Shake it Off to Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off

Taylor Swift’s new single “Shake It Off” off of her new pop album 1989 is a big jump from her old country love songs. The song starts right off and carries through a peppy beat that screams pop music. Add catchy song lyrics that repeat the same sounds over and over and you’ve got a song that will be stuck in your head for days.

Though Taylor Swift has impressively stepped out of the country box before with songs like “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Shake It Off” has a much quicker beat that sounds more like a cheer than an anthem.

Another interesting attempt for Swift that I find entertaining is that during the bridge of the song, she attempts rapping. Though her rapping is just talking sassy to a beat, it keeps listeners drawn in to stay for the last two choruses.

My favorite aspect of the song comes with the lyrics. The song is meant to be about Swift saying how she just shakes off all of her haters and doesn’t care what they say about her. This leads to irony as the haters start to complain and insult the song, because as Swift stated in the song, she will just “Shake it Off.”

The song shows the playful side of Swift’s music that points to the fact that she is still a young adult and not all of her music has to be mature.

Though Swift’s voice is singing more about herself shaking it off, listeners could interpret the message for themselves, being reminded that we all need to be ourselves and to shake off all the people who don’t accept us for who we are.

I find the song peppy, danceable, and incredibly hard to get out of your head once it’s in there. This makes it enjoyable and annoying at the same time. I give the song a 3.5 out of 5 stars because it is fun and different for Swift, but more of the same for pop music.