Can't shake it off

Ryan Adams' song-by-song cover of Taylor Swift's 1989 is obsessively good. On Twitter, Adams joked he was re-recording them in the style of the Smiths but the results achieve so much more. Here the former Whiskeytown frontman does T-Swift justice: Songs such as “Welcome to New York,” “Out of the Woods” and, yes, “Blank Space,” are re-imagined as heartbreaking country-punk gems. They reveal Swift's talents—stripped of Top 40 pop excess—as a genuinely clever and gifted songwriter. The only thing that can top this is the inevitable Adams-Swift duet record. Waiting breathlessly. http://paxamrecords.com.