base talk Is ME! Taylor's first major career setback?

[BtDecember]

I've been a Swiftie for over a decade and never I experience a more hated song from Taylor than ME!

 

Look What You Made You Do were pretty close but its music video saved it from backlash.

 

However, ME! is simply an embarrassment in all forms - the production, lyrics, music video, charts, and even the performances.

 

The critics were so harsh on it too: Pitchfork says that ME! "is a showcase for the worst and weakest aspects of Swift's work." The Atlantic likened its chorus to a dolphin screech (lol).

 

It is also the first time that she removed a line in a song; "hey kids, spelling is fun!" was removed from the album version.

 

Swifties like ME! always trash this song too lol.

 

 

 

So, what do you think?

 

[byzantium]

I think ME! was probably her largest setback with the most backlash but certainly not her first.  
 

Speak Now at the time was a bit of an underperformance after her monstrous first two eras.  It also did not produce any pop-country crossover hits like teardrops on my guitar, Love Story, you belong with me, or our song.  This album I think really prompted introspection on where she wanted to take her career.  
 

Reputation was also a bit of a setback.  After RED and 1989, Reputation was a significant decline in Taylor’s ability to dominate the singles charts which she has never really regained.  
 

I think ME! Though was the first time everyone just unanimously said NO!  There is not a cult crowd trying to redeem it.  We just all want it gone.  

[Icarus]

If we're ignoring things like Snapchat-gate and just talking in terms of music she has released, then yes probably.

 

We have to continue to remind her to never try something like ME! again.

 

 

[Otter]

Reputation, every single flopped after the lead... at least delicate had some legs.

The whole Lover era was underwhelming bar Lover (in the US)

 

[Alexz]

A truly horrendous song.

[JonginBey]

No. It was LWYMMD, rightfully.

[KatyPrismSpirit]

when ME! dropped it triggered my Witness post traumatic stress disorder. It was giving Chained to the Rhythm level of set back so yeah. The entire (L)over era was a set back artistically. Luckily taylor saw this and was like: "sweetie NO, I need to show the fagurts that the good music is still inside me". She subsequently preyed to the production credits of indie girls with critic acclaim, hired them and dropped folklore, the rest is herstory tbh 

 

 

 

[Da Vinci]

It was a hit so NO!

[wastedpotential]

13 minutes ago, byzantium said:

I think ME! Though was the first time everyone just unanimously said NO!  There is not a cult crowd trying to redeem it.  We just all want it gone.  

All of your post was correct, but I thought this is pretty insightful. As far as divisive career moments, ME! is the only one that has truly no support from anyone. WANEGBT/SIO have the 'oh well they're catchy' crowd that supports them. With LWYMMD there's a large crowd of redeemers myself included, and I've even seen some people rationalise away YNTCD and try to find reasons to like it. ME! truly has ZERO defenders, and this is coming from a fanbase that I've seen justify songs like Stay Stay Stay and Gorgeous, which are objectively not... good. I think that all opposing sides in the fanbase (Haylor vs. Hiddleswift, Kaylor vs. Swiftgron [and Hetlor vs. Gaylor], Speak Now vs. Red, Reputation vs. Lover, pop vs. country vs. folk etc etc) can all agree that ME! was a tragic move. I have NEVER seen anyone claim ME! as their favourite song or even one of their favourites, and I've seen basically everything else there 

 

I guess I'd just never really thought about it this way before

[JawBreaker]

3 minutes ago, KatyPrismSpirit said:

when ME! dropped it triggered my Witness post traumatic stress disorder. It was giving Chained to the Rhythm level of set back so yeah. The entire (L)over era was a set back artistically. Luckily taylor saw this and was like: "sweetie NO, I need to show the fagurts that the good music is still inside me". She subsequently preyed to the production credits of indie girls with critic acclaim, hired them and dropped folklore, the rest is herstory tbh 

 

 

 

I still cant believe she did a whole 360 in just a year. Folklore truly changed her career trajectory tbh. 

 

[naval23]

Yes thank God she worked overtime for magnum opus folklore 

 

The fact we thought it was a soundtrack single for Cats 

 

 

[Freakshowvato]

Reputation and Lover were setback eras

[Hannah Hunt]

58 minutes ago, byzantium said:

I think ME! was probably her largest setback with the most backlash but certainly not her first.  
 

Speak Now at the time was a bit of an underperformance after her monstrous first two eras.  It also did not produce any pop-country crossover hits like teardrops on my guitar, Love Story, you belong with me, or our song.  This album I think really prompted introspection on where she wanted to take her career.  
 

Reputation was also a bit of a setback.  After RED and 1989, Reputation was a significant decline in Taylor’s ability to dominate the singles charts which she has never really regained.  
 

I think ME! Though was the first time everyone just unanimously said NO!  There is not a cult crowd trying to redeem it.  We just all want it gone.  

what a great comment. i think this is the key to taylor’s longevity, she takes relatively minor dips in popularity seriously and can course correct hard with her next album. other pop stars might look at all the successes she had during reputation and lover and think “well, i still achieved ______, you can’t win them all”. 2 good examples would be btw and prism, hugely successful album cycles which signaled a coming decline. if she had released a fourth pure pop album after lover i think her career would be in a substantially worse place.

