Nope, no new Taylor Swift album this year. But 1989, a totally perfect pop album, dropped late enough in 2014 that the wave of covers, mash ups and tributes couldn’t get started in earnest until this year.
These are their stories.
TAYLOR COVERS!
Lots of covers this year, and many weren’t very good. But some were stellar. Let’s start with Imagine Dragons. They didn’t do a ton with it—it’s fairly faithful—but it’s got enough to be fresh…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atdt1664NRk
Lucy Rose, however, absolutely killed it.
The Arizona cover of Bad Blood is really good too…How a man who looks like that sings like that is beyond me.
And not to be outdone, the best Taylor cover artist of the year was Ryan Adams—who covered her entire record. Maybe this is just his way of trying to get into her pants. And maybe it’s lazy (or desparate) for a songwriter of his caliber to cover so many songs by the same artist on the same album. But I don’t care. And I don’t think he does either. Even though the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.
TAYLOR MASH!
Okay, so that’s cover songs. What about mash-ups? Sadly, most were terrible. But DJs From Mars got it right, mixing Bad Blood with the unlikely band Black Sabbath.
Winter Abbot’s mash up was cool because he mixed Taylor Swift with…Taylor Swift!
And then there’s this mix of the songs of the summer of 2015…Just tossing it in here for giggles.
