The new Taylor Swift is ... good?

Photo from her Facebook page

I KNOW! I AM SURPRISED TOO!

I am one of what seems to be only 6 music writers who haven't been taken by Taylor Swift's work up until this date, but that changes with Red. It's not because she's finally put out a piece of art. It's because she's dropped all pretense of country and struck straight for the deep red jugular of pure pop music.

Swift's album is mostly just terrific, actually. The only missteps are when she grabs at tropes (dubste? really?) that will obviously not age well and date those articular songs horribly. But the majority is good enough that I suspect it'll still sound pretty good to me a year from now, or even ten. And that's usually a sign that the album's pretty, pretty good.

Keep it up Taylor.