By JONAS MILLER
Features Editor
Last week, 40-year-old singer-songwriter David Ryan Adams did something that up until then, I thought to be impossible. He took a Taylor Swift album, and he made it better.
I know what you’re thinking. “What happened to the Swift-obsessed, 20-year-old, man-child I’ve come to know and love? How could he say such slanderous words?”
So I apologize. I recognize that I’ve done something wrong. That something, though, is assuming that my idol’s music couldn’t get any more perfect than it already is. And yet here I sit, listening to Adam’s cover of “How You Get the Girl,” over and over again, as if I’m hearing it for the first time with each repetition.
To put it simply, Adams took the Mona Lisa, and made her smile.
At first listen, I was hesitant. I was scared that I wouldn’t like it, but even more, I was terrified that I would. What if Ryan Adams makes me wish that my favorite artist, my idol, had done more? How could she, though? Putting out a full studio album with an original sound and lyrics every two years is no small task, even for the pros.
It was not documented how long it has taken Adams to create this masterpiece cover album, but judging by the incredibly high quality, it’s been in the works for just long enough.
Obviously, I am no stranger to Ms. Swift’s work. Those who listen closely enough, hear the emotion in her music. The pain and happiness, the unending tortures of love are ever present in almost every album Swift has created.
Many critiques and reviews of Swift’s most recent LP, “1989,” seem to have missed the point. People quite often mistake “pop” for “happy.” “1989” can be happy, yes, but underneath the bass and the drums lies struggle, and sadness.
What Ryan Adams does incredibly well is hone in on the sadness, and amplify it, so that even those living under social, or literal, rocks will be able to feel the emotion.
An example of the way Adams hides the happiness can be found in his cover of “Out of the Woods,” one of the more popular songs off of Swift’s original album. There’s a slow, almost march-like drumbeat behind the plucking of guitar that brings my mind back to Swift’s early work, all of which had a heavy country influence. It is somber, and it highlights what the song is really about, an uphill, seemingly never-ending struggle.
One thing Adam’s does better than Swift, and I can’t believe I’m saying this; he personalizes Swift’s words by slowing down the songs.
I know we’ve all done this, so everyone should understand this next point.
When you picture the movie about your life, you think about who would play you and your parents and your friends, and then you think about what the soundtrack would be.
After listening through Ryan Adam’s “1989” cover over a dozen times, I’m certain that I could use it as the soundtrack to my movie. There are up songs, and down songs. There are points where it’s more background music than a cover of a record-breaking pop song.
What’s so amazing about artists like Taylor Swift, and the people who manage to successfully cover her music, is that they make us feel. Think of how many songs you’ve heard in your lifetime that you have skipped over, and disliked, because you didn’t really care for what you were hearing. There isn’t a single Swift song that I don’t connect with emotionally.
Some artists are one-hit-wonders, in the most literal sense. They produce a song that people like to listen to, whether it’s on in a coffee shop, or a party, or on the radio. People just generally enjoy the sound of it. But does it make them feel?
What separates the great artists from the average ones is their ability to turn their sound into an addiction, for listeners and producers alike. They create music that’s more than noise, and beats, and lyrics.
Taylor Swift, Kanye West, the Beatles: what do they have in common? Their sound is, first, recognizeable, second, catchy, and third, addicting.
When Kanye puts out a new song, you don’t wait until the next day to listen to it, because you want to hear it before anybody else so you can be the first to say how awesome it sounds.
These superstars make music that’s so good, it makes the listener wish that they were the only people in the world that could hear it. People don’t like to share nice things.
Taylor Swift has taken that one step further. She has created an empire for herself, to the point where she doesn’t have to be the one that makes the music. As long as it has her name attached to it, people will listen.
Chances are, if you own one full Taylor Swift album, you own most of them. I’m not saying everyone is a die-hard T-Swift fan because “Love Story” made them cry in eighth grade, but the odds are certainly in favor of such an outcome. How is that possible, though? How did Swift make one song eight years ago, and still has us fan-girling over her every move today?
I suppose we can only speculate, but think about this. When there is a cover of a song by an artist who is famous, but not quite Taylor Swift famous, where does it go?
Youtube? But, when someone does a Taylor Swift cover, the most recent example being a guy by the name of Todrick, it’s on Facebook, and Buzzfeed, and everywhere else.
Why? Because Taylor Swift makes us feel, and when someone realizes that, and hones in on a way to make the feelings stand out even more, like Ryan Adams, success will always follow.