Over the past few months as people assess why certain artists have been popular this summer, a certain name keeps getting bought up. Why isn’t Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” more of a hit? Sure, “This Ain’t Texas” brough a small crossover with pop radio, but overall it’s not a record that’s produced a hefty amount of noteworthy singles. With the recent news of the album failing to get a single nomination at Country Music Awards, the question is once again raised. Given that Beyonce is one of the few celestial pop stars who is a guaranteed success every time they drop, how come this recent string isn’t working for her?
As someone who is planning to rank “Cowboy Carter” among their Top 10 albums of 2024, I am not surprised. Beyonce’s success is so ubiquitous that she has commented on not wanting to release a music video. She wants the record to do the heavy lifting and, truthfully, I admire that. Having the audience envision their own world of “Cowboy Carter” comes with certain perks. However, I think it comes with the downside that there’s no permeability. There is just a song. You either like it or you don’t.
I bring this up in relation to A$AP Rocky’s latest “Taylor Swif” because I feel like this is more likely to disappear without the video. While the days of MTV and the virality of YouTube don’t guarantee the same success they did even seven years ago, I’d argue it’s necessary for an artist to build their brand. Most music videos in general aren’t artful. There’s a lot of crass trend-chasing towards demographics who have moved onto playlists. Even then, to find the videos that will resonate are guaranteed to keep the song in conversation even if it’s not terribly interesting. A recent example of this is Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World,” which only further confuses the empowering anthem it thinks it is.
Meanwhile, I think of “Taylor Swif” and realize that it’s not a song I would’ve listened to a dozen times in a week on Spotify. It’s fun gibberish, but the hooks and lyrics aren’t exactly moving me. This isn’t to suggest I’m not a fan of A$AP Rocky (his work on Denzel Curry’s latest is fun), but I haven’t exactly been sold on the rollout of his upcoming “Don’t Be Dumb.” It’s a record that has yet to feel like essential listening.
However, he’s a master marketer who has pulled through in the music video department. Following the German Expressionist-adjacent work of “Highjack,” he returns with “Taylor Swif.” I’m not totally against the idea that it’s a title existing solely for clout. For example, the previous title “Wetty” wouldn’t have inspired me to press play. As silly as it sounds, the age old hip-hop tradition of spinning a celebrity’s name into a hook (“I’m too swift/Don’t tell Taylor about this shit”) works very well here. It’s a song about doing crazy hijinks and attempting to not get caught. In that regard, it’s playful and deserving of its somewhat idiosyncratic title.
The music video in question is an odd duck. Reports have suggested that it was leaked sometime last year. Even A$AP Rocky has commented on how he contemplated not including it on the album. Instead, he’s embracing it with a full rollout that features a staggering poster of various character highlights. Whereas “Highjack” embraced more of a refined black-and-white aesthetic, this feels more in the camp of Vera Chytilova, The Daniels, or classic Odd Future. It’s a sporadic vision of something that could hold greater meaning or just be a series of images meant to stimulate the viewer. I tend to believe the latter, especially as no long take feels entirely congruent.
Not since Number One Popstar’s “Dance Away the Pain” have I been obsessed. Whereas most music videos I watch feel ephemeral, there’s something about “Taylor Swif” that keeps drawing me back. It could be that the whole thing plays like a fever dream where every idea that the writers came up with is on display. There hasn’t been anything this bold in a long time. Just when you think that you’re cutting to the most provocative image in the piece, it finds a way to top itself. There will come a point where you as a viewer will be accruing a thesis on what it all means and something will demolish it in five seconds. More questions than answers will be raised by the time this ends, and I haven’t been happier to live in that ambiguity.
While it definitely features CGI (at least I hope for the dolphin’s sake), I think this is a testament to human creativity. In an age where artificial intelligence is creating a warped sense of reality, it’s refreshing to see “Taylor Swif” basically tell everybody to hold his beer as he jotted down a ton of images that he wanted to conjure. Again, you think that you’ve seen the limits of this team’s imagination and suddenly things will be ramped up. Every frame is crammed with details that are only rewarded on rewatch and, even then, you’ll want to keep your finger over the pause button to catch something even more esoteric in the background.
An interesting detail is that this was shot in Kyiv, Ukