1989

Swift started writing the record in mid-2013 on the Red Tour and marketed it as her first official pop album, naming it after the year she was born. Max Martin and Shellback produced seven tracks of the standard edition, with Martin credited as co-executive producer. Ryan Tedder co-wrote and co-produced Welcome to New York and I Know Places. Jack Antonoff built Out of the Woods on a Yamaha DX7 and a Minimoog Voyager and sent the track to Swift while she was on a plane, and she wrote the melody and lyrics based on it; the whole process took 30 minutes. Imogen Heap helped complete Clean, which was recorded in two takes in one day at Heap's Hideaway Studio in London. This Love, co-produced by Chapman, is the only song on the album Swift wrote alone.

The album was recorded at studios in Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom and mastered by Tom Coyne in two days at Sterling Sound in New York. The cover shows her face cut off at the eyes, and each CD included a packet of 13 Polaroid-style photographs. Swift announced it on August 18, 2014, and held listening parties called the 1989 Secret Sessions in Los Angeles, New York City, Nashville, Rhode Island and London.

It debuted at number one in the United States with 1.287 million copies in its first week, spent 11 weeks at the top and was certified 14-times platinum. Metacritic gives it 76 out of 100. Petridis called it, in the Guardian, a lovingly done reboot of late 80s MTV pop-rock. Pitchfork's Vrinda Jagota wrote in 2019 that it was the first time an entire Swift album could exist as party music without slow-burning heartache. It won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2016 Grammys.