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11
T
he girl in the second hand
electronics store was maybe
14 years old. She had no idea
where to start, but a certain air of
steely resolve
–
arms folded, feet
planted, eyes fixed to the warm
glow and flickering needles of VU
meters
–
brought the guy from
the counter pretty quick.
"I'm starting to collect records,"
she told him. She only had a
couple of hundred dollars to
spend, but here in vintage hi-fi
heaven, where reconditioned
boxes of sleek chrome and
polished wood-panelling piled
from floor to ceiling, the guy was
pretty sure he could get her on
her way.
Now, maybe she'd been
inspired by a crate of jazz-fusion
albums she found in the hard
rubbish. Perhaps her parents had
a dusty stash of '80s electro-pop
12-inches or beer-stained punk
LPs she'd been curious about.
Hell, maybe she was already
in
a band, and the first record
she owned was her own test
pressing.
But the fact that Taylor Swift's
1989
had recently creamed vinyl
sales charts around the world
was, at the very least, a sign of
the same strange retro-wave
rolling against the relentless
digital tide.
Swift had taken a political
stand, of course, against the evil
streaming empire of Spotify (and
then jumped on a more lucrative
offer from Apple Music, but that’s
another story), so the appearance
of her earlier albums on vinyl fits
her "music has substance and
value" narrative like a Giuseppe
Zanotti patent leather ankle boot.
Pressed on precious black plastic
for the first time are her self-titled
debut of 2006 and
Fearless
from
2008
–
the 19-track
Platinum
Edition
, naturally. They join
Speak
Now
and
Red
(2010, 2012), each
repackaged as a heavy double-
disc set in a thick gatefold cover
that basically rejigs the CD
booklet, microscopic lyrics and all.
"To all the boys who thought
they would be cool and break my
heart, guess what?" she scribbles
by way of personal introduction
and career manifesto on that first
album. "Here are 14 songs written
about you. HA."
The laugh rings long and lilting
from the steel twang, fiddle and
banjo of that clean-cut country
debut (
Tim McGraw
,
Teardrops
On My Guitar
,
Our Song
), then a
Michael Dwyer considers the additions of Taylor Swift's first
two albums to her enormously popular vinyl catalogue.
TAYLOR SWIFT
purposeful drift into the modern
pop processing of
We Are Never
Ever Getting Back Together
and
I Knew You Were Trouble
. Phew.
That's a whole lifetime for six-
year-olds.
Her theme, as we know, has
barely wavered through all her
subsequent conquests, though
her sense of humour has grown
more evident in the liner notes
("To all the boys who inspired this
album; you should've known,"
reads another), as well as in her
lyrics.
Check out the vivid wedding
day carnage of
Speak Now
if you
doubt her genius as a storyteller.
And you'd need a pretty forgetful
heart not to feel a certain
timeless teenaged twinge in
images like "We’re on the phone
and you talk real slow / ’cause it’s
late and your mama don’t know".
What’s sadly lacking in these
catch-up LP pressings is some of
the glossy gimmicks that added
so much value to pop albums
back in the day. Surely Taylor Swift
fans would relish a giant foldout
poster of their virtual bff in all her
radiant blonde glory? How about
a cut-out dartboard embellished
by hearts and flowers, suitable
for mounting photos of
ex-boyfriends?
Whatever. Maybe Instagram
has replaced bedroom walls
in 2016. But in amongst the
perennial classics led by Bowie
and the Beatles, it's heartening
to see Swift's
1989
still among
JB's biggest-selling vinyl releases
of the past year (it sits at #8; see
over the page for the full chart).
Somewhere out there, at least
one of her ex-boyfs must be totes
spewing for letting her slip away.
(Universal)
Taylor Swift
2006
Fearless
2008
Speak Now
2010
Red
2012
1989
2014