Taylor Swift: How a Nobody Became a Music Hero Who Drove the World Wild (Part 2) – July 2023, Week 4 Recommended Playlist
Intro
It’s been a while, but today I’ve finally finished my recommended playlist for the last week of July! Sorry for taking so long to post this one. My summer’s been a little too packed, and every day I get home all I want to do is sleep (─.─||). I’ll gradually catch you all up on everything that’s been happening lately, so stay tuned~
This episode’s playlist links
This episode’s playlist (YouTube):
This episode’s playlist (Spotify):
So let’s get started! Where did we leave off last time? Oh right! After Taylor released “1989,” she held off on putting the album’s songs on Spotify for a long time. After looking into the whole story a bit, I figure the main reason was that she felt streaming platforms like this (Spotify, Apple Music, and so on) weren’t friendly to creators. Part of it was that the payouts were too low, and part of it was that she didn’t think her songs should be played for free, because “art should have value.” But I already covered all this in the first part, so I won’t go into detail this time. If any of you Mydon fans are curious, feel free to go back and read part one.
Reinvention
“1989” took Taylor from country music into a fully pop-driven album. Funny thing is, a shift this big usually turns fans off, but when you listen to this album you don’t feel that way at all. It’s kind of like discovering you have a second, incredible talent you never even knew about, and the moment you realize you have this superpower, you instantly outclass everyone else in the field. And that’s no exaggeration, because “1989” was an unprecedented success. There are a few songs on this album I absolutely have to recommend to you all: “Bad Blood,” “Shake It Off,” and “Style.”
Bad Blood
Fans believe “Bad Blood” is a veiled jab at the “Katy” situation I mentioned in part one. The song even mimics “Katy’s” musical style. Even though the lyrics never name names, anyone could easily make the connection. “So take a look at what you’ve done, Cause baby now we got bad blood. (Hey) now we got problems, And I don’t think we can solve them. You made a really deep cut, And baby now we got bad blood.” Can’t you just feel the sarcasm dripping off every line?
Shake It Off
“Shake It Off” was one of the first Taylor songs I ever heard, and I fell in love the moment it came on! A huge star like Taylor is bound to run into online haters. Some people criticize her for switching boyfriends so often, or accuse her of doing whatever it takes to stay famous. While some artists get so worn down by it that they slowly fade from the spotlight, or resort to more drastic measures, Taylor’s response is to write a song that fires right back at the haters, and that’s exactly how “Shake It Off” came to be. “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play. And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. I shake it off, I shake it off.” Maybe writing songs is just Taylor’s way of healing herself.
Style
“Style” is my favorite song on the album. I love that it doesn’t have a heavy beat, yet it’s still incredibly catchy. “You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye. And I got that red lip classic thing that you like. And when we go crashing down, we come back every time. Cause we never go out of style, We never go out of style.” Some things you keep telling yourself you have to let go of, and yet you just can’t seem to loosen your grip, can you?
After releasing “1989” in 2014, Taylor went quiet for three years. A lot happened during that time, and it wasn’t until the release of “Reputation” in 2017 that she returned to the spotlight. And when it comes to this album, you absolutely have to talk about “Look What You Make Me Do,” which is yet another clapback song. But who is she clapping back at? That’s another very, very long story, and it also explains why Taylor stayed out of sight for those three years.
The Kanye incident
Remember the little incident that happened when “Fearless” won the MTV award for Best Female Video, and they were about to hand it to Taylor? Kanye West (an American rapper) suddenly grabbed the mic and declared, “This award should have gone to Beyonce (an American singer), because Beyonce makes the best music videos.” Of course this made the entire audience incredibly uncomfortable, and even Beyonce herself. Although Kanye apologized afterward, it planted the seeds for events to come.
Maybe it was because Kanye had always had a problem with Taylor, or maybe there were other reasons, but a serious incident was slowly brewing and steadily growing. In 2016, it finally blew up. That year Kanye released the song “Famous,” which included the line: “For all my Southside niggas that know me best, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous (Goddamn).” This song very plainly gives off a misogynistic vibe, and as a result the online audience completely lost it.
Kanye then took another shot, defending the lyrics by saying, “I called Taylor and we talked about the lyrics for a whole hour, she thought it was funny and gave me her blessing.” Of course, you can imagine that Taylor couldn’t possibly endorse anything in this song, so she and her manager firmly denied that she had approved Kanye putting those controversial lyrics in the song. But Kanye had an ace up his sleeve. While Taylor and the media outlets on her side were fiercely defending her, Kanye’s wife posted a “partial” clip on Snapchat from the recording of their conversation about the song that day.
