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Taylor Swift's '1989' Comes Out Today: Can She Hit A Million?
It'll Be 1989 At The Empire State Building Tonight; Swift Will Headline 'New Year's Rockin' Eve'
October 27, 2014 at 6:47 AM (PT)
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TAYLOR SWIFT, seven-time GRAMMY Award winner, releases "1989" today, with the industry hanging on whether it can save a year of plunging sales totals. Most pundits have said the album could do between 800,000 and a million, but the critics have already weighed in with raves.
SWIFT is the first artist since THE BEATLES (and the only female artist in history) to log six or more weeks at #1 in the U.S. with three consecutive studio albums. TIME magazine has named her one the of the 100 Most Influential People in the world, with career record sales in excess of 30 million albums and almost 80 million song downloads worldwide. TAYLOR's album RED, released almost two years ago, has sold more than six million copies worldwide to date, including more than 1.2 million copies in the U.S. in its first week, scoring the highest first-week sales debut of any album in over a decade. SWIFT is the only female artist in music history (and just the fourth artist ever) to twice have an album (2010's "Speak Now" and 2012's "RED") hit the one million plus first-week sales figure. ”Shake It Off," the first single, has earned double-Platinum status from the RIAA for exceeding sales of two million downloads in the U.S., and has peaked at #1 in 64 countries on ITUNES.
The NEW YORK TIMES' JON CARAMANICA raves: “SWIFT is aiming somewhere even higher, a mode of timelessness that few true pop stars -- even bother aspiring to. Everyone else striving to sound like now will have to shift gears once the now sound changes. But not Ms. SWIFT, who’s waging, and winning, a new war, one she’d never admit to fighting.”
ROLLING STONE's ROB SHEFFIELD writes in his four-star review: “Deeply weird, feverishly emotional, wildly enthusiastic, '1989' sounds exactly like TAYLOR SWIFT, even when it sounds like nothing she’s ever tried before. And yes, she takes it to extremes.”
TIME MAGAZINE's SAM LANSKY says: “The expertly crafted sound of '1989' marks her most impressive sleight of hand yet -- shifting the focus away from her past and onto her music, which is as smart and confident as it’s ever been.”
USA TODAY's ELYSA GARDNER exclaims: “She matches deceptively simple, irresistibly catchy melodies with lyrics that can seem by turns confessional and elusive, playful and aching.”
THE GUARDIAN's ALEXIS PETRIDIS calls the album "clever ... sharp ... perfetly attuned," while US WEEKLY's IAN DREW dubs it, "Impossibly irresistible."
It'll Be 1989 At The Empire State Building
Last week (NET NEWS 10/23), ALL ACCESS reported TAYLOR SWIFT will take to the iHEARTMEDIA airwaves on MONDAY, OCTOBER 27th, the release day for her new BIG MACHINE album, "1989." "TAYLOR SWIFT's 1989 SECRET SESSION WITH IHEARTRADIO" event will be broadcast on IHEARTRADIO Top 40 stations and streamed on YAHOO LIVE at 7:30p (ET).
The company adds for NEW YORK CITY fans, EMPIRE STATE REALTY TRUST, INC. will also synchronize the world-famous LED tower lights on the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING to TAYLOR's performance that evening which can be heard on Top 40 WHTZ (Z100).
Swift Will Headline 'New Year's Rockin' Eve'
If all that weren't enough, SWIFT has been confirmed as a performer in NEW YORK's TIMES SQUARE live on ABC's telecast of DICK CLARK'S NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN EVE WITH RYAN SEACREST." The special, which SEACREST has hosted for the past nine years, will feature "five and a half-hours of music."

