor Swift pop song.
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You now have permission to download, stream, and freak out.
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Pre-order #1989 beginning tonight at 9 pm pacific time. Get Bad Blood instantly on @AppleMusic CD +vinyl coming soon 13hrs til… #PaxAm #Stoked #MakeThings
A photo posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on
Sep 17, 2015 at 9:11am PDT
Ryan Adams woke up this morning and delivered a long-awaited present for Taylor Swift fans new and old. Accompanied by the hashtags #Stoked and #MakeThings, Adams announced via Instagram and Twitter that his madcap 1989 cover album will indeed be available for digital downloading on Apple Music starting Sept. 21, with CD and vinyl versions coming soon. Adams premiered his take on “Bad Blood” today on Apple’s Beats 1 radio with host Zane Lowe. But if you missed it you can get the track immediately by pre-ordering the album or listen to it below.
For her part, Swift has provided a countdown to Adams’ complete release next Monday.
Ryan’s music helped shape my songwriting. This is surreal and dreamlike.
Countdown to #RyanAdams1989
@TheRyanAdams pic.twitter.com/pGZB0uUqiB
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) September 17, 2015
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The @taylorswift13 #1989 update people been asking for is, it will have a final mix and master this week. : ) VSOON! pic.twitter.com/BreVPts8V3
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 24, 2015
Ryan Adams hadn’t posted an update about his 1989 sessions since Saturday and we were starting to fret. Maybe he took Sunday off to hang out with Taylor Swift while she’s doing her five-night stand at the Staples Center in Los Angeles? Or maybe he was just living his life? Either way, Adams posted this afternoon that he’ll have a final “mix and master” of the cover album done this week, which means get ready for the most turned down Taylor Swift listening experience of your life. We might be OK, but we’re not fine at all.
String section on the coda of @taylorswift13 “Out of the Woods” via @sectionquartet #1989- Almost finished!!! pic.twitter.com/GaI20nJtvt
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 22, 2015
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#1989 Cover sessions kick back into gear tonight…. Only 4 songs left!!! SO FUN! STOKED!!!… Clips later pic.twitter.com/xk3RhmHcMz
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 12, 2015
Singer-songwriter Ryan Adams is celebrating the last month of summer in style. Actually, he’s doing it with “Style.” And with “Shake It Off,” and “Out Of The Woods,” and the rest of Taylor Swift’s quintuple-platinum 1989 by covering the whole damn thing. It all kicked off on August 5 when Adams posted to his Instagram and Twitter that he was reimagining Swift’s latest release “As played by the Smiths.”
Taylor Swift 1989 full album cover night 1. As played by the Smiths. W @totally_tod @cstavish @natelotz A photo posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on
Aug 5, 2015 at 10:57pm PDT
Intriguing, sure. But fans of either artist couldn’t have expected the deluge that followed. First came the pictures of lyrics marked up in a dim recording studio, promising the “saddest version of “Welcome to New York” ever” and a “Deep end smiths vibe” version of “Blank Space”.
Guaranteed saddest version of Welcome to New York ever – or your tears back
A photo posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on
Aug 5, 2015 at 10:58pm PDT
#2 Blank Space… Deep end smiths vibe A photo posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on
Aug 6, 2015 at 12:30am PDT
And when Hasief Ardiasyah, an associate editor for Rolling Stone Indonesia, tweeted at Taylor about Adams’ project, she weighed in.
@hasief @TheRyanAdams is this true??????? I WILL PASS OUT.
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 6, 2015
The first song to get an audio tease was “Welcome To New York”—and all month long since then, Adams has been posting clip after clip of more Adam-ized Taylor tunes. There’s no word yet as to how Adams will distribute the project, but in the meantime, here are all the clips he’s posted from his personal 1989 sessions.
Welcome to NY @taylorswift13 pic.twitter.com/XkiORLfnH9
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 6, 2015
“Out Of The Woods” as a waltz
Hey @taylorswift13 What a song. Wow. pic.twitter.com/MRVhhGTdKl — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 7, 2015
Out of the Woods. Done. Epic Coda has 4 guitars!! Now on to “All You Had To Do Is Stay” #1989 @taylorswift13 SO FUN pic.twitter.com/E5hNaXmSF7
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 7, 2015
“All You Had To Do Was Stay” as heard on the Eddie & the Cruisers Part 3: Reverb Police soundtrack #1989 pic.twitter.com/TTYOnC9qT1 — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 7, 2015
“Shake It Off” arranged in the style of “I’m On Fire”
Shake It Off ( right before the coda ) #1989 @taylorswift13 pic.twitter.com/6JtTCj2Bc8
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 8, 2015
Adams’ favorite 1989 tracks, “Bad Blood” and “Wildest Dreams”, got extra love.
Bad Blood @taylorswift13 Unreal song, Taylor. Wow pic.twitter.com/drHgFcxfZy — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 9, 2015
Bad Blood @taylorswift13 jam This is me and @totally_tod playin a chimney guitar coda Gonna sound so good w strings pic.twitter.com/vESRvYJPsn
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 9, 2015
Wildest Dreams…. #1989 @taylorswift13 ; ) pic.twitter.com/DcwesUUUDw — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 13, 2015
Wildest Dreams… @taylorswift #1989 Can’t wait too add Strings… Also has a surprise coda : )
A video posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on
Aug 12, 2015 at 7:47pm PDT
“I Know Places” even got a “sort of western movie/ greaser vibe” added to it.
“I Know Places” #1989 @taylorswift13 this song is a battleship of a song. Rad pic.twitter.com/worYPjLvIF — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 14, 2015
Guitar coda of “I Know Places” … Well, the beginning part anyway #1989 @taylorswift13 pic.twitter.com/C0nhDp68GP
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 14, 2015
Adams posted that he was finished tracking the album on August 14 and followed that by saying the mixing process was under way. Three days later he had the whole project to a rough mix stage and kept dropping more clips.
Sneak peek of “Style” @taylorswift13 #1989 Whole record has a rough mix now!!!! pic.twitter.com/AjwMd5BVKO — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 18, 2015
Blank Space clip @taylorswift13 #1989 : ) pic.twitter.com/1aaz46U4Ui
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 18, 2015
Nate Walcott is a genius. Holy moly. Piano vibes on @taylorswift13 Shake it off #1989 icing pic.twitter.com/9H42p0TGsP — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 19, 2015
Recording strings on Blank Space @taylorswift13 #1989 @sectionquartet I love this! pic.twitter.com/cTaYCwvCNc
— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 20, 2015
And don’t worry, “New Romantics” fans, he promised not to leave out the bonus tracks.
@TheRyanAdams @taylorswift13 yall r welcome. Art done. pic.twitter.com/D3N11MnaRv — Pete Lindberg (@peteontheipad) August 13, 2015
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Father John Misty Is Not a Fan of Ryan Adams’ 1989