I simply will not stand for this ME! slander

Just like every well-adjusted male in his mid 20s, I've had the Taylor Swift song release date marked on my calendar for weeks now. Truly nothing beats the lead up to new Taylor, with subtle hints being dropped and misinterpreted for months, fan theories that are literally never right (but I read and believe them all anyway), leading to outright pomp and circumstance when it finally drops. It's like Christmas when you're a kid, except you don't have to deal with your family. So yeah, about a thousand times better than Christmas.

As we all know, there is a 3 step process when anything big happens in the world. 1) Thing happens; 2) develop opinion of thing; and 3) immediately go to Twitter to fight the people who disagree with your opinion of the thing. In the process of step 3, I stumbled a group of people who have the (alarmingly wrong) opinion that the new Taylor Swift single, ME! featuring Brendon Urie from Panic! At the Disco, accompanied with a music video already, that was counted down to a live streaming premiere, was less than incredible. This is obviously a non-sensical take, even for today's internet. For that reason, I was compelled to dip the pen, not just for you but for posterity's sake as well, in order to let everyone know how right I am and how wrong they are.

(Me, dipping the pen)

First, the countdown to a live streaming release on Youtube was the perfect way to create anticipation and you felt like you were getting access to something before anyone else, not unlike being at a premiere of an Avengers movie. Except that waiting for a Taylor Swift music video release alone in a library is clearly way less sad and depressing.

Moving to the actual song and video, its clear we're leaving the Reputation version of Taylor in the past. Whatever grudges she was holding or working through are clearly taken care of (mostly because she's basically turned Katy Perry irrelevant but whatever). Snake explodes. Bright colors, happiness. Normally not my thing, but it works here. There French part to start is weird and I'm sure theres some reason for it that we'll find out later, but dammit if I don't laugh every single time she refers to their young daughters and they cut to her cats on the couch, looking confused yet intrigued. A metaphor for us, the fans, perhaps?

When we get to where the song actually begins, when Taylor is in the hallway, is when it really becomes clear: we have an upbeat pop song that is closer to the Red than Reputation. This part of the song, from here to the spelling part, is so good, that I think I'm still smiling about it. Picture giving a small child ice cream. Or giving me ice cream. Complete, dumbfounded bliss. Once we get to the spelling "no I in team but there is a me" part, thats admittedly a bit of a drop off, but I'm dumb enough to be distracted by the bright colors and choreography and overall coolness of the video that I hardly notice it.

So, as the completely objective and principled journalist that I am, I can admit that this song is not her best nor her most memorable song. Most of the criticisms revolve around the, lets call them "interesting artistic decisions" that were the beginning and end portions and that it comes across as a children's song. However, lets have some perspective. First of all, this song isn't trying to be a serious, thought provoking, emotional dive into her (our, because we are all Taylor Swift) soul. This isn't Delicate, or Wildest Dreams, or All Too Well. This is much closer to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together or Shake it Off. Its fun and doesn't take itself too seriously and you know damn well you're going to find yourself singing along to it without even thinking about it.

Also, this is the first single off of what will be the next album. Taylor doesn't release the best songs on the album first, she releases them to set a tone and get peoples attention. The first single released off Red was We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, off 1989 was Shake it Off, and Reputation was Look What You Made Me Do. No one is going to tell you those are her most inspiring songs, with the most thought provoking lyrics. But they're fine songs (with the possible exception of Look What you Made me do, which is probably the worst song on Reputation) and they all certainly have a way of sticking in your mind and getting you excited or at least curious about whats next. That's what ME! is going to do. The bright colors, the really good heart of the song, the Brendon Urie. And most importantly Taylor. Taylor is back, and life is good.