Me! and You Need to Calm Down are both bad songs on an album where the rest of the record is good lol, absolutely wild that they rolled it out the way they did
I agree they were both weird choices but i think the hate for Me is a bit excessive (the bridge is the only truly bad part of the song) and I don’t get the hate at all for YNTCD, that song is catchy as heck
Yeah, no, all of “ME!” is terrible. “There’s a lot of cool chicks out there”? “I’m the only one of me/Baby that’s the fun of me”? One of our smartest songwriters just pulling out absolute grade-school level drivel. I truly cannot fathom her thinking she had something with that song.
I mean, have you heard shake it off? I’ve heard enough clunky Taylor lyrics that those don’t stand out that much. Perhaps that song is more dense than others, maybe they are worse than usual, but it’s still a catchy enough song. If just comes off as her trying to make a cutesy feel good song and not doing a great job. Hardly a musical crime though.
"Shake It Off" is a knowing, funny response to what the discourse around her was at the time. It's not "deep" but it's actually about something and isn't anywhere near as lyrically stupid as a song that originally included the line "Hey kids, spelling is fun!" It's also catchier, more interesting musically, and doesn't have the Panic at the Disco guy taking a giant vocal shit in the middle of it. Advantage: "Shake It Off."
I've softened on "You Need to Calm Down." Still not a song I really care for, but it's better than I gave it credit for at the time. But "ME!" remains her worst song ever, in my eyes, and is the only one of the "bad lead singles" that I can't make an argument for being the lead single.
Calling Cruel Summer a little secret best song on the album is part of TSwift's parasocial relationship with her fans that is so fascinating, making it seem like knowing non-singles makes you part of an exclusive tier of fans. You can't convince me that wording is accidental.
“Me!” has an extra layer of bad because it came off of “Reputation” and kind of signified the experimenting she did for one album was over. She way overcorrected from the perceived darkness of that album with basically a children’s song.
Reputation is a love album with a couple of late additions to shit on Kanye and Kim. Props to her and her team for getting fans to think differently.
I didn't like 90% of Reputation, and then when "Me" came out, I thought it was trash, and then I looked down at my hands and said "Maybe I'm no longer a Swiftie?" Thankfully, the rest of the album had some real finger snappers.
Taylor is a corny dork so she has some parts of songs that I kinda accept as corny being a taylor fan, but Me! Is the worst part of her corny songs extended into an entire corny song. She has corny songs that I find endearing despite that, like London Boy, Stay Stay Stay, and Gorgeous but Me! Was next level.