Reviews of Look What You Made Me Do
C elebrities are often accused of lacking self-awareness. And no one's been on the receiving stop of that criticism more Taylor Swift. Despite a lengthy catalogue of hits in which she plays scorned exes and lovelorn balladeers, the land singer turned popular superstar has been seen less equally a victim than as a purveyor of victimhood, using her prodigious songwriting talents and natural affability to become a megaphone for perceived injustice.
And so what does Taylor Swift do to show to u.s.a. she'southward enlightened of this narrative (the one, of course, from which she'd like to be excluded)?
Release a music video – for her new single, Wait What You Made Me Exercise – that's practically boiling over with meta-commentary and self-referential detail, from an ongoing visual serpent motif to a tombstone that literally reads "Taylor Swift's reputation". Yes, it'south painfully on-the-nose, but Swift'southward brand hasn't exactly been built on subtlety.
Look What You Fabricated Me Practise – or LWYMMD, as its Twitter hashtag dictates – is well on its way to cracking streaming records, only the song hasn't been likewise received by critics. Continuing in the tradition of her last album, 1989, which marked Swift'south official development into pop music behemoth, information technology largely abandons that which made her a household name – singable melodies; abrupt, specific lyricism; chiliad tales of romantic enchantment – in favor of radio-engineered popular and glib proclamations of vengeance. Near the end of the song, she answers a phone call; someone's asking to speak with Taylor Swift. "She can't come to the phone correct at present," Swift 2.0 says. Why? "Because she'south dead."
In the battle betwixt Swifts, my fidelity is with the deceased version, a shrewd chronicler of young-developed courting and seasoned, starry-eyed songwriter. So much then that hearing her new unmarried fabricated me nostalgic for the days of Fearless and Red. Only the Onetime Swift be damned; this new one is all about retribution and, equally the title of her forthcoming album suggests, reputation.
The music video for LWYMMD, which premiered during Lord's day night's VMAs, sees Swift double down on her vengeful streak, making theatre of her scandal-laden career in an endeavor to communicate a cocky-sensation that's mostly eluded her. The video is adept fun, if a little chip mad; it'due south certainly the most brazen and ambitious pop music video since Beyoncé dropped Lemonade in the spring of last year, replete with pyrotechnics and dozens of costume changes. But it doesn't amount to much more than a succession of disconnected images. And if the images could talk, they might say, "I know what you remember of me", or, possibly, in the words of Joanne the Scammer: "I'm a messy bitch who lives for drama."
Only still, in all those images, Swift left a lot to be decoded. A connoisseur of the tongue-in-cheek (remember the capitalized letters in her lyric booklets that spelled out clues about a song's subject field?), it begins with a zombified T-Swift earthworks her ain grave.
Become it? The Old Swift is expressionless, dunzo, kaput, resigned to the graveyard of pop civilisation history. First, we run across the aforementioned tombstone, where Swift's reputation lies, but besides a second one, reading "Nils Sjoberg", the pseudonym Swift used as a co-writer on her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris's vocal, This Is What You Came For, a collaboration widely assumed to accept contributed to their breakdown. Swift'southward writing credit was supposed to exist kept secret, but when her team revealed that she had, in fact, written the Harris-Rihanna striking, her ex went on a tweetstorm nearly how Swift was looking for "someone new to endeavor and bury". And then she buried the fictitious Mr Sjoberg.
In the next shot, Swift luxuriates in a tub of diamonds, where at that place sits a single dollar neb, a possible reference to the symbolic dollar she earned in last month's sexual assail case confronting the radio DJ who groped her in 2013. Internet conspiracists, too, ran with this as a visual reference to Melania Trump, who could be seen forking diamond necklaces like spaghetti in a Vanity Fair spread last twelvemonth. Only those were the aforementioned people insistent that Swift, who kept mum during last yr's presidential campaigns, is a closeted Trump supporter. That the ballot coincided with Swift'south menstruation of self-imposed exile did petty to get her back in the public's good graces; but diamonds, unlike gilded toilet seats, do not a Trump reference make.
This next one is a expressionless giveaway: Swift sits atop a throne equally dozens of snakes slither at her feet. I fifty-fifty serves her what we can only assume is pipage hot tea, the kind Kim Kardashian dished out when she released audio of Swift, who publicly disputed Kanye Due west's lyric about her in Famous, appearing to sign off on those aforementioned lyrics in a phone conversation with W. Afterwards, Swift's reputation every bit a snake in sheep's article of clothing took off; Kardashian helped farther that epitome by tweeting a agglomeration of snake emojis on international serpent day. More than a year later, it seems Swift's ready to encompass the title: ahead of the single's release, she dropped cryptic reptilian teaser videos. And now, the snake has shed her pare.
There's besides an inscription on Swift's gold throne that reads "Et Tu Brute", the Latin phrase used in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when Caesar is being assassinated past his friend Brutus. Information technology'south a far cry from the Swift of yesteryear, whose Shakespeare references were more Romeo and Juliet than Julius Caesar. But she's dead, remember?
It was at the 2016 Grammys, when 1989 beat Kendrick Lamar'southward To Pimp a Butterfly for album of the year, that Swift first began to truly examination the public's patience. That was likewise where she publicly rebuked W's lyric virtually her in her credence speech.
So in the adjacent shot, as the chorus begins, Swift rams a shiny gold car into a storefront where paparazzo are lurking. She opens the door, a chetah in tow, to show off none other than her Grammy award. She proceeds to brandish and caress it in 1 of the video's most bewildering moments.
Swift's love of cats is well documented. Here, she'due south surrounded by stacks of cash and a Girl Squad of masked felines, wielding a baseball bat and a sweater that says "Bullheaded for Love". In the next scene, the masked marauders can exist seen robbing a music streaming visitor. Swift, if you lot remember, boycotted Spotify for years due to its dismal compensation of artists. She also wrote an open up letter to Apple Music in 2014 arguing on behalf of increased artists compensation and so took to Tumblr, in June 2015, blasting Apple's decision to requite users three-month free trials. And now she's back to rob them, cat imagery to boot.
Swift start assembled her Daughter Squad in the music video for Bad Blood, supposedly a shot at rival Katy Perry. She and then spent her 1989 world tour parading her besties effectually in different cities, throwing parties for her supermodel coterie and bringing them to cherry-red carpets. This didn't work out great for Swift, adding to the perception that she surrounds herself but with similarly alpine, Aryan beauties such as Karlie Kloss, Martha Hunt and Gigi Hadid.
Merely she knows you think that, alright? So here'southward a factory of fembots united similar the sentient hosts of Westworld. Swift stands earlier them in leather and latex, the ringleader of scorned Girl Squads the globe over.
This next however made waves for its apparent resemblance to a shot from Beyoncé's Formation video. But the real subconscious precious stone is the fill-in dancers' belly shirts, which read "I Centre TS". Tom Hiddleston, one of Swift's ex-boyfriends, was defenseless in a similar shirt when splashing around the beaches of Rhode Island with Swift. All of which seems to suggest that Swift surrounds herself only with those who emblazon their love for her on T-shirts. Or, she's commenting on the fact that you lot think she does that.
As we get closer to the finale, we see Swift continuing earlier a agglomeration of former Swifts: the lovesick loftier-schooler from the Yous Vest With Me music video, the 1 in a silverish flapper dress who was interrupted on the VMA stage by Kanye West, the innocent, bespectacled one wearing pajamas, the one dressed as a white swan from the Shake It Off music video. They claw at her feet, aching to be resurrected. But Swift 2.0, wearing a black shirt that says "Rep", banishes them all and declares the "old Taylor" dead.
This segues into the video'south utterly cringeworthy dance interruption which, for all I know, is more than Swift meta-commentary on how bad of a dancer anybody thinks she is (an, ahem, reputation corroborated past all the times awards bear witness cameras have panned awkwardly to Swift in the audition during a functioning, writhing around similar the inflatable tube men at gas stations).
Finally, the Swifts both old and new assemble before an airplane, where the discussion "reputation" appears again. Here, Swift on Swift reaches its thematic apex: Zombie Swift tells You Belong With Me Swift to "cease making that surprised confront, it'southward and so annoying". White Swan Swift adds: "Yous can't possible exist that surprised all the time". Tiptop-hat Swift tells Cowboy Boots Swift that she'south "so fake". Cowboy Boots Swift bursts into tears. "In that location she goes, playing the victim again," responds another Swift, wearing spiked leather. Leopard-clad Swift holds upward her phone and announces she'southward "getting receipts" – and that she'll "edit them" also, a reference to Swift'south belief that Kardashian artfully edited that incriminating audio of her. And finally, 2009 VMAs Swift, property her Moonman, announces she would "very much like to be excluded from this narrative".
And with that – every bit old Swifts expire and a new 1 is built-in – the narrative lives to meet another day.
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/28/taylor-swift-look-what-you-made-me-do-music-video
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