Ryan Adams – 1989 (VINYL) – ALT/INDIE *NEW*
This was not the first album-length cover of Adams’ career (he never released his version of the Strokes’ Is This It), nor was this his first attempt at 1989. He’s as canny a producer as he is a conceptualist, coaxing forgotten college rock sounds out of his Pax-Am Studios and treating Swift’s originals as text to be interpreted, a move that neither saves nor strengthens the originals but rather highlights the skill of Taylor the songwriter and Adams the musician.