Red received favourable reviews from music critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 76 based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."^[20] Melissa Maerz of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a (B+) and wrote: "(Red) finds her singing about walking directly into traffic, wading into quicksand, and flirting with the kinds of jerks Kanye West might toast to." and closed her review with: "Red might be about flirting with danger."^[2] Lewis Corner of Digital Spy gave a positive review on the album and rated it as four-stars-out-of-five and said: "she sounds anything but a broken record - especially when she's on the cusp of global domination."^[26] The Guardian reviewer was also very positive on the album, gave it four-stars-out-of-five and wrote: "Red was allegedly inspired by her experience of love and its fast-paced, crazy adventures, how she's had time to open her door to such a parade of lovers good and bad, God only knows."^[25] Rolling Stone reviewer Jon Dolan found some influences on the album such as Joni Mitchell and U2, rated it three-and-half-stars out of five and said: "her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop. When she's really on, her songs are like tattoos."^[4] Billboard gave a very positive review to the album in its track-by-track review, called it "her most interesting full-length to date" and said:"Red puts Swift the artist front and center with big, beefy hooks that transcend her country roots for a genre-spanning record that reaches heights unseen since Shania Twain's Up!."^[6] The Daily Telegraph was more critical, rated it as three-stars-out-of-five and wrote: "It's frustrating, then, when Swift reverts back to type. Too many of the songs on this bloated 16-track album revisit the gently strummed verses and characterless choruses of her previous work."^[7]
he album debuted at number one in Ireland, becoming her first number one album in the country. It is expected to make a massive opening week sales number which may exceed one million units in the USA, as expected by Billboard. If Red opens with more than one million sold units, Swift will become the only female act to open with a million twice, the first being with her previous album, 2010's Speak Now.