Taylor Swift’s reputation might be tainted from all the things media says about her but she’s reclaiming everything back. In 2017, she released her 6th studio album. “Reputation” garnered 1.2 million copies sold according to Billboard in its first week. This makes her the only artist to have four albums to sell more than a million copies sold in the first week. But thanks to “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989,” and “Reputation,” she now made history in the pop music scene.
On March 12, she released the 4th music video from “Reputation.” “Delicate” is a song made with a vocoder. A vocoder records a singer’s voice and splits it into chords. After splitting, it allows the user to play the recorded voice in chords. Although it’s not a usual Swift theme, the fans accepted “Delicate” with open arms.
Taylor Swift is ‘Delicate’
Delicate is among the fan favorites of the album. Swifties claim that it’s showing a sexier side of Swift. Max Martin and Shellback formulated the song. It consists of beats and auto-tuned like vocal effects. With Joseph Khan still directing the video, it’s expected that there will be a lot of sci-fi scenes in it. But the fans got a video that has an almost 2008 Taylor Swift storytelling.
1. Swift’s reputation narrative
Throughout the new album, every music video released was about her “reputation.” It’s either the good or the bad side portrayed by the media. Swift took into consideration the response she got from “Blank Space.” The song was a was a hit from 2015. When she played the media’s narrative to her advantage, Swift won a lot of people. In “Look What You Made Me Do,” she made fun of herself using the memes of her online. In “…Ready For It?” she characterized two Swifts. One is the dark one, and another being the real one. Meanwhile in “End Game,” she tags with her Ed Sheeran and Future for a narrative about her lavish lifestyle. In “Delicate,” she showed how people think of her as a pop star with a strong following. The scenes looked like Swift trying to be what the people want her to be.
2. Swift is not perfect
In one of the scenes, she sits in front of a mirror. After checking her nails, she sees her reflection. Then she starts to play with her face. She makes these weird faces pretending to be a funny person. Throughout her career, Swift was a perfect country girl from Nashville. The media saw her as an eye candy. She was even dubbed as the country’s sweetheart. But with Kanye starting her 10-year-long broken image, Swift’s critics lost interest in her. She’s not the perfect country singer anymore. Swift became America’s most hated celebrity. Add up to that her feud with Katy Perry in 2012/2013. Kim Kardashian even tried to break her image before “Reputation” came out.
3. Swift went ‘missing’
Before her album launch, Swift went into a social media blackout. She deleted everything from her social media accounts. Some claim this a publicity stunt for the album. Others claim that it means a new era. Of course, she needed a clean slate. After all the bad publicity and weird news about her, Swift needed a new image. Weeks after the purge, Swift returned with three eerie posts. Each post was a part of an animal. A snake. It’s what people in social media called her after Kim Kardashian exposed her about the Kanye West lyric in “Famous.” She buried her country singer image and returned with a stronger and fiercer persona. Swift is now notorious for jabs against her nemesis in the industry. In the music video, her reflection on the mirror disappeared. The people around her can’t see her as well. She went missing.
4. Swift was happy she went ‘missing’
Lying low from the media was Swift’s best strategy. She went missing from the public eye and it worked to her advantage. Although she’s hated for whatever success she has, Swift is a constant sell-out to the paparazzi and people in the media. So when she disappeared, she disappeared with all the profits people make up for her. There was no promotion for the album. She blocked media interviews on TV.
All she had were “Secret Sessions.” To Swifties, a secret session is like a gathering where fans meet Taylor and they all have tea. But that’s not all. Swift held the event in her houses. That’s one in London, Nashville, Rhode Island, and New York. Swift picked each Swiftie from the social media she has. Swift plays the album to the fans in the secret sessions before it even gets released. In that way, fans will rave about it online. That saves her from leakage and that’s free promotion for her album. Swift is a marketing genius. She knows how to sell and make others sell for her. In the music video, she made sure that no one can see or notice her. When she was sure, she stripped her long gown and started to dance. She went missing but she was happy.
5. Swift danced her sadness away
“Sometimes I wonder when you sleep. Are you ever dreaming of me?” In award shows, Swift is an awkward dancer. She dances to music like no one’s watching. The media often writes about it a day after an award show. She is mocked and made fun of for it. But in “Shake It Off,” Swift danced like she doesn’t care about what her haters think. In “Look What You Made Me Do,” she danced a complete number with a group of backup dancers. In “Delicate,” she lets herself enjoy the moment.
But she doesn’t care anymore about what people think of her. Because she knows who she is and she’s happy about it. People may have made fun of her in a long time but that’s over. Her reputation remains untainted because she doesn’t let people destroy her. No matter how hard she tries, people will always say something about her anyway. This time, she decided to have fun and let all things delicate be delicate as is.
Watch Taylor Swift’s new music video “Delicate” via Taylor Swift Vevo YouTube channel below.