Like “former” nemesis before her, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift’s latest “effort” brings to mind the image of Perry in the pastel-saturated, filled with “irony” video for 2017’s “Chained to the Rhythm.” Except, in Swift’s case, there doesn’t even seem to be any attempt at irony or “purposeful pop” here, just unbridled and unapologetic batheticness from start to finish. The start being a pastel-soaked cobblestone street in Swift’s version of France (which also happens to be many other Americans’ version of France as well) where roving snakes turn into butterflies that ascend toward a window where Swift plays the part of “Distraught French Woman Yelling At Her Husband.” About their “daughters,” which are “cutely,” two cats. The husband, to add to the inevitable badness of the song, is Panic! At the Disco’s Brendon Urie, apparently more content than ever to whore out his once at least slightly emo brand.
Swift then storms out of the apartment, commencing the distinctly Dave Meyers narrative that centers on the heavy usage of special effects–ranging from floating clouds inside the building to impressionist-like backdrops that are supposed to make Urie grabbing an umbrella and flying toward Swift wearing a puffy pink dress that looks like dripping paint while sitting atop a unicorn make sense. Sounding very akin both musically and thematically to “Blank Space” from 1989, it’s only natural that Swift is, once again, prone to adopting her “insane” bit for the purposes of an “entertaining” persona. Closing the door to their apartment in a faux fit of rage, Swift then plasters on that fake smile we have been led to believe just might be real fakeness in the past before bursting with, “I promise that you’ll never find another like me,” as a means to justify her erratic behavior, adding, “I know that I’m a handful, baby/I know I never think before I jump/And you’re the kind of guy the ladies want/(And there’s a lot of cool chicks out there)/I know that I went psycho on the phone/I never leave well enough alone/And trouble’s gonna follow where I go.”
Incidentally, before Swift decided upon embracing the media accusations of being “calculated” for the benefit of diversified financial gain, she didn’t seem so fond of alluding to being “trouble,” instead dubbing the other in the relationship as such (e.g. “I Knew You Were Trouble”). But now that the cat’s been out of the bag on her less than “cuddly” nature (even if “ME!” is awash in furry creatures and Frenchified Lisa Frank imagery), Swift ostensibly thinks its best to just run with this assignation of a personality and, as a result, has quickly run it into the ground.
For yes, Swift’s shtick of being the representative for “cute but psycho but cute” has grown decidedly tired on “ME!” with the likes of only someone as mutually basic as Urie able to withstand Swift’s so-called “crazy” behavior–which apparently reaches an apex when she decides to “androgynously” dress in a suit that coordinates with her at the ready street backup dancers. And unlike another recent collaboration with a male vocalist–ZAYN on “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”–there is nothing complementary in the “harmonies” of Swift and Urie to bring out the best in one another. Only, it can’t be denied, the worst with Swift’s pluckiness doing its best to outmatch Urie’s “earnestness” at every turn.
The unintended irony throughout, of course, is Swift “confessing” to being a little bit of a handful but how it’s all worth it because, “I know you never get just what you see/But I will never bore you, baby.” Yet Swift talking about not being boring is a source of boredom in and of itself. The lady doth protest too much on that front–because exciting people don’t usually feel the need to go on about how exciting they are. Luckily for Taylor, “there’s a lot of lame guys out there” too, and Urie happens to be the perfect fit to elucidate that as he is a willing accomplice to the banal visuals of, “And when we had that fight out in the rain/You ran after me and called my name/I never wanna see you walk away.” Surely, he never can now, for he won’t ever be able to live this collaboration down.
To further add to the unintended irony of Swift’s song touting the wonders of individuality, she chirps, “I’m the only one of me/You’re the only one of you.” And within the lens of those generic pronouns, Swift demarcates all the ills of what this world has become as it works to stamp out every trace of the individual via the corporate-sanctioned (for Taylor is the pop personification of the major corporation) vision of “weirdness” equating to the fanfare of kitties, rainbows and splashing paint that somehow doesn’t manage to stain your clothes.
