Taylor Swift, usually known for her soft love songs and pop hits, decided to change her look and sound drastically recently; removing all of her social media mysteriously and releasing her first single from her new album, ominously titled, Reputation.
The single, titled, Look What You Made Me Do, does its best to tell the world that the old Taylor “is dead.”
Swift’s reason for ‘killing herself off’ is even more mysterious, given that her old persona and music style has earned her great success in the past.
Even more interesting about the new song and music video is her allusion to alleged celebrity feuds with Kanye West and Katy Perry.
West and Taylor have had an awkward relationship to say the least since 2008 when Swift won a Grammy and West publicly told the world on live television that Beyonce deserved the award.
Since then, West has mentioned Swift’s name in one of his recent songs.
Perry and Swift have also feuded in the past, and grew progressively worse when Swift’s released her song, Bad Blood, which was rumored to be about cutting ties with the pop artist.
Swift brought the drama and her newly found thirst for revenge, letting fans and foes alike know that she has a “list in red underlined, and much like Santa Claus, she’s “checking it once and twice.”
Swift continues to send her message of settling vendettas in the lyrics, “Maybe I’ll get mine but you’ll always get yours.”
Besides the drastic change in persona and music style,and her apparent new affinity for snakes, what was most problematic about the song is the repetitive and monotone chorus which almost seems like it doesn’t belong in the single.
After about the third time the chorus repeats itself, listeners can get the point that Swift is out for blood…perhaps even literally.
Swift bought the rights to sample Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy hit, which is why the songs sounds so familiar.
While Swift is a usually unproblematic celebrity in the news and gets the most flak about her seemingly endless discography of love songs from her exes, it seems like Swift is grasping at straws trying to adopt a harder media personality by bringing up otherwise old news.
Upon hearing the single, the reaction from media and listeners had mixed reviews.
Alyssa Cosentino, a senior psychology student, said that she absolutely hates the song.
“Every time it comes on the radio in my car I immediately change the channel,” she said.
“I don’t understand why she did this because usually her songs are great and I don’t mind that they’re overplayed on the radio,” she continued.
While bothersome, the repetitive nature of the Single has made Look What You Made Me Do somewhat of an ear worm, one that many don’t want.
It is difficult not to remember the lyrics, and while attracting a lot of negative attention, Swift seems to be getting exactly what she wanted.
Shortly after news spread of her new song, Swift released her second single off the album, titled, Ready For it.
Swift got the publicity and attention she was looking for with her problematic song, and the feedback from the release of her second song was generally positive.
While Swift’s new pension for the macabre is starling, perhaps her newest album will be the breath of fresh air the world needs from tired pop hits about unrequited love.
While the album will not be completely released until Nov. 10 of this year, fans and critics are patiently waiting to see just what it is that they’ve “made Taylor Do.”
IMAGE TAKEN from Rolling Stone Magazine
