Weekly Finale: Taylor Swift

For this week's musical finale, I offer a piece of news.From The Verge:

Taylor Swift is making her albums available on all music streaming services tonight, including Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon Music, three years after she pulled her back catalog from Spotify. The pop star’s management team confirmed the news via Twitter, saying that the move to make Swift’s catalog available came in celebration of 1989 selling more than 10 million copies worldwide.

My opinion on Taylor Swift is mixed. Her music has the virtue that she does actually sing, and a listener can understand what she sings. On the other hand, most of her songs tend to be putrid love songs.

One of the more tolerable examples of her putrid love songs is "You Belong With Me":



The highlights from Swift's musical catalog include "Bad Blood", which is actually a better music video than a song. Done in the style of an action movie, the video is fun:


"Bad Blood" was from her "1989" album, which is one of her slickest (and her best, in my opinion) albums, and which also moves her into more of a pop star sound, similar to the likes of a Britney Spears.

Her song "Style" is probably the slickest of the songs on "1989":



But I do have to give credit to Swift for what is arguably one of the best perspective songs ever, "Shake It Off":



The chorus delivers one of the better messages from modern music:

Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off 

One can argue this song is hedonistic, but I prefer to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it a perspective song, which reminds you that people will do what they do regardless of what you do. Sometimes, you just have to "shake it off" and get on with your life.

That is all for me this week. But I will be back Monday for more blogging, as I am sure this weekend will pass "swiftly".