[Gorgeous]

It wasn't ME! alone, it was not giving it a dual release alongside the title track/Afterglow, the LGBT pandering with YNTCD and stereotyping the community, the plot holes in the album setting, not following through with the constant teasing of CS as a single, debuting the era early to not coincide with C*ts, and the fact that Lover is the second half of reputation with a pink cover. She was truly at her lowest 

 

[Virgos Groove]

Yes. It was a truly inexplicable move.

 

It's not like she did it because she just had to cash in on that sound (which was the case with End Game). ME! was the opposite of what was popular at the time (trap-pop), but not in a trend-setting way. The bubblegum sound, the aesthetic, the video, the performances... I still have no clue what she was going for. It was the first time in her career she seemed completely lost and out of touch with both pop culture and what the public wanted from her.

 

Thank god for Folklore and the imperial era - the 3rd of her career - that resulted.

Edited October 9, 2022 by ATWK

[wowsignal14]

1 hour ago, byzantium said:

I think ME! was probably her largest setback with the most backlash but certainly not her first.  
 

Speak Now at the time was a bit of an underperformance after her monstrous first two eras.  It also did not produce any pop-country crossover hits like teardrops on my guitar, Love Story, you belong with me, or our song.  This album I think really prompted introspection on where she wanted to take her career.  
 

Reputation was also a bit of a setback.  After RED and 1989, Reputation was a significant decline in Taylor’s ability to dominate the singles charts which she has never really regained.  
 

I think ME! Though was the first time everyone just unanimously said NO!  There is not a cult crowd trying to redeem it.  We just all want it gone.  

Speak Now ended up outselling Debut in the long run and is currently her 4th biggest album (untill rep and lover pass it)

 

that's definitely not a set back. it just did not do as well as fearless and that's okay.

[Taylor fanboy]

According to Lover stans, it’s a super successful album.

 

The answer is NO! The back to back atrocities of #that era was right in every way.

 

Well done Taylor!  

[NausAllien]

I'd say her first career setback was with "Reputation." Although the lead did well, the other singles underperformed, especially "End Game" and "Delicate."

 

Furthermore, "Reputation" was a critical failure for TS. I'm pretty sure it's her lowest rated album on MC (not counting her seltitled debut).

[byzantium]

29 minutes ago, Hannah Hunt said:

what a great comment. i think this is the key to taylor’s longevity, she takes relatively minor dips in popularity seriously and can course correct hard with her next album. other pop stars might look at all the successes she had during reputation and lover and think “well, i still achieved ______, you can’t win them all”. 2 good examples would be btw and prism, hugely successful album cycles which signaled a coming decline. if she had released a fourth pure pop album after lover i think her career would be in a substantially worse place.

I fully agree with this.  She really cares about her career and has both the level headedness to critically analyze what she wants to do and the talent to pull it off.  

[byzantium]

30 minutes ago, wowsignal14 said:

Speak Now ended up outselling Debut in the long run and is currently her 4th biggest album (untill rep and lover pass it)

 

that's definitely not a set back. it just did not do as well as fearless and that's okay.

I think it is easy to look at it from the perspective of 2022 and think “How could that possibly be a setback?” But you need to look at it from the perspective of the moment.  Taylor had one of the top ten bestselling albums in 2007 (in the US), 2 of the top 10 in 2008, the bestselling album of 2009, and the 3rd bestselling of 2010. In each of these years she was consistently at the top with a string of successful singles.  
 

then in 2011, speak now turned out to be pretty front loaded and fell out of the top 10 pretty quickly and was not a major player in the year without a major single (which you really needed in the digital era).  It was really the first time in Taylor’s career she was not at the top or gaining momentum.  Now she was still immensely successful, but the question of what longevity Taylor would end up having as an artist was a real question.  Taylor herself recognized this and it is for this reason that she had the foresight to start taking her career down a different path.  
 

Speak now was like Beyoncé’s 4, Katy’s Prism, or Adele’s 30.  All objectively successful but a setback from before and indicative of a need to change up their style and sound.  

[littlebodybigheart]

25 minutes ago, byzantium said:

I think it is easy to look at it from the perspective of 2022 and think “How could that possibly be a setback?” But you need to look at it from the perspective of the moment.  Taylor had one of the top ten bestselling albums in 2007 (in the US), 2 of the top 10 in 2008, the bestselling album of 2009, and the 3rd bestselling of 2010. In each of these years she was consistently at the top with a string of successful singles.  
 

then in 2011, speak now turned out to be pretty front loaded and fell out of the top 10 pretty quickly and was not a major player in the year without a major single (which you really needed in the digital era).  It was really the first time in Taylor’s career she was not at the top or gaining momentum.  Now she was still immensely successful, but the question of what longevity Taylor would end up having as an artist was a real question.  Taylor herself recognized this and it is for this reason that she had the foresight to start taking her career down a different path.  
 

