It also draws attention to how, for all the sonic differences, Swift’s emotional/lyrical approach hasn’t actually changed that much. The music video’s bleak tone sucks all the air out of that notion, and corroborates the current narrative of Swift’s intense lack of self-awareness more economically than any Harry Styles fling ever could. Even if it was about a disastrous affair, part of “Trouble” always sounded fun, like something nerdy Taylor from the “You Belong With Me” video would dance around to. I guess that’s why I was so taken aback by the serious-as-a-heart-attack video for “I Knew You Were Trouble,” which juxtaposes an intensely dramatic Del Reysian spoken-word intro with the bouncy guitars that open the song. For some reason I couldn’t hear it without imagining millions of 14-year-old girls angrily singing its lyrics into their bedroom mirrors, and in turn, the millions of gawky, emotionally stunted junior high boys they were picturing when they repeated that cry of “trouble, trouble, trouble.” Like I say, I’m entirely sympathetic: When I was that age, Fiona Apple’s “Get Gone” was my rage conduit, and even though that freshman-year heartbreak was very real at the time (the story’s not important OK, fine, a guy friend of mine who I was obviously also crushing on agreed to “go out” with me only to avoid me for two weeks and then “break up” with me and also not be my friend anymore, ugh, MEN), whenever I hear the Fiona song a part of me is falling down with gratitude that time passes and we don’t have to stay teenage idiots forever. I would get it stuck in my head for days at a time, and personally, I tend to respect a song’s ability to do that more than begrudge it.Īnd yet, for all its comparative maturity, there was something still kind of sympathetic and childish lingering behind it. Its original billing as “the Taylor Swift dubstep song” didn’t do justice to what a well-constructed pop song it was, and it seemed like the arrival of a newer, rawer, mad-as-hell Taylor. Like anyone else with ears, I ate “Trouble” up when I first heard it. YouTube Hit Count: 45,262,468 at time of publication 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100, January 12, 2013Ĭurrent Radio Play Frequency: No.
0 kommentar(er)
