Taylor Swift dropped a new single on April 25, 2019 titled, “ME!”, featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco. The anthem has an upbeat, Disney-like, bubblegum pink flavor, featuring bright and lively band music, paralleling the instrumentals of Justin Timberlake’s, “Can’t Stop The Feeling.” However, Swift’s single, “ME!” was a bland and lackluster rendition of the typical “feel good’ pop music that gets overplayed on the radio.

In the last two years, Swift has retracted her image from a vivacious, feminine pop singer with roots to her hometown in Tennessee, to a revenge-seeking, gothic, bad girl repossessing her identity (hence her last album titled Reputation). However, with the release of her new track “ME!”, it appears that Swift is heading back to her roots as a girly, upbeat, pop vocalist.
As a longtime fan of Swift, I am accustomed to witnessing each album and song she releases come with a shocking and captivating change in her image that entices fans. From a modest country girl, singing about her high school breakups in her album, “Enchanted;” to a classic, red-lipstick wearing pop soloist in her album of “Red;” to an edgy, dressed in black, diva in “Reputation;” there is an undeniable evolution of her persona.

The creative changes to her image are key to my fandom for her over the years. I was hoping her new release would introduce her under a new public face; however, ME! sounded like any typical, insipid song on the radio, leaving me bored and underwhelmed.

Her song has impersonal lyrics that lack a connection to the Swift fans know and love. For instance, the lyrics of the pre-chorus in the single, ME!, go as follows: “But one of these things is not like the others/ Like a rainbow with all of the colors/ Babydoll when it comes to a lover/ I promise that you’ll never find another like me.” The meaning of the lyrics in her song convey a message that has been repeated in mainstream pop music, from Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” to Ariana Grande’s “successful.” Swift needs to take a more unexpected direction, without getting caught up in mainstream music. I think this track will become a hit, but I believe that is because there is a lack of popular artists releasing music at this time rather than the quality of her song.