Look what you made me do, Taylor.
I’ll be the first to admit, I prefer the old Taylor Swift over the new Taylor Swift, but I have no problem with people who love her new sound. Personally, I’m much more into country Taylor, but I have to appreciate her finding herself through creativity and experimentation. I mean, all artists do that at some point in their career even if it’s not as dramatic a change. Without experimentation, we wouldn’t have much of the music we love!
That being said, when I first listened to Taylor’s lead single from her upcoming album, Reputation, I was less than impressed. Yes, the chorus is catchy, but that’s because it’s to the tune of a song we all giggled over when we were kids, especially when Prince Charming sang it in Shrek Idol. We could get into a song sampling battle here, but Taylor was smart enough to give the original artists of the song songwriting credits so they could all live happily ever after —pun intended.
Anyways, some of my feelings about the song changed after watching the video. It doesn’t matter if you like Taylor Swift or not, you have to admit, the video is extremely intricate to the point where every detail in every scene was intentional. I give major props to Taylor and her team on this because everything in this video has meaning.
Exhibit A: The single dollar bill.
The recent court hearings over the alleged sexual harassment of Taylor by a local radio DJ even squeaked their way into the video. In the bird’s eye view shot of Taylor in the diamond-filled tub (another reference to media jabs she faced after ‘Blank Space’), a dollar bill lays beside her, proving just how important the case was to Taylor.
Exhibit B: The cat mask.
Taylor has acquired the label of being a cat lady for her excessive expression about how much she loves cats, and she addresses the label head on by wearing a cat mask at the beginning of the second verse and ripping it off. Not to mention, while wearing the cat mask, Taylor is seen breaking into the streaming service headquarters as a nod to her refusal to keep her music on popular streaming services because of the low royalty rates.
Exhibit C: Old Taylors (The Most Obvious).
At the end, we see many past Taylors including those from the VMAs, You Belong with Me, Shake It Off, Fearless, and more. The dialogue from these ‘characters’ show just how Taylor now feels about each of them.
These are just a few examples, from quite an extensive list of what Taylor included in this video, but nonetheless, they are quite powerful. Taylor has used a mix of audio and visual art to comment on her entire career in a span of about four minutes, and does so extremely well. Go back and watch the video again. If you look closely, I bet you’ll find references in there you hadn’t noticed before that make you appreciate Taylor’s voice a little bit more.
