Day 34: By Any Other Name

For those of you who aren't aware, today's post will be a continuation of yesterday's review of Blank Space. Go read it if you haven't, then come back for the rest.

While the start of this song lays out the topic and themes exceptionally well, most of the rest of the song builds on these ideas while slowly shifting the focus from the intoxicating parts of the relationship to the straight up toxic. It's like Taylor in this song is some sort of reverse Sour Patch kid that starts out sweet and is sour in the middle.

New motto?

"Got a long list Starbucks lovers of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
'Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game"

This is the type of writing Taylor loves, where she takes a common phrase, in this case "don't hate the player, hate the game" and adds a twist to get it to fit in the context of her song. I think it works especially well in this context, since it again frames the relationship as a mistake Taylor can't wait to make.

I also want to talk more about the music video. I mentioned it yesterday, but it fits the song so well that it's worth coming back to. That, and it's a goddamn meme machine. I should try and get all my memes from Taylor Swift music videos. 

A fine addition to my collection

The video does a great job matching each line in the song to a visual that compliment it. Sometimes it's a simple as as Taylor screaming the word "screaming", but it often gets more nuanced than that. Taylor stabs Sean's painting while she says "worth the pain" really just driving that point home. You don't just see Taylor's wrath, you can really feel the emotion behind it when the audio and visual cued work together that well.

The whole scene with the apple is a little much for me, but I don't think it's that bad. Like, I get that Sean is supposed to be the apple, but it comes a little too out of nowhere for me to really connect with it. It has very good direction and cuts though, which ends up just making it a fun scene to watch.

The music video as a whole is just a treat and I recommend watching it several times to try and really get the various strategies it uses to get it's point across. I could probably spend another two posts talking about it, but unfortunately I need to cut it off today. There's a small chance I will come back to Blank Space in the future, but it will probably be a while. Overall my opinion on this song is that it lives up to how popular it was, and it's music video really adds on to that quality,

See you tomorrow,

-C