Red (Taylor Swift Album) from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
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Red (Taylor Swift album) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Red Studio album by Taylor Swift Released October 22, 2012 Recorded 2010–12 Country [1] Genre pop rock [2] Length 65:11 Label Big Machine Producer Scott Borchetta (exec.) Nathan Chapman Jeff Bhasker Dann Huff Jacknife Lee Max Martin Shellback Taylor Swift Butch Walker Dan Wilson Taylor Swift chronology Speak Now Red 1989 (2010) (2012) (2014) Singles from Red 1. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" Released: August 13, 2012 2. "Begin Again" Released: October 1, 2012 3. "I Knew You Were Trouble" Released: November 27, 2012 4. "22" Released: March 12, 2013 5. "Red" Released: June 21, 2013 6. "Everything Has Changed" Released: July 16, 2013 7. "The Last Time" Released: November 4, 2013 Red is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22, 2012, by Big Machine Records, as the follow-up to her third studio album, Speak Now (2010). The album title was inspired by the "semi-toxic relationships" that Swift experienced during the process of conceiving this album, which Swift described the emotions she felt as "red emotions" due to their intense and tumultuous nature. Red touches on Swift's signature themes of love and heartbreak, however, from a more mature perspective while exploring other themes such as fame and the pressure of being in the limelight. The album features collaborations with producers and guest artists such asGary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Ed Sheeran and is noted for Swift's experimentation with new musical genres. Swift completed The Red Tour in support of the album on June 12, 2014, which became the highest-grossing tour of all time by a country artist, grossing over $150 million. Praised by critics for Swift's versatility as a musician and her experiments with new music genres, straying from her usual country sounds, Swift received numerous awards and nominations for Red. At the 56th Grammy Awards, Redwas nominated for Best Country Album, giving Swift her third consecutive nomination in the category and the prestigious Album of the Year, marking Swift's second nomination for Album of the Year at the Grammys, following her 2010 victory with Fearless (2008). This gave Swift the distinction of being the first country act to be nominated twice in the Album of the Year category at the Grammys in the 2010s. Red debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, giving Swift her third consecutive chart topper in the US. Its first week sales of 1.21 million was the third biggest debut in history for a female artist and became the fastest-selling album in over a decade. It made music history for claiming the biggest first week sales of all time by a country act, the record previously held by Garth Brooks. Red is just the 18th album in United States history to sell one million copies in a single week. It was also a huge global success, becoming Swift's first chart-topper in the UK, and also topped the album charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand while charted in the top ten in every other major market including China. Worldwide, it has sold 6 million copies as of August 2014. Red became the best-selling country album of 2012, making it her third consecutive top-seller and the second best-seller overall across all genres despite being out only for two months. This makes the fourth time Swift has an album ranked in the year's top three sellers. Red has been certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making it Swift's fourth consecutive album to reach this plateau. Contents [hide] 1 Background and release 2 Critical response o 2.1 Accolades 3 Commercial performance o 3.1 North America o 3.2 Europe and Oceania 4 Promotion o 4.1 Singles o 4.2 Promotional singles 5 Track listing 6 Credits and personnel 7 Charts o 7.1 Weekly charts o 7.2 Year-end charts 8 Certifications 9 Release history 10 References 11 External links Background and release[edit] Swift during Red 's release week on Good Morning America in October 2012. On August 13, 2012, Swift gave a live webchat to over 72,500 viewers, in which she answered fan questions,[3] previewed the lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", and announced her fourth album's title as Red, as well as its release date.[3][4]Swift also revealed the meaning behind her album's title: All the different emotions that are written about on this album are all pretty much about the kind of tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships that I've experienced in the last two years. All those emotions — spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, all of that — in my mind, all those emotions are red. You know, there's nothing in between. There's nothing beige about any of those feelings.[3] During the live webchat, she also revealed that she wrote more than 30 songs for the album, of which she included 16 for the album and expressed that dysfunctional relationships can provide a lot of inspiration.[4] Contrary to her previous self-written album Speak Now (2010), Swift enlisted the help of several of her favorite songwriters.[5] In an interview with MTV News, the singer revealed that the album "is interesting because each song stands on its own. It's this patchwork quilt of different sounds and different emotions, and I don't think anything on the record sounds like We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together".[6] She also previewed songs from the album on Good Morning America every Monday, beginning on September 24 until October 15.[7] Swift performed on October 22 for the album's release, and the next day, she performed a live concert on the same show. [7] According to the singer she had spent over two years with the recording process, writing and preparation for the album.[8] Sarah Barlow shot the album's cover, which shows Swift's face, particularly her red lipstick.[9] The standard and deluxe versions of the album were released on October 22, 2012 in Italy, New Zealand, the United States, among others.[10][11][12] A karaoke version of the album was also released on February 5, 2013 on the iTunes Store, which includes the instrumental version from all tracks of its standard version.[13] Critical response[edit] Professional ratings Aggregate scores Source Rating Metacritic 77/100[14] Review scores Source Rating AllMusic [15] The A.V. Club B+[16] Billboard 86/100[17] Entertainment Weekly B+[18] The Guardian [19] Los Angeles Times [20] Robert Christgau A−[21] Rolling Stone [22] Spin 8/10[23] Sputnikmusic 2/5[24] 4/5[25] Red received generally positive reviews from music critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream critics, the album received a metascore of 77, based on 23 reviews.[14]Melissa Maerz of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a (B+) and wrote that Red finds her singing about walking directly into traffic wading into quicksand and flirting with the kinds of jerks Kanye West might toast to" and closed the review saying that the album might be about flirting with danger."[18] The Guardian was also very positive on the album, gave it four-stars-out-of-five and wrote: "Red was allegedly inspired by her experience of love and its fast- paced, crazy adventures, how she's had time to open her door to such a parade of lovers good and bad, God only knows."[19] Jon Dolan from Rolling Stone magazine found some influences on the album such as Joni Mitchell and U2, rated it three-and-half-stars out of five and said: "her self- discovery project is one of the best stories in pop. When she's really on, her songs are like tattoos."[22] Billboard gave a very positive review to the album, called it "her most interesting full- length to date" and said that "Red puts Swift the artist front and center with big, beefy hooks that transcend her country roots for a genre-spanning record that reaches heights unseen since Shania Twain's Up!."[26] Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic stated that "Although she can still seem a little gangly in her lyrical details -- her relationship songs are too on the nose and she has an odd obsession about her perceived persecution by the cool kids -- these details hardly undermine the pristine pop confections surrounding them. If anything, these ungainly, awkward phrasings humanizes this mammoth pop monolith: she's constructed something so precise its success seems preordained, but underneath it all, Taylor is still twitchy, which makes Red not just catchy but compelling."[15] Robert Christgau praised the album by saying that he likes the feisty ones, and complimented that "Begin Again" and "Stay Stay Stay" stay happy and hit as hard.[21]Michael Gallucci of The A.V. Club said "Lyrically, it's the same path Swift has walked since her 2006 debut, just deeper and a little darker. But musically, it's bigger and bolder than anything she's ever done in the pop world." however saying "It's magnificent at times, but it's also complicated and sometimes unfocused". He dismissed the duets as boring, however, praising "State of Grace" and "All Too Well" as "occasionally fascinating work".[16] Spin positively said "Whatever it is, this music is full of adult pleasures, even if the most explicit image Swift offers is of an ex-boyfriend sniffing her scarf because it smells like her.