Please Taylor Swift, show us something new
In following the same formula as every other album, Taylor Swift is sticking to what she knows best. But there’s something so predictable about ME! that makes me no longer care what happens next, writes Kathy McCabe.
It’s not you, Taylor Swift, it’s ME!
Even if you aren’t the target audience of one of pop’s most masterful influencers, Taylor Swift has taken us all on a sweet ride over six albums, from Nashville country ingenue to post-millennial pop provocateur. That is until now.
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The thrilling, adrenaline-spiking rollercoaster operated by Swift across the past 13 years feels like it has taken a wrong turn with ME! — her latest offering released over the weekend — a saccharine introduction of her seventh album era.
As the Tay Tay trainspotters will protest, her lead singles are rarely reliable indicators of an album’s sound or theme. Her previous record, Reputation, was introduced by the game-changing shadefest of Look ‘What You Made Me Do’, a darker, edgier Swift using her music to switch the narrative of that nasty Kim and Kanye feud in her favour. It was also about reclaiming and resetting the “reputation” of her brand in the wake of the discordant noise generated by the media disseminations of every facet of her life. But at its heart, Reputation was mostly a collection of love songs, this time inspired by the most closely guarded relationship of her life with actor Joe Alwyn.
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ME! — and its pastel projectile vomit of a video — could be yet another clever head-fake. TS7, the working title of her next album, may prove to be a surprising seismic shift in sound and attitude from Swift. And thus far, the Swifties are loving it.
The single, which features Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie, smashed all the records an artist of Swift’s calibre and power would hope to own. It now holds the record for the most views — more than 62 million — in the first 24 hours for a solo female artist.
The fandom was further stoked by the appearance of the latest Swift family member, her kitten Benjamin Button, in the video alongside a myriad Easter eggs, which seem to hint at a theme of nostalgia and/or childhood influencing the record. That would also explain the liberal use of pastel. But here’s where the disconnect between me and ME!-era Swift begins.
It is all too much, too orchestrated, too manipulative, too plucked from a vision board. Swift forecast the presence of a lot of these inside jokes and hidden messages ahead of the video’s debut on April 26.
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Later in an Instagram video she declared, “The biggest Easter egg of this entire thing has been missed. But the whole thing … it’s literally the most obvious one I put in the video and nobody has guessed it yet.”
The day before she dropped the single and video, Swift popped up in Nashville at a colourful mural which matched the cats, butterflies, and flower motifs she had been posting in the countdown to the single’s release.
“So … @kelseymontagueart helped me pull off the best surprise clue reveal today in Nashville!!” Swift explained via Instagram. “Thank you to everyone who showed up, I’ve never been more proud of your FBI level detective skills.”
There are millions of fans who love the thrill of the tease, unravelling her clues and celebrating the discovery of them. It’s fun and ME! seems to be Swift’s desire to have some fun after all the drama and darkness of Reputation and its snake motifs. Although the serpent still hasn’t entirely left the building (it dissolves into butterflies in the ME! video).
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But instead of being a great song from a great artist, ME! feels like Swift playing puppeteer and pulling the strings of her fans with a music video and her powerful social media presence.
The song’s plinky plonk, nursery rhyme melody and jarring lyrics — “You can’t spell awesome without me” and the shouted exclamation “Hey kids! Spelling is fun!” — seem pitched more at a Wiggles audience than discerning pop fans.
And maybe that’s clever too; perhaps Swift is shooting to add the toddlers to her vast demographic, but for now, I’m out.
Kathy McCabe is News Corp Australia’s national music writer.
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