Saturday, October 17, 2015

New Good Song: "Wildest Dreams," Taylor Swift 10.17.15

Here's a new good song: "Wildest Dreams" by Taylor Swift. One of the points of this blog, and the driver of its title, is that I'm a very disloyal fan in the sense that I judge each song individually. There are certain acts who consistently release songs I like, but even they will inevitably put out some things I don't. The other side of that coin is that even if I don't consider myself a fan of someone per se, I'm happy to enjoy a song of theirs if it's good. Taylor Swift has been hit-and-miss for me ever since "Teardrops On My Guitar" back in 2007. There are some songs by her I think are fantastic, others less so.

Since adopting a poppier sound, she's released a string of songs about which I've been inconsistently enthusiastic. I appreciated "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," which ended up at No. 77 on my year-end list in 2012. And I adored "Blank Space," which will end up in a nice spot on my year-end list for 2015, surely in the Top 20 and perhaps in the Top 10. And I liked "Style" earlier this year. I wasn't particularly wowed by "I Knew You Were Trouble," "Shake It Off" or "Bad Blood."

Now here's her latest, "Wildest Dreams," which I'm not the first to observe has a Lana Del Rey feel. The video is also nicely filmed although it's much too literal at times, with an amateurish matching of lyrics and visuals that seem aimed at an 8-year-old audience. That said, the song is quite nice. Not sure it's quite as good as the under-appreciated song by Brandy with the same name, which was my No. 37 song for the year in 2012, but it's good nonetheless. Enjoy!

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