Jenna Gibson
Opinions Editor
Much like Joan Jett, it seems to be that Taylor Swift also doesn’t give a damn about her bad reputation. On August 24, Swift released her first single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” from her soon-to-be-released album, “Reputation.” Upon first hearing it, I was disappointed, to say the least. I’ve been a Taylor fan since her first album was released in 2006, and I’ve seen her in concert twice: on her “Fearless” tour in 2009 and her “1989” tour in 2015. “You Belong with Me” and “Our Song” will always be anthems to me, and even when she went from country to pop with “1989,” I still stuck by her side.
But with this new song, I don’t know if I can still say the same. As I listened to the song, all I could think about was Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”, and after doing some research, I realized I wasn’t the only one who thought so. An article from Vulture even stated that Swift gave credit to the original writers of “I’m Too Sexy” in her new song “Look What You Made Me Do.”
Although the song has a catchy tune, Swift is trying too hard to make her music sound like the contemporary pop songs of other artists, like Selena Gomez. That can especially be seen in the music video for “Look What You Made Me Do.” If you haven’t seen the video, please go watch it right now. It sadly doesn’t make the song any better, but it is very clever. Throughout the video, she throws shade at basically every celebrity she’s ever had beef with, like Katy Perry and Swift’s multiple ex-boyfriends. She even mocks her past self, and that becomes evident when she says “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead.”
While it is true that her reputation has been a popular topic in the media throughout her whole career, Swift is trying too hard to make a comeback with this new music. After she switched from country to pop, many fans still supported her, but there were a few people who were not a fan of this switch. After all of the drama with Kanye West and Katy Perry went on, Taylor Swift basically deleted all of her social media and spent almost a year away from the limelight. Then, however, she posted the promos for her new album. She’s trying to make a comeback and get revenge from the people who have insulted her, and she even mocks her past self. At the end of “Look What You Made Me Do,” the music video shows a display of various forms of Taylor Swift from her past music videos, including her personas in “You Belong with Me” and “Teardrops on My Guitar.”
As for me, I much prefer the 2009 Taylor Swift, singing about boys and playing her guitar, rather than the 2017 Taylor Swift, singing about vengeance and bashing other celebrities. Even though “Look What You Made Me Do” has already seemed to get stuck in my head a countless number of times, I’m still not a big fan of the song.
Since I have a biased love for Taylor Swift, I’ll wait until her album, “Reputation,” comes out on November 10 to truly judge her new music. Her second single, “Ready For It”, was released a few days ago, and it sounded much more like Taylor’s “1989” music, which I’m completely okay with. Although the release of her new album is nearly three months away, by the time it comes out, I still don’t think I’ll be ready for it— but until that happens, I’ll be listening to music from the old Taylor, and also hoping that sometime soon she’ll be able to come to the phone.