Speak now was like Beyoncé’s 4, Katy’s Prism, or Adele’s 30.  All objectively successful but a setback from before and indicative of a need to change up their style and sound.  

no the person that you quoted is right. fearless was a peak era and everything that came after was bound to not perform as well so the fact that you’re comparing speak now to fearless to make it seem like anything less than a success is unfair.

 

all of speak now’s tracks entered the hot 100, it debuted with over a million sales and it spent 6 weeks at #1  it was #9 on the year-end chart despite being released at the end of october, and then was #2 on the year-end chart for 2011…so i’m confused.

[Feather]

Lover is her Witness era and Reputation was her Prism era (wasn’t the best but still had some hits). Lover is the only era I did not follow from Taylor. 

[BtDecember]

1 hour ago, byzantium said:

I think it is easy to look at it from the perspective of 2022 and think “How could that possibly be a setback?” But you need to look at it from the perspective of the moment.  Taylor had one of the top ten bestselling albums in 2007 (in the US), 2 of the top 10 in 2008, the bestselling album of 2009, and the 3rd bestselling of 2010. In each of these years she was consistently at the top with a string of successful singles.  
 

then in 2011, speak now turned out to be pretty front loaded and fell out of the top 10 pretty quickly and was not a major player in the year without a major single (which you really needed in the digital era).  It was really the first time in Taylor’s career she was not at the top or gaining momentum.  Now she was still immensely successful, but the question of what longevity Taylor would end up having as an artist was a real question.  Taylor herself recognized this and it is for this reason that she had the foresight to start taking her career down a different path.  
 

Speak now was like Beyoncé’s 4, Katy’s Prism, or Adele’s 30.  All objectively successful but a setback from before and indicative of a need to change up their style and sound.  

 

48 minutes ago, littlebodybigheart said:

no the person that you quoted is right. fearless was a peak era and everything that came after was bound to not perform as well so the fact that you’re comparing speak now to fearless to make it seem like anything less than a success is unfair.

 

all of speak now’s tracks entered the hot 100, it debuted with over a million sales and it spent 6 weeks at #1  it was #9 on the year-end chart despite being released at the end of october, and then was #2 on the year-end chart for 2011…so i’m confused.

Speak Now is the first era that I watched in full, and @byzantium is right. 2011 was very lowkey compared to 2007-2010. Only the tour was the saving grace of the era.

 

Also, Speak Now is the 3rd best-selling album per Nielsen tracking (calendar year), which is different from Billboard's tracking week (December-November), and a significant portion of Speak Now's sales is during the 2010 holidays, and thus it managed to be #2 in Billboard's year-end chart in 2011.

 

I think Mine killed the momentum, and sadly Back to December didn't really took off (it peaked at #18 during its chart run as a radio single then fell off the charts afterwards). 

 

However, despite all of these, Speak Now is still a massive success. Aside from the tour, she also established herself as a songwriter due to her being the sole writer of the album (sans If This Was a Movie). I also think that she gained a lot of die-hard fans during this era, including myself. All in all, Speak Now is an overall success and seen as a success in retrospective.

 

ME! on the other hand is just a major disaster in her career. As the other user said it here, it is the only time everyone is collectively said "NO!" to her lol.

 

[Holiest Dreams]

1 hour ago, Feather said:

Lover is her Witness era and Reputation was her Prism era (wasn’t the best but still had some hits). Lover is the only era I did not follow from Taylor. 

Lover is her biggest album (literally, it’s even doing better than 1989 was at the same point in its run) in terms of longevity. It’s like her 4th biggest album if we’re being honest, only behind her trinity (Fearless, Red, 1989) which is unreachable. And tbh it was her best performing album globally.
 

I don’t see how it could be compared to Witness in any way. It has literally been the most streamed album of 2019 on Spotify for like a week now, with better recurrents than massive/undeniable smash eras like Hollywood’s Bleeding, WWAFAWDWG, and even Fine Line. 
 

If we’re talking quality, it’s true though that it’s her worst to date for many of us. It was very forced and had weak and recycled melodies (which has always been her strong point, arguably even more than lyrical content). But critics at the time rated it as her highest scoring album, so it still won even then. It was a misstep that indicated a decline and need to change it up again, but it has won in the long run and was in no way comparable to Witness. 

[Nnnv]

4 hours ago, Hannah Hunt said:

what a great comment. i think this is the key to taylor’s longevity, she takes relatively minor dips in popularity seriously and can course correct hard with her next album. other pop stars might look at all the successes she had during reputation and lover and think “well, i still achieved ______, you can’t win them all”. 2 good examples would be btw and prism, hugely successful album cycles which signaled a coming decline. if she had released a fourth pure pop album after lover i think her career would be in a substantially worse place.

If not for pandemic she would have made different and possibly popier ts8 .. after folklore and eventually evermore there was a spark inside her to just write whatever she wanted instead of writing accordingly to eras