Day 83: a e s t h e t i c

Taylor Swift has made many music videos with wildly different styles. Today we're going to talk about one in particular that has a very distinct style. It's Style. Get it? Let's begin.

1989 as an album has a lot of very uniquely styled music videos. I would argue that it has more variation than any other album. Even Reputation with it's huge shift in musical style compared to previous albums has more typical music videos than 1989. 

Style's music video is exceptionally artsy, almost comically so. But it does a few things that I really enjoy! The video constantly plays with the idea of faces being slightly out of view. You never get a good look at either person's face for more than a second and it always ends up getting obstructed or transformed in some way. Here's a ten second clip with about 15 examples to show what I mean.

While I can totally dig how out there this video is, I really wish it fit in just a little more with the song itself. The music video depicts a relationship that has already ended which would fit a lot better with a song like Wildest Dreams. The video and the song are both good, they just fail to be more than the sum of their parts.

But I haven't even talked about the song itself, what's up with that? Well usually when Taylor's songs have a weakness it's usually on the music side. Either it doesn't live up to the amazing songwriting or it's a poor choice to go with the lyrics that Taylor has written. This song's biggest issue is very much the opposite. The lyrics to this song are by no means bad but they certainly aren't the strongest by Taylor's standards. The music, on the other hand, is what really brings this song to life. It's so unique, and has such elegance, such...dare I say style? It really brings what would be an otherwise average song to a much higher level.

The things I like most about this song, it's music and video are both pretty difficult to adequately describe with justice through writing so just go listen to it a couple times and come to your own conclusions! It's especially difficult given how popular this song was. Getting those opinions you've already developed out of your mind can be really difficult, but I have found that extreme repetition can help reset this confusion. 

See you tomorrow,

-C