Red (Taylor Swift album)

Red is the fourth studio album by American country pop singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22, 2012 through Big Machine Records and distributed by Republic Records, as the follow-up to her commercially successful 2010 album Speak Now. It was announced through Swift's live webchat on August 13, 2012, in which she also revealed the album title and album cover. Four promotional singles were released in the month leading up to the album release, three of which debuted inside the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100. The album features collaborations with producers and guest artists such as Gary Lightbody and Ed Sheeran, and sees Swift experimenting with new musical genres.

The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", was a worldwide commercial success, topping the global iTunes charts and selling 623,000 copies in the first week, becoming Swift's first ever Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. The second single, "Begin Again", was released on October 1. "I Knew You Were Trouble" was released as the third official single on November 27, 2012, becoming one of Swift's highest charting singles in both the UK and the US. "22" was released as the fourth single from the album. "Everything Has Changed" has been confirmed to be released as the fifth single from the album in the UK and Europe.

Red has been critically acclaimed by music critics, who praised Swift's versatility as a musician and enjoyed her experiments with new music genres. Red sold 1,208,000 copies in its first week in the US, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, the second-highest debut for a female artist, behind Oops!... I Did It Again by Britney Spears. It has also spent 16 non-consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart as of mid-March, 2013. Red became Swift's first chart-topper in the UK, and also topped the album charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. The album sold 1.89 million copies in its first three weeks, surpassing One Direction's Up All Night as the second biggest-selling album of the year in the US. As of January 2013, the album has sold over 4 million copies in the US and more than 5.4 million copies worldwide.

On August 13, 2012, Swift gave a live webchat to over 72,500 viewers, in which she answered fan questions,[3] previewed the lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", and announced her fourth album's title as Red, as well as its release date.[3][4] Swift also revealed the meaning behind her album's title:


"All the different emotions that are written about on this album are all pretty much about the kind of tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships that I’ve experienced in the last two years. All those emotions — spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, all of that — in my mind, all those emotions are red. You know, there’s nothing in between. There’s nothing beige about any of those feelings."[3]

During the live webchat, she also revealed that she wrote more than 30 songs for the album, which she included 16 of them for the album and expressed that really dysfunctional and toxic relationships can provide a lot of inspiration.[4] Contrary to her previous completely self-written album Speak Now (2010), Swift enlisted the help of several of her favorite songwriters.[5] In an interview with MTV News, the singer revealed that the album "is interesting because each song stands on its own. It's this patchwork quilt of different sounds and different emotions, and I don't think anything on the record sounds like ['We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together']".[6] She also previewed songs from the album on Good Morning America every Monday, beginning on September 24 until October 15.[7] Swift performed on October 22 for the album's release, and the next day, she performed a live concert on the same show.[7] According to the singer she had spent over two years with the recording process, writing and preparation for the album.[8] Sarah Barlow shot the album's cover, which shows Swift's face, particularly her red lipstick.[9] The standard and deluxe versions of the album were released on October 22, 2012 in Italy, New Zealand, the United States, among others.[10][11][12] A karaoke version of the album was also released on February 5, 2013 on the iTunes Store, which includes the instrumental version from all tracks of its standard version.[13]
Source : Wikipedia