Short/Long Song Review: Blank Space

Wanna know a funny thing?
I ended 2014 here on Maroon Mondays (sort of) with a Short/Long Music Review of a song by Taylor Swift. I hated it.
So it's a sad thing that I'm starting 2015 (sort of) by writing a Short/Long Song Review of a song by...(sigh) Taylor Swift.

When I made my Top Ten Worst Pop/Indie Song List during the back end of last year, I faced a dilemma. I already had 9 songs on deck and I had a few choices from an artist to put at #10. And all of them came from a certain artist I have a long-running love-hate relationship with: Taylor Swift. Yeah I admit, I really liked some of her music (they're catchy and actually really good), but the reason I hated them is the same, consistent reason: All of them are songs about bad relationships and the boy who ruined it for her. I wouldn't hate her discography if there wasn't so many of them between her (so far, as of posting this) five albums. Because of this long stretch of formulaic nature, my annoyance of her and her music has stood the test of time since the jump...at least until last August, when Taylor finally announced to the world that she's no longer a country artist (or at least pop/country) and will continue her career as a straight-up pop artist.
Since then, my heart grew three sizes more,

and I had the strength of ten Andrews, plus four.

I can finally enjoy Taylor's music without the added annoyance of it being classified as country. ...but then I remembered it's still about her bitching at guys who fucked her over.

And I'm back to Grinch mode.

Back to the TTWPIS list, I chose between two songs to put in at #10, since "Out of the Woods", which I hate even more, was already at #6. They were "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space".
At first listen of "SiT" on YT, and hated it for her being in denial about her dating life and that corny-ass rap verse in the bridge. After several more listens, I began to like it more, but still hated that lyric and the bridge rap. I then heard "Blank Space" for the first time during her performance at the American Music Awards (something I should stop doing from now on), and already hated it for being boring and treading the same dead, rotting, decomposed horse of a topic. But after a few more listens from time to time, I began to liken it a little more, because of my thought of Taylor admitting she has a screwed-up dating life, and decides to mock herself for it. And boy, does she have a sense of humor.

("get to the damn song, you pizza-face toolbox!")

But then I had a decision, choosing which song I liked the least that will stay in the list forever. And I stand by my choices for better or worse. And the song I chose was "Blank Space". Sure felt good of myself to make the conscious decision and finish the list. After that, I felt ashamed for putting the song on the list instead of one I heard longer than that. I thought I liked it more than "Shake It Off". That song had more charisma and force.
A few days later, I read an article of her talking about the writing and production of the song and...I got angry again. She says she didn't make the track because of her parodying her love life; she's parodying the listening public's perception of her dating life. And there goes the denial again. Now I have a reason to put it on the list. But I still feel disappointed in myself for putting it there because haven't heard it enough to criticize it and I know there's more to the song to either like or hate.
So, in my darkest hour of despair and heartbreak, I decided to make this edition of Short/Long Music Review a curious question to see if I made the wrong decision or the right one to put it on the list.
Here is "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift.



"Nice to meet you, where you been?
I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sin"
--So we start off with Taylor meeting a guy and finding intrest just from face value. Yep just like any woman who's began a love affair. But this is Taylor Swift we're talking about. So hold on folks, this verse has just started.
"Saw you there and I thought
Oh my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake
Love's a game, wanna play?"
--Okay, that line is genius. Picking apart the curiousity of love in one simple line. And then

"New--money, suit and--tie
I can read you like a magazine
Ain't it--funny, rumors--fly
And I know you heard about me"
--Here's she mentioning her past, which you already know. At this point, I'm happy that Taylor is at least admitting about how the tabloid magazines perceive of her. Mocking her own shortcomings in life is a strength of this I can get behind.
"So hey, let's be friends
I'm dying to see how this one ends
Grab your passport and my hand
I can make the bad guys good for a weekend"
And here Taylor is a sweet, kind girl happy for a relationship with a guy
Yes, folks, Taylor Swift can make the bad guys good for a short amount of time. Where have we heard that before?

"So it's gonna be forever
Or it's gonna go down in flames"
(Psst, the second one)
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain"
(I don't think he'd be the one to tell you this, but I bet you the high of record-breaking records, chart-topping singles and a lot of money, especially after the Spotify incident, is definitely worth the pain...the pain of your wrist after writing down the lyrics.)
"Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane"
(Yeah, they will. They'll tell him they're still recovering after 3 months of riding the dragon. And hearing the dragon's music about them)
'Cause you know I love the players
AND YOU LOVE THE GAME!"
Jeez, Tay, no need to yell. So you love the players who love to play the game. Well, if you see the game as Def Jam: Icon and the object is to ruin your love and trust with metaphorical physical violence and throws to the bass-shaking walls, then I'd really believe you when you say they love the game.
"'Cause we're young and we're reckless
We'll take this way too far"
(Yeah, reckless. I'm pretty sure that "Reckless" and "Way Too Far" for you is staying up past midnight, watching R-rated Channing Tatum movies, eating cereal for dinner and the occasional use of the word Damn.
Jeez, you sound like a human Disney Channel Original Series.)
"It'll leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar"
(Ohh, now she's gettin' violent, huh? I sure a little wussy fight will leave...at least...a bruise on ya. Not much really.)
"But I've got a blank space, baby
And I'll write your name"
Blank Space. Meaning she has a book that collects the names of guys she's dated. First off, I didn't know Taylor still writes in books, when there's a thing called a computer that can save data for her.
Second, she must be a frickin' creepo to store a list of guys' names in her

