STACK #147 Jan 2017

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)

Michael Dwyer considers the additions of Taylor Swift's first two albums to her enormously popular vinyl catalogue. TAYLOR SWIFT

T he girl in the second hand 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 electronics store was maybe 14 years old. She had no idea

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

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

Taylor Swift 2006

Speak Now 2010

1989 2014

Fearless 2008

Red 2012

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