Over the past five or so years, few artists have displayed progression and growth more interesting to watch than Taylor Swift’s. In 2008, she was a global superstar with a multiplatinum album and a few world-conquering singles. In 2009, she was the Grammy darling. In 2010, she did the unthinkable for a pop artist of her stature and wrote an entire album without a single co-write. In 2012, she released her most ambitious work to date with a record that hopped half-a-dozen genres and showed immense growth in songwriting craft. And this past summer, she announced arguably the biggest move of her career so far by bidding farewell to country and fully embracing pop music.

In some ways, Taylor’s move to pop wasn’t terribly surprising. The biggest singles from 2012’s Red, “We Are Never Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” were both deliriously catchy pop gems, while 2010’s Speak Now was arguably just a pop album dressed up in organic full-band country arrangements. But for an artist who got her start in Nashville and who always made storytelling the core of her songs, the news that Swift was going to go full pop on her fifth album—titled 1989—truly was shocking.

The color red symbolizes a variety of emotions. The color represents courage and bravery yet also embodies passion, sensuality, and love. Still, notably, red marks anger and rage, even danger, warranting caution. In conjunction with all of these various symbols, it makes sense that Red is the title of Taylor Swift’s most ambitious, dynamic record yet.

Riding on the heels of three incredibly successful records, Miss Swift knows she has nothing to lose here. As a result, she doesn’t hold back anything throughout Red’s 16 tracks. Her fourth record flirts with pop sensibilities, redefines her inner-country roots, and delivers tender ballads – it has a little bit of everything. Simply put, she could not care less what anyone wants to hear; she’s bridging the “genre gap” more so than ever before and is not about to back down for a second.