Song Belongs on the ‘Trolls’ Movie Soundtrack
Regina Allen and Kate Casper
You are driving around town when “ME!” by Taylor Swift comes on the radio. You are about to change the station when your 7-year-old sister who owns a bedazzled razor scooter yells to turn it up. Is this what Taylor Swift’s music has come to?
Upon the release of “ME!” on April 25, anticipation was building among Taylor Swift’s fans internationally. The singer posted cryptic pictures and tweets previewing the style of her new era in music. With a lighter pastel color scheme and motifs of rainbows and butterflies, Taylor Swift’s new album was looking like the antithesis of her much darker, more mature album, Reputation (2017).
“[Swift has] been on that emo dark side for a bit…so I was not expecting this bright colorful [single]. I am not a fan… It is just not cute,” said junior Ayan Zahra.
Fans embraced Reputation because it represented how Taylor Swift was growing up with her audience; while Swift was going from country narrative-based love songs to highly produced pop hits, her fans were going from pigtails to school dances and graduation ceremonies. Reputation seemed to be the perfect album to represent this transition, with a strong production value, a developed vision, and mature themes that were unlike her other albums.
On the other hand, “ME!” has no creative license–there is nothing special about it. It is the average cotton candy pop song with a repetitive chorus, cheesy verses, and a generic beat. “I think it sounds like every other pop song that exists,” said junior Tillie Davies.
Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco was featured on the track. While he is a very talented vocalist, Urie added absolutely nothing to the single. Swift and Urie sounded good together, but the vocals could not make up for the childish nature of this song.
The lyric “Spelling is fun!” before the bridge seemed like a failed attempt at being light-hearted and silly but just came off as juvenile. Up until that point, the song sounded somewhat bearable, but it only gets worse. Lyrics such as “You can’t spell awesome without me,” added to the cringe-worthiness of this track. Another questionable lyric is “Like a rainbow with all of the colors,” because rainbows have “all of the colors.”
The most redeeming quality of the song is the catchy-ness of it, which is more annoying than pleasurable.
While the overall consensus is very negative, sophomore Henry Wiedemer said, “I think that the drum line that goes throughout the song brings a cool, different vibe to [it], rather than just a normal pop beat.”
Ultimately, “ME!” was a disappointment. It is a generic pop song that belongs on the Trolls movie soundtrack, not a Grammy-award winner’s album. After the success and artistry displayed in Reputation, this butterfly-pastel album is already feeling like a major misstep.
