Covering “Me” by Taylor Swift
- Dylanna Fisher
- Mar 15, 2020
- 3 min read
Named IFPI’s top artist of 2019, Taylor Swift continues to be a voice for the heart and all its various emotions. Her Lover album was released in August of 2019, with a resounding favourite being the track “Me” by Taylor Swift!
Taylor Swift’s Album Lover was released in August of 2019
“Three singles were released off the Lover album last year: ME!, featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco; You Need To Calm Down, and the title track, Lover. ME!, the first release from the album, opened at number one on the global Spotify charts,” reads an IFPI press release.
These are rather popular hits from the album. However, there is speculation on the top tracks from the album (as there always is, regardless of the album or artist). According to the LA Times, the album’s top 5 songs are “Cruel Summer,” “Soon You’ll Get Better,” “Cornelia Street,” “Lover,” and “Paper Rings.”
This song broke several records, including the most significant jump in the Hot 100 history. It jumped 98 spots in a single week. It peaked at #2 in the USA and Canada and #3 in the UK Singles Chart.
Do you notice that “Me!” wasn’t on the tip-top of that list regardless of being the album’s lead single?
“Me!” is extremely catchy. It returns to a more pop and poppy era of Taylor. That isn’t a good thing for some critics.
Los Angeles Times’ review is not so promising about the single and say, “Devoted Swift fans know that her albums’ lead singles are often red herrings, and thankfully that turned out to be the case again with the wise and tender “Lover,” which nonetheless announced itself back in April with this excruciatingly childish marching-band jam. Nix it from your customized “Lover” playlist and forget that one of pop’s smartest lyricists ever rhymed “I’m the only one of me” with “Baby, that’s the fun of me.”
However, they aren’t the only ones to criticize or compare the song to “Shake It Off,” one of Taylor Swift’s more annoying, catchy songs.
Pitchfork does the same thing. They agree that Taylor Swift is a skilled musician whose best work is entwined in “its heartfelt vulnerability and goofy humour, in simple wisdom that showed her to be empathetic and hopelessly romantic.”” However, “Me!” is described as “a showcase for the worst and weakest aspects of Swift’s work, the syrupy kitsch and occasional over-reliance on wordless vocal fillers… “ME!” is two steps away from a corporate jingle, innocuous feel-good music in an airtight clamshell package.”
The Atlantic compares it to others within the pop genre but only the worst of the worst, saying, “Taylor Swift’s ‘ME!’ Is Everything Wrong With Pop. The star’s first single since Reputation has almost none of the elements that once made her interesting, but it does have a dolphin screech for a chorus.”
Cover Songs of Covering “Me” by Taylor Swift
Let’s see who can do it better. We’re looking at these cover songs to see if cover artists can take something that reviewers do not so much loathe but something quite close to that word and make it more palatable. Of course, the lyrics don’t change, but the music, style and sound do.
Here are 10 of them, and we’ll let you decide.
Comments