Yes, it’s the new Ryan Adams single…sort of. *As you probably know, this is not an original by the songwriter’s songwriter, but a Taylor Swift cover. And it’s cool and fashionable to say that the Ryan Adams version is cool, that he finds a submerged streak of pathos in the song, and that you never really listened to the Taylor Swift version…but that’s not really true, now is it?
Fact of the matter is, this song is a fully-weaponized earworm no matter who sings it, and you have to give it up to Swift and co-writer/Swedish pop demigod Max Martin for distilling the essence of pop music into a really sturdy track. What Ryan Adams adds to the song is the killer interplay of all the guitars on his version; the chorus features strummed acoustics, chiming capoed arpeggios, and clean chorused electrics that he evidently swiped from a Sundays record.
Does this axe party trump the gleaming cyber-throb of Taylor’s original? What do you think? Let’s hear it in the comments…