Taylor Swift, think of your fans
We can skip the rundown of Taylor Swift’s feud with Kanye West, right?
Less than 24 hours after the world’s biggest pop star unleashed her new single on a waiting commentariat, I’m already exhausted by the idea of having to read (let alone write) yet another rehash of this deeply tiresome conflict.
But you know who’s not over it? Taylor Swift. In “Look What You Made Me Do” — released online Thursday night as the lead single from a new album, “Reputation,” due in November — the singer sounds positively fired up as she takes whack after brutal whack at the rapper who once interrupted her at an awards show. (Swift doesn’t name West, to be clear, but with her reference to a “tilted stage,” she doesn’t need to.)
“I don’t like your perfect crime / How you laugh when you lie,” she seethes over a throbbing electronic groove, “You said the gun was mine / Isn’t cool — no, I don’t like you.”
Later in the tune, which Swift created with Jack Antonoff, she pretends to answer a phone call from someone evidently looking for “the old Taylor” — the sucker, you presume, who might’ve let bygones be bygones.
But she can’t come to the phone, Swift tells the caller.
“Why?” she adds. “Oh, ’cause she’s dead.”
What’s surprising about “Look What You Made Me Do” — beyond the harsh industrial production that makes it feel like Swift’s response to her enemy’s “Yeezus” — is that it suggests the singer no longer cares (or is no longer able to tell) what pop fans want.
Swift rose to superstardom by anticipating listeners’ desires; she knew just when to pivot from acoustic guitars to sleek synthesizers, from the fairy-tale romance of early hits like “Love Story” to the more grown-up depiction found on her last album, 2014’s smash “1989.”
On tour behind that record, she spent a good portion of her show every night telling the members of her audience how closely she’d been paying attention to them.
But dredging up Taylor versus Kanye again? I mean, I can’t be the only one who’s sick of this topic — something Swift would’ve known a few years ago without even having to think about it.
OK, so she hardly lacks for company among A-listers eager to cook expired beef. Earlier this summer, Katy Perry revived her ancient tussle with Swift — I believe it had something to do with backup dancers? — for “Swish Swish.”
But Perry’s song takes delight in its own pettiness, whereas “Look What You Made Me Do” just makes me think of President Trump whining endlessly about fake news. (Crediting Right Said Fred for the song’s supposed debt to “I’m Too Sexy” is funny in writing, but the inspiration adds little humor to the dour music.)
Maybe Swift isn’t aiming for me, though. Maybe this polarizing song is meant to galvanize her base — which, sure enough, is rhapsodizing about the track on social media — even at the expense of the wider world she’s dominated for much of the last decade.
If that’s her play, it’s a wild one, especially coming after her powerful testimony during the recent trial regarding her alleged sexual assault at the hands of a Denver radio DJ.
In court, Swift appeared driven to speak with a voice loud enough for others. Now, just days later, she seems uninterested in that job.
Have we ever seen a pop star so happily give up a portion of her following?
That’s an idea I’m not tired of considering.
Maybe “Reputation” will take it up.