Culture of Pop

Taylor Swift Shakes Off Your Criticism in New Video

Taylor Swift took to Yahoo yesterday to announce her new album, 1989, which is due out on October 27. The album will contain 13 songs, including, “Shake It Off,” which you can watch here.

I’m certainly no Taylor Swift fan, but I will admit that this song is damn catchy. The video is fun, too, with Taylor poking fun at herself while performing various dance styles: some Black Swan-style ballet, some modern  we-love-dancing-with ribbons interpretive dance, some “Oh Mickey” style cheerleading, some doorknocker-earring Fly Girl-style dancing, and some “let’s all dance like we’re in a Gap ad” style dancing. It’s fun, harmless stuff, although some folks on message boards are already getting up in arms with some of the segments of the video; saying that Swift is mocking certain cultures (the way that, say, Miley Cyrus is embracing those same cultures). However, I’m sure Taylor Swift will never be that controversial in her lifetime. She’s the spokeswoman for Keds, afterall. How much more genteel could she be?

Swift was born in 1989, which helps make sense of the upcoming album’s title. Will all of the songs have the flavor of the end of that decade? Let’s hope not. The end of the ’80s was a confusing time for music: Chicago (minus Peter Cetera) topped the Billboard Hot 100 list that year! Chicago! And they were in the company of such artists as Milli Vanilli, Richard Marx, New Kids on the Block, and Paula Abdul. So (speaking of Abdul) let’s hope 1989 doesn’t sound like when American Idol asks the finalists to sing songs from the year they were born (in other words, bland and unappealing). Not that it will ultimately matter, as I’m sure Swift’s next album will shoot straight to the top of the charts regardless of its content.

 

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