Taylor Swift shakes off everything – from criticism about her songs, her hair, and her love life – by continually changing her music style while still keeping herself original. Unlike her previous work, her current album, 1989, is built on drum programming, synthesizers, and a pulsating bass.  The seven time Grammy award winner is keeping it quirky and relatable to most teens with her catchy, yet deeply personal self-penned songs. It’s her 5^th studio album and the title was inspired by the pop music scene of her birth year.

1989 was expected to be another great album by Swift, as it was greatly anticipated by her fans and even some of her celebrity friends, like Lucy Hale and BFF Selena Gomez, who immediately bought the entire album and shared it on Instagram. Swift’s previous album, “Red” was a huge hit selling 1.21 million copies in its first week and debuting at number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. So the expectations were higher for this album.

Swift confirmed the first song release “Shake It Off” on August 13 during an interview on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and released it via Yahoo live stream with the song’s music video on the same day. It features professional dancers, Taylor Swift, and several fans who were picked from her personal Instagram. The song and the album received positive reviews by Rolling Stone, especially for her use of the acoustic guitar in the album.  It’s catchy, it’s groovy, and the rhythm will make you want to move. I think what makes it catchy is that she talks about break-ups which a lot of her audience can relate to.

Her second single and video, “Blank Space” was released on November 10. The song is dedicated toward her ex-lovers and obviously to let everyone know how she deals with all of her break ups and what’s going on in her mind as they happen. In the video, she argues with her boyfriend and acts up when she realizes he’s become distant. She breaks his car lights and stabs his self-portraits; she looks crazy. Through the lyrics, she makes fun of the break up and assures her now ex-boyfriend he’ll just be another one on her list.

The rest of the album is really good and it’ll probably provide many hit songs like her others have. “Wildest Dreams” and “How to Steal the Girl” are my favorites, other than “Shake it off” which even at this point can get cliché but is still enjoyable. Swift’s ability to draw inspiration from her life creates a strong bond with her fans, which she couples with her ability to write catchy lyrics and rhythms, which makes her the current pop queen.

This album sold 1.2 million copies in the United States by the end of the first week. It broke her own personal records and became the nineteenth album to sell over a million copies in a single week and she is now the first artist to have three albums sell a million or more copies in a week. Swift will embark on the album’s supporting tour, The 1989 World Tour which will kick off in Louisiana on May 20, 2015, the tour will hit North America and he Europe before heading to Australia in December 2015. Overall the record to me is a 10/10.