User:Ippantekina/1989

Critical reception
When 1989 was first released, music critics gave it generally positive reviews. On Metacritic, a review aggregator site that compiles reviews from mainstream publications and assigns a weighted average score out of 100, 1989 received a score of 76 that was based on 29 reviews. AnyDecentMusic? compiled 28 reviews and gave the album a score of 7.4 out of 10.

Most critics agreed that the 1980s synth-pop production was an experiment for Swift, but they were divided on its outcome.

For some critics, Swift's musical evolution eroded her songwriting authenticity because they associated pop music with its "capitalist" values that contrasted with country music's emphasis on authenticity.

Most reviewers highlighted Swift's mature perception of love and heartbreak. The A.V. Club's Marah Eakin praised her shift from overtly romantic struggles to more positive themes of accepting and celebrating the moment. Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph commended the album's "[sharp] observation and emotional engagement" that contrasted with lyrics found in "commercialised pop". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian lauded Swift's artistic control that resulted in a "perfectly attuned" 1980s-styled synth-pop authenticity.

The album's 1980s synth-pop production divided critics. In an enthusiastic review, The New York Times critic Jon Caramanica complimented Swift's avoidance of contemporary hip hop/R&B crossover trends, writing, "Ms. Swift is aiming somewhere even higher, a mode of timelessness that few true pop stars...even bother aspiring to." Writing for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield characterized the record as "deeply weird, feverishly emotional, wildly enthusiastic". In a review published by Cuepoint, Robert Christgau applauded her departure from country to experiment with new styles, but felt this shift was not radical. NME reviewer Matthew Horton considered Swift's transition to pop "a success", save for the inclusion of the "soft-rock mush" of "This Love" and "Clean". Shane Kimberlin writing for musicOMH deemed Swift's transition to pop on 1989 "not completely successful", but praised her lyrics for incorporating "enough heart and personality", which he found rare in the mainstream pop scene.

Slant Magazine's Annie Galvin observed that Swift maintained the clever songwriting that had distinguished her earlier releases, but was disappointed with the new musical style. Entertainment Weekly's Adam Markovitz and Spin Andrew Unterberger were critical of the heavy synthesizers, which undermined Swift's conventionally vivid lyrics. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "a sparkling soundtrack to an aspirational lifestyle" that fails to transcend the "transient transparencies of modern pop". Mikael Wood, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, found the album inauthentic, but acknowledged her effort to emulate the music of an era she did not experience.