In short, Kanye had specifically given Taylor a heads-up about “Famous” and shared a “politically correct version” of the lyrics mentioned above. After hearing the song, Taylor agreed with the lyrics he’d written and even offered some friendly suggestions. Naturally, these clips turned public opinion completely against Taylor, with people accusing her of being dishonest and even suspecting that, just like the song said, she’d wanted to use “Famous” to stir up publicity. Personally I think it’s pretty outrageous, but considering that back then very few people on the internet would have maliciously edited content to mislead viewers, or that most viewers simply failed to fact-check and just piled on Taylor, that’s how a video with such obvious problems came to be accepted by the public as the unvarnished truth.
Anyway, because of these clips, everyone piled on Taylor and spammed the snake 🐍 emoji everywhere they could comment across all her platforms, since in the Western world the snake carries connotations of deception and the devil. The endless flood of snakes wore Taylor down. It indirectly led her to disable comments on all her social media platforms, and as the whole thing escalated, she ended up deleting all her posts. After that, she practically vanished from the internet, with hardly any news of her. But as time went on, time cleared her name. Some say a hacker leaked it, but in any case the full, unedited video of Kanye and Taylor’s conversation made it onto the internet. The truth came to light: the lyric snippet Kanye had actually shared with Taylor differed from the final version. In other words, Taylor hadn’t lied, she’d had no knowledge of those misogynistic lyrics, and this saved her reputation.
After the Kanye incident cleared her name, Taylor only said briefly, “It’s all in the past. Rather than focusing on how she felt now that her name had been cleared, she’d rather we pay attention to more important issues, namely supporting the World Health Organization and Feeding America, and helping out if we’re able to.” And with that, the whole incident finally came to a close.
Look What You Made Me Do
“Look What You Made Me Do” is partly about this whole Kanye situation, facing the abuse and hatred directed at her head-on. Doesn’t it give off a bit of a “Shake It Off” feeling? My favorite section of lyrics is: “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. I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. I check it once, then I check it twice, oh!” If adversity doesn’t defeat you, then it makes you grow stronger. None of these earlier incidents defeated Taylor. Instead, they turned her into a different, stronger version of herself.
…Ready For It?
Of course, “Reputation” has plenty of other songs worth sharing with you all, so let me quickly run through a few! The first is “…Ready For It?” Simply put, this song is about two romantic heavyweights sizing each other up. As for a detailed breakdown, you’ll probably have to savor that for yourself. “Knew he was a killer. First time that I saw him. Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted. But if he’s a ghost then I can be a phantom. Holdin’ him for ransom.” Honestly, even after reading the English lyrics I still don’t fully get what it’s about, there are just way too many metaphors (＠_＠;).
Delicate
The second song is “Delicate,” also one of the album’s lead singles. The music video is pretty fun to watch. You can really feel how much she wants to escape the eyes of the world. In the MV she gets a prop that lets her turn invisible, finally freeing her from how everyone sees her. It makes her happy, but it also costs her all her friends. In this short MV, you can deeply feel the conflict between wanting to escape the pain of being scrutinized under a magnifying glass and still wanting to hold on to her close friends. “My reputation’s never been worse, so. You must like me for me… We can’t make any promises now, can we, babe? But you can make me a drink.”
gorgeous
Okay, the last song for today! Since nobody recommended one, I’m filling the spot myself~ This one is also from “Reputation,” but unusually, it’s not a clapback at haters. Instead it describes her boyfriend at the time, and it’s full of the sweetness of her earlier songs. The familiar Taylor really is the best Taylor!
“You’re so gorgeous. I can’t say anything to your face. ‘Cause look at your face. And I’m so furious. At you for making me feel this way. But what can I say? You’re gorgeous.”
If you have a song you’d like to recommend, feel free to drop it in the comments below! Who knows, maybe next time you’ll spot your favorite song right here in the article! Alright, thanks everyone for tuning in today. The story’s still long and I’d hate for you to miss it. This episode took me over seven hours to finish. If you still enjoy these articles I’m pouring my life force into, hit that follow button! Below are a couple of my proudest works, my ramen food diary and the story of Marshmallow, so if you’re interested, go check them out! See you all next episode~ Bye-bye~~
Marshmallow:
Ramen food diary:
https://mydondon.net/category/food/ramen/
References for this article: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YP600aVsypeMHUhsqECJVt-UURGQz6_QeO-fhPuLHyA/edit?usp=sharing
Mydondon’s new recommended playlist family bucket (the all-drumsticks meal) on Spotify:
Mydondon’s new recommended playlist family bucket (the all-drumsticks meal) on YouTube: