The musical style of this song is, like most of the songs on Reputation, much more electronic inspired than Taylor's other music. But rather than a loud, fast, intense experience like Endgame or ...Ready For It?, Delicate has a sound that is much more... well, delicate! It starts out quiet enough that you can clearly hear the echo of Taylor's voice and the music only ramps up when appropriate.
It actually makes a lot of sense to think of the music as being a symbol for Taylor's emotions in this song. It starts well-contained and small, but the more she describes how awesome this broseph is, the more is added to the music. It's almost like she can't help herself from falling for this guy, and the sound wells up with her feelings. But then, out of nowhere, she realizes that these feelings may not be reciprocated and she backs up.
"Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you're in my head?
'Cause I know that it's delicate"
Once the chorus begins here, the music almost entirely stops. But then, like always, it inevitably starts up again and slowly climbs once more.
I see this as a great instance of how the music direction on Reputation exceeds many of it's predecessors. It's clear that a lot of thought went into the way that the vocals and the music tie together, and it feels like they were made for each other. I'm no music expert, but I would imagine that the best songs have music and vocals that were developed in tandem, with each affecting the other's creation. I'm not saying this is the best song, but I am saying that if the tracks were developed separately from each other I would be very surprised.
Now, at the end, I want to talk briefly about the music video. So here's the thing. Remember all that I said earlier about the parts of the song working together? Well, if you watch this video, you may now understand why I like it a little less. The music video has a great idea behind it, is well shot, and looks beautiful. The song playing to it is also good, but they don't really say anything about each other. The message the music video is pretty clear, but it has very little to do with the song that's playing to it. Compare this to a song like Blank Space, and you can see how this video falls short.
The odd thing is that the music video seems to echo many of the themes seen on Reputation as a whole. Delicate just happens to be one of the songs not as concerned with Taylor's reputation, so it doesn't really make sense to pair these together. It seems to me like this was a video Taylor wanted to make, but all the other songs already had a video to go with them, so she decided to give it to Delicate.
Again, I don't dislike the video, I just think it's weaker than most of it's contemporaries. That said, I still watch it plenty.
See you tomorrow,
-C
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