
Oh No! Taylor Swift’s new track is “super edgy”
Fuzzy headed as I am waking up at 10am to listen to a new ‘hot track’ from Taylor Swift, I know a terrible song when I hear one. Look What You Made Me Do ticks several boxes of awfulness: it samples Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” (which is… not a good song). Rhythmically, it has strong vibes of Black Eyed Peas’ worst, Fergie-dominated work.
The only properly catchy section — “But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time. Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time…” — is far too similar to the verses of Lorde’s “The Louvre”, a significantly better song also produced by Jack Antonoff of Fun! and Bleachers, who genuinely doesn’t seem to have much range. The tracks on Swift’s “1989” on which he had the strongest involvement were, generally, the worst: “Out of the Woods”, “Bad Blood”. The best stuff on that album was produced by Max Martin. I hope he shows up somewhere on “Reputation”.
But the worst thing about this song is how lacking in self-awareness or irony it seems to be. Taylor Swift used to understand irony — just listen to “Blank Space” — but “Look What You Made Me Do” is the Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith of pop music: a heavily-signposted, awkward, pointless shift to the dark side for the sake of ‘looking cool’. Has there been a more stupid, overwrought lyric in the past 5 years than “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because SHE’S DEAD!”. Yeah, Taylor. Ok, Taylor. Whatever you say.
Miley Cyrus’ “Can’t Be Tamed” was a dark misstep between her Disney years and her current Giant Foam Finger phase (which I personally find insufferable). Swift had seemingly found a decent place for herself in the cultural landscape with the sound of “Red” and “1989”. Why, oh why, is she spoiling it for the sake of a black-and-white album cover?

