Born of heartfelt admiration, Ryan Adams’s cover album of Taylor Swift’s most recent work is, thankfully, no misguided attempt to give it a rock-approved rubber stamp. It’s lovely throughout, of course, but where Adams’s most famous cover, of Oasis’s Wonderwall, found a new tone in the song, all most of the candle-held-to-the-sun versions here reveal – from the hushed, sad, fingerpicky take on Blank Space to the hushed, sad, strummy take on Out of the Woods – is a strong urge to listen to Swift herself. His more lively reinterpretations of Style as a snarling, dark rocker, and Welcome to New York as a desperate hit of Springsteenian yearning, are the keepers from this pretty curio.