"Cherry--lips/Crystal--skies/
I can show you incredible things"
I don't think "Cherry lips" or "Crystal skies" are that incredible. I mean the the kissing a girl and looking up at the stars are really good things, but they're not exactly tickets to Heaven if you know what I mean.
"Stolen--kisses, pretty--lies
You're the King, baby, I'm your Queen"
Okay, I've heard some corny things in love song like -- and "Call me Mr. Flintstone/ I can make your BedRock", but a line about kisses being stolen is a first in a line of them. Also, You said "I can show you incredible things" again. I know this happens before, but for someone like Taylor Swift to repeat a line in more than one verse, that's just lazy. Or foreshadowing something.
"Find out--what you want/Be that girl--for a month
Wait, the worst--is yet to cooooome, oh no"
Maybe what he wants is a good relationship with that'll last a damn long time, even if he known about you in the tabloids. But knowing you, we all know what's happening next. (I will give Taylor credit, though, for knowing the dreaded break-up was coming anyway. Because of the fact it has happened five times already, I'm proud of her for finally anticipating it.)
"Screaming,--crying,--perfect storms
I can make all the tables turn
Rose--garden,--filled with thorns
Keep you second guessing like
'Oh my God, who is she?'/I get drunk on jealousy
But you'll come back--each time you leave
'Cause, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream"
Holy shit, Taylor's gone banal. What a shocker.
I mean seriously, who didn't expect a Taylor Swift song to go down this route around verse two?? She starts off happily in love with a guy, then he does something that somehow pisses her off (she barely says what that is, leading us to assume she'll break up any guy for anything), and breaks up with him in anger, pain and tears. Ant then the cycle starts over for the next song and so on and so forth. And that includes "Shake It Off" if you count the "too many dates" line and that bridge rap. Sure, she wrote a couple lines about how people think she dates, but that's two lines in an otherwise likable song. But here, she wrote an entire song about her making fun of how the public sees her dating life. And how they see her dating life IS TRUE!!

"Boooys only want love if it's torture
Dooon't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya" x2
--Yeah right, Taylor; you don't know what torture is. There is no way you and any of the guys you dated would ever reach the development of a relationship that is "torture" since all of them barely reached 90-day mark. God, this made Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries' 73-day "marriage" look like a freakin' prefect masterpiece.

Yet speaking of masterpiece, let's talk about the music video for a bit. My God, what a sight for sore eyes that is. That's because its director Joseph Kahn said in an interview that he wanted it to emulate the cinematography of the work of iconic director Stanley Kubrick. And boy did he do a masterful job with it. It really looks like something Kubrick would direct; the camera angles, the tight shots, the movement, and the lighting look like a short film by him, than a Taylor Swift song about another relationship gone shitty.

Why did I put the song on the list again? Oh yeah.
Because it's freaking boring. Despite it's minimalist tone, the beat is so quiet and thin, I could barely hear it. It's like I'm hearing a spoken-word song. I try my best to listen to it and enjoy it, but it's so slow and tiring, I end up a little sleepy. Plus this out-of-place space between lyrics; it's really irritating. It's like her throat got sore and still needed to perform this as carefully as possible, so that the producers can take care of the rest by smushing the finished results together. But then they decided to leave spaces in to make it sound cool, or even revolutionary in pop music. It's like this:
"It's like--she's run--out of--breath/
Yet tries hard to keep it all on track;
It just--an-noys--me so--hard/
Makes me bang my head until a crack"
I've heard songs use this type of lyrical work before and this isn't the worst, but it's still annoying. All that on top of it being the usual TaylorSwiftian bullshit about dating a bad guy and him screwing her over to oblivion.

Taylor, there is no way you can deny your horrid dating life this long when it's been thrown out there in public so fucking wide open, that it makes you look like an idiot for trying to hide it. I know it's not any of my business of to talk about it (yeah yeah, I know, "why am I talking about it?", blah blah, Kermit the Frog sipping on tea), but you barely kept them a secret and when they end, a new album is either in the works or is released, and then you date another guy as if the last one didn't even exist. And the public explodes talking about your dating troubles and mocking you on how fast and loose you are in relationships. And no amount of sass and snark can redeem you.

...or maybe...maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe the guys she's dated really are assholes and treat her like crap. Maybe she tried her best to make each relationship work and notices each time that they aren't and smartly ran away before it gets worse. And maybe the songs she write are comfort away from the pain, heartbreak and sadness; to make her feel better and good about herself, and at the same time learn that girls everywhere are feeling the same way and wants to keep it up to make those girls feel happy and proud about themselves. And she'll use these songs to go into relationships better and find a better guy that'll treat her better and love her for her.
NAH!! THAT'S NOT IT! Taylor will continue the same damn cycle forever until she's dead. Probably even after she's dead, too.

So in summary, I do like this song. The beat is really good in its minimalist nature, and Taylor has a great performance here along with the lyrics. Most of them were well-thought of and well-written, and make for what could be one of Taylor's best songs. But because of the reason above, I don't love it, and I guess it really does deserve to be in the Top Ten Worst Pop/Indie Songs List. The lyrics are still about the usual, Taylor's still whining her near-non-existent ass off, and the guy she's dating gets off with the worst thing ever: Taylor Swift writing a song about him that'll go #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and will definitely win her a bunch of awards. It's a circle of life that'll continue until Taylor runs out of material (aka runs out of famous guys to date). I will like her new work, but it's gonna take a while for me to truly love and appreciate it.

See ya next month for another edition of Short/Long Music Review. Until next time, I need to find a girl that won't end up writing my name ...or listen to Taylor Swift. Shouldn't be hard.