One quarter of a century ago, before Spotify, before iTunes, before mp3s and Napster and the resurgence of vinyl, way back in the monoculture before YouTube and Twitter, what did 1989 sound like?

One of the most lasting moments that year was Michael Jackson being dubbed the King of Pop for the first time when Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Murphy presented him with the Soul Train Heritage award. The lowest moment came courtesy of Milli Vanilli, who had several singles on the charts including the big hit "Girl You Know It's True," and who were subsequently discovered to be lip synching the whole time and had their Best New Artist GRAMMY stripped from them.

In between those extremes, however, is the real 1989. At best, pop music was off-kilter. At worst, it was a disaster. It was the time before SoundScan, which wouldn't launch until 1991, so there was no reliable public mechanism for tracking record sales. C+C Music Factory formed and the Who broke up. New wave was dead and hair metal thrived. Billboard's No. 1 single for the year was Chicago's "Look Away," but the kids were more into the No. 2 track, Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" - which Britney Spears would go on to cover in 2004.

Even ranking on the Billboard charts was different. The chart today includes streaming data from places like YouTube and Spotify, which would have precluded Chicago's odd reign at the top of the 1989 chart. These additions emphasize things people want to hear, rather than relying heavily on what radio programmers were playing in a time when payola was rampant. If today's technology were available in 1989, the top single of the year would undoubtedly have been Madonna's "Like A Prayer." It was the biggest musical event of the year. The track was sort of popular on the radio, but Madge was a ubiquitous star of the MTV generation. Her big deal with Pepsi kicked in around the album's release, but after the release of her controversial video for "Like A Prayer," it left. So did as did her then-husband Sean Penn; events that would start a social media wildfire in this day and age. But as it is, Billboard only ranked it as the No. 25 song of 1989.

It was also an excellent year for one-off, joke hip hop tracks crossing into the mainstream. It was the year of Young MC's "Bust A Move," Tone Lōc's "Funky Cold Medina," Biz Markee's "Just A Friend" and Prince's "Batdance" (that was a joke single, right?). "Shake It Off," owes a debt to is Young MC's track. Her cadence, her narration as the straight man in an unreasonable situation, the appeal to the listener to be on her side: all of these things are tricks he pulled in "Bust A Move."

When Swift says she was sonically influenced by 1989 pop, though, and that she's working with Max Martin, citing "bright colors, bold chances, rebellion" as the reference points, it's hard to know what she means. That particular year at the end of the decade was one of the least colorful, in literal presentation, and most filled with morose singles of possibly the entire decade. The Cure's "Lovesong," Martika's "Toy Soldiers" and Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" were the jams. Beaches, the world's most depressing movie, came out accompanied by the sob-along song "The Wind Beneath My Wings." One of the all-time great karaoke songs, the Bangles "Eternal Flame" was a huge, successful single. The most rebellious pop music moment, after Madonna of course, came when Cher released her butt-bearing video for "If I Could Turn Back Time."

The song Swift and Martin hopefully drew their strongest influence from that year is the B-52's "Love Shack." The underdog band from Athens, GA kind of rode their friends in R.E.M.'s coattails into the mainstream and dropped this weird gem on the world. If Swift has one track as bright, colorful and catchy as "Love Shack" on her album she'll be minting gold.