Taylor Swift’s “ME!” was released at midnight Friday morning. This new upbeat song is a bit contentious amongst fans as some love it, while others hate it. The song maintains many elements of the Taylor Swift pop song style – upbeat, catchy, a great bridge, etc. However, this song has moments that feel immensely cheesy and repetitive, such as the moment where they spell out “T-E-A-M.” It felt juvenile like the song should be playing for an even younger audience than the one Taylor currently maintains.
Additionally, the song had elements that made it feel very corporate and designed solely to sell albums. It did not feature Taylor’s typical vulnerable lyrics and emotions. This could be due to corporate intervention, or it could just be a signal of the change in Taylor’s life. Since dating Joe Alwyn, Taylor has appeared much happier. Thus, perhaps what is to come on the rest of the album will be upbeat and cheery as well, lacking the deep emotions fans have come to associate with Taylor’s work. This is a particularly stark contrast to Reputation, which showcased a much darker Taylor Swift. She even acknowledges this change in the music video when the snake, symbolizing Reputation, disintegrates into butterflies, seeming to symbol her new album.
It is important to look back at Taylor’s history of releasing singles. In 2017, Swift released “Look What You Made Me Do” prior to releasing her album Reputation, which was arguably the worst song on the album. Additionally, “Shake It Off” was the lead single of 1989. While this was a good song, it too seemed to be a pop-heavy corporate song designed to sell records which parallels “ME!”. The other songs on that were released later on 1989 were some of Taylor Swift’s best work. Therefore, if Taylor follows this pattern of releasing her pop-heavy, not as great songs first, hopefully, we can expect the same with the album that follows “ME!”.