As I get my blogging feet under me, and, as I deal with the realities of my busy life, I have found that I need concrete things to write about. I also need deadlines. Because of these things, I am trying to set up a blogging schedule as well as things to write about.
This is what I have decided. I am going to update this blog two times a week. Once on Tuesday or Wednesday, and once on the weekend. The mid-week post will be a series of posts about popular culture things I love, or Kyle's Favorites. These things may be songs, movies, books, television shows, albums, etc. I want something that will help me keep my analytical skills sharp, but without the heady academic writing I will be doing in my Grad program. As I am doing my best to make 2016 a year of positivity, I want to focus on talking about why I love the things I love. As my time is relatively impacted, I might not write about movies as often as I have in the past, simply because I am not watching as many movies as I have in the past.
My first entry into this new category is my second favorite Taylor Swift song off of her massively successful 1989 album. Except, that it's not actually on the album, unless you got the special deluxe edition. It will forever be a mystery why this song was left off the actual album, as it is, simply put, a dope ass pop song.
Check it out. Swift's album is named for the year she was born, and the 1980s were a rich landscape of cheesy pop music, but most of her album is strictly modern. It is a celebration of who she is now, not of the era in which she is born. Perhaps that is why this track was left off. The synth poppy track would sound pretty close to home as a Duran Duran or Adam Ant song, who were products of the New Romanticism movement of music in the late 70s and early 80s. Of course, the song, like most of Swift's greatest hits, talks about her life. This is her greatest weapon, her ability to frame her own narrative through music. Whereas most of her earlier work took love deeply serious, and she wrote like a lovesick teenager, 1989 as a whole takes on a less romantic view of love. In fact, the title of the this particular song, is part of the new satirical Swift. The New Romantics are not romantic at all, in terms of what we traditionally consider to be romantic.
The song begins "We're all bored/we're all so tired of everything." These are not the lyrics you expect to hear when the track starts. It only gets better from there. A personal favorite line of mine comes pretty quickly after the opening "We show off our different scarlet letters/
Trust me mine is better." Obviously I enjoy a literary reference more than most, but I also love how apt this is for her, specifically. To the the public eye, hoping to shame women for being, well, women, Swift has had her fair share of public shame. Each relationship scrutinized, each decisions met with think piece after think piece. The shame the public forced on her is *better* than anything we could imagine. Her sarcastic tone, as she tosses this line out, is perfect.
The New Romantic sings out their heartbreak, dances it out, fills the sadness with friends, the emptiness and boredom of life are shared with those other Scarlet-letter wielding people. Once the chorus hits, Swift become impenetrable surrounded by her girls, tossing boys aside, tossing criticism aside, grooving to the 80s synth pop, and finding the definition of who she truly is.
between the cool vocal, the lyrics that hit like little daggers, the brashy hook, and the fact that it is a super exclusive track, what is not to love? Swift spends most of 1989 reframing her narrative from teenage quirky country-pop girl into a full blown pop star. Lyrically the album changes who we have been conditioned to think of Taylor Swift as. No longer is she the girl worried about tearsdrops on her guitar. Now she's building castles out of the bricks the world has hurled at her. This album was her coming out party, and what better song to close it out with than a song that goes "We need love, but all we want is danger."
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