[ SECRET POST #3909 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3909 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #560.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://i.imgur.com/vinIHTQ.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I *like* Taylor and I still just about died laughing the first time I heard the "old Taylor can't come to the phone right now" bit.

[(Anonymous)]

She has to rebrand herself to stay relevant. All it is.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess if "people laughing at your terrible emo kid lyrics from 2003" is considered staying relevant, then good job.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem isn't that she rebranded, it's that she did it really badly (at least from what we've seen so far).

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Also when people do it successfully, it's rarely called something as clinical as "rebranding". People just say, "Holy crap [so and so]'s new single/album is amazing", etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Last I checked, LWYMMD is number one. And both the lyric video and the music video for it broke the previously existing YT records by a mile. The music video has gotten nearly 400 million views in two weeks. And Forbes has an article titled "The Business Lessons We Can Learn From Taylor Swift" in which they state that she "belongs on the list of modern-day disruptive business geniuses."

So if by "she's rebranded badly" you mean, "I don't personally enjoy her new songs and how she's presented them," well, that's fair. But in terms of popularity and sales, the first month of her Reputation era could hardly have been more successful.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn’t like the song at first, but it’s really grown on me, especially after the video for it was so awesome. It’s far from my favorite Taylor Swift song, that’s for sure. But the syncopation in various places throughout the song is ingenious in how it pulls the ear, and the amp up to the chorus is pretty great.

Plus, if you see this as an “edgelordy” type song, I think you’re overlooking the part where it’s pretty clearly tongue in cheek.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know. I loved Blank Space, which was tongue in cheek and worked really well, and I just don't think that this song works nearly as well at that. I can't really quantify why without sitting down and listening to Look What You Made Me Do a couple more times but it just feels like a much less fleshed out and interesting persona compared to Blank Space.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

I listened to it again and I think the problem is that the chorus doesn't really fit in with the kind of tongue-in-cheek nature of the lyrics, and the tone of the rest of the song. And also it's not really good to listen to.

I think if the chorus was different and more in tune with the rest of the song, it would be a lot better. But as it is, it's just too all-over-the-place to work as an interesting move regardless of whether you think it's tongue-in-cheek or not

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I don't think LWYMMD is nearly as good as Blank Space. For one because it's just not as good of a song. But also because the satirical nature of LWYMMD is muddy, where the satirical nature of Blank Space was not.

In Blank Space, there was a clear delineation between the character in the song and Taylor herself. The character in the song was not Taylor in any way shape or form. (Though notably, when the song came out, there were people who failed to recognize that, just as there will always be people ready to believe the worst of Taylor Swift, regardless of how obviously she's poking fun at their simplistic, cartoonish presumptions about her.)

Whereas in LWYMMD, there isn't a clear delineation between what's Taylor and what isn't - what's satire and what's meant. When she says, "I don't like your tilted stage / the role you made me play" that seems meant. "I don't like your kingdom keys / they once belonged to me" is harder to tell. By the time we get to "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me / I'll be the actress staring in your bad dreams" it's pretty clear she's being satirical. But does that work, is the question? Can a song be a muddle of satirical commentary and genuine comments and still be artistically viable? And what if that muddle is also deliberate? What if the listener's inability to differentiate between Taylor and media!Taylor is deliberate? Does that change how one feels about the song? Obviously most of the people on this comm would scoff a summary "no," but I myself would not so readily dismiss it. There's a lot more going on in LWYMMD than many people give it credit for, that much I'm sure of. And that interests me.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep. I see a lot of people going, "but it's tongue-in-cheek!"

I'm not sure those people understand what that phrase means, or the fact that it's not a get out of jail free card for creative projects that fall very, very flat.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure those people understand what that phrase means

From Cambridge Dictionary:
“meant to be understood as a joke, although it might appear to be serious”

From Merriam Webster:
“characterized by insincerity, irony, or whimsical exaggeration”

From Google Dictionary:
“without really meaning what one is saying or writing”

I think I got it, thanks.

it's not a get out of jail free card for creative projects that fall very, very flat.

No, it’s not. However, if someone doesn’t recognize the satirical and tongue-in-cheek nature of a text, said text is bound to fall flat for that person. One might still dislike the text after recognizing its satirical and tongue-in-cheek nature. One might also claim the satirical and tongue-in-cheek nature was not presented clearly enough for it to function as desired. But if one criticizes a satirical and/or tongue-in-cheek thing as though it were serious and earnest, their criticism is bound to feel undeserved, and people are likely to point that out.

The secret criticized LWYMMD for being “edgelordy” – a criticism that only makes sense if one believes the sentiments expressed in the song were intended to be taken seriously. IMO, nothing in LWYMMD was intended to be taken entirely seriously. And frankly, the “darker” and “edgier” the song got, the less serious it appeared to take itself. Therefore, deeming it “edgelordy” feels inaccurate.

[(Anonymous)]

Taytay trying to rebrand herself as le edgy bad grrrl is like someone putting a witch hat on a small white rabbit and trying to convince everyone that it's a dangerous servant of the devil

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it?

[case]

I wish it had been

Oh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you just / what you just
Look what you just made me do

instead of

Oh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you just made me do
Look what you just made me do

At least that makes more syllabic sense. It annoys me every time. The line "long list of ex-lovers" being misheard as "Starbucks lovers" had the same problem.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the other way. It's the syncopation of it that make me like it. On first listen I didn't like it, but once my ear got to know the song, those syncopations became the best parts, because they're interesting to the ear.

[(Anonymous)]

Wait, she wasn't saying "Starbucks lovers??"

Well, it's not like I pay all that much attention to her, or song lyrics in general.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's actually "I've got a long list of ex-lovers", but yes, I hear "Starbucks lovers" almost every time, even though I now know what the line is supposed to be. Makes me laugh. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, almost everybody heard Starbucks lovers at first, it seems. It was pretty funny. I don't hear it anymore, but I definitely remember that's what I heard the first couple of times.

[(Anonymous)]

The review that Todd in the shadows did of this song was the most on point that he has been all year. So I to am glad for the existence of this ridiculous mess.

[(Anonymous)]

Todd in the Shadows is a gift.

[(Anonymous)]

It's pretty silly, but so are a lot of things that people randomly shove into their music. Like rap breakdowns....

Anyway, I'm just gonna post this Postmodern Jukebox cover of the song in the style of a James Bond theme with Kenton Chen for your enjoyment.

https://youtu.be/yjiupe-odRQ

[(Anonymous)]

I've got to applaud Kenton for his pizzazz. I'm generally not a fan of those retro-style covers of things, I tend to find them obnoxious - not twee exactly, but I guess cloying? But Kenton made enough distinctive, unapologetically eccentric emoting choices that I ended up liking it.

I'd never thought of LWYMMD as suited to a Bond song before, but now I really want that. Not the track as-is, but some version of it actually could make a really good Bond credits track (sans the phone bit, naturally).

[el_regrs]

I enjoyed rap breakdowns in music... back in the 80s and 90s when hip-hop was really taking off. These days... well, it just really depends on the song, and it doesn't really belong in most of them.