1989

TITLE SIGNIFICANCE
The idea to name the album 1989 came to Taylor in a dream on January 27, 2014. In an interview later that year, she explained:

“It was the night of the Grammys this year. […] I remember going home and playing a lot of the new music I had recorded for some of my backup singers and one of my best friends. We were all sitting in the kitchen and I was playing them all this music, and they were just saying, ‘You know, this is very eighties. It’s very clear to us that this is so eighties.’ We were just talking and talking about how it’s kind of a rebirth in a new genre, how that’s a big bold step, how, kind of, starting a part of your career over. When they left that night, I just had this very clear moment of, ‘it’s gotta be called 1989.’” — Taylor Swift

She also said the following on the inspiration behind this record:

“I was listening to a lot of late 80s pop…I really loved the chances they were taking, how bold it was. It was apparently a time of limitless potential, the idea you could do what you want be what you want…the idea of endless possibilities was kind of a theme in the last two years of my life.” — Taylor Swift

WRITING AND RECORDING
Following the release of her fourth studio album, RED, and its corresponding tour, Taylor was “six months deep in the songwriting process.” In November 2013, the singer told Billboard: “There are probably seven or eight [songs] that I know I want on the record. It’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted.” During the promotion for the album, Taylor said that she “woke up every single day not wanting, but needing to make a new style of music than I’d ever made before”. Taylor explained in a January 2015 interview that she was “very proud” that she made a pop album because she “wanted to”, and “there was no-one else influencing” her.

In February 2014, Taylor confirmed she was again working with Martin and Shellback, with whom she had collaborated for the writing of three songs on RED. This time, they were writing “a lot more than three songs together.” Taylor’s friend Jack Antonoff, with whom she had previously collaborated on the song “Sweeter Than Fiction“, and Ryan Tedder also worked on the album. Antonoff co-wrote and co-produced the songs “Out Of The Woods”, “I Wish You Would” and “You Are in Love“, with the third track only appearing on the United States Target, Target Canada, and international deluxe version. Tedder co-wrote and co-produced two songs with Taylor — “I Know Places” and “Welcome To New York” — after she contacted Tedder through a smartphone voice memo. Tedder then began working on a demo for “I Know Places” on his tour bus while in Switzerland. The pair scheduled studio time soon after and recorded the song.

In September 2014, Taylor told Rolling Stone that one of the songs on the album was taken “straight from the pages of my journal”; although the name of the song is unknown, Taylor mentioned “Out Of The Woods” as part of her interview response. In regard to “Out Of The Woods”, Antonoff said: “Part of it reads like a diary, and parts of it read like something 100,000 people should be screaming all together. It’s got these very big lines that everybody can relate to, which are given weight by her being really honest about personal things.” “Out Of The Woods” marked the first time that Taylor had written a song over an existing track — Antonoff sent an early version of the song to Taylor, who then added vocals and lyrics within a 30-minute time frame.

MUSIC COMPOSITION AND INFLUENCE
When Taylor first announced the album on August 18, 2014, she described it as her “first documented, official pop album”, stating that she was inspired by late 1980s pop during the recording period. Musically, 1989 is a synthpop and dance-pop album that features more electronic production than her previous releases. The album contains drum programming and synthesizers provided by Martin, and the production is backed by a pulsating bass (Yamaha DX7), processed backing vocals, and guitars, the latter of which provide “texture”, as described by Jem Aswad of Billboard, who states that “an acoustic [guitar] is audible on just one song.”

Taylor described 1989 as the most “sonically cohesive” studio album she ever made. In an interview with Kiss FM (UK), she confirmed that the title was inspired by the music developed in her birth year, 1989, which she had re-discovered during the making of this album. In September 2014, Taylor told Rolling Stone Magazine that Martin, New York City, her journal, Fine Young Cannibals and a sense of experimentation were the key influences underpinning the album. In relation to experimentation, Taylor elaborated on the music of the 1980s:

“It [the 1980s] was a very experimental time in pop music…People realized songs didn’t have to be this standard drums-guitar-bass-whatever. We can make a song with synths and a drum pad. We can do group vocals the entire song. We can do so many different things. And I think what you saw happening with music was also happening in our culture, where people were just wearing whatever crazy colors they wanted to, because why not? There just seemed to be this energy about endless opportunities, endless possibilities, endless ways you could live your life. And so with this record, I thought, “There are no rules to this. I don’t need to use the same musicians I’ve used, or the same band, or the same producers, or the same formula. I can make whatever record I want.” — Taylor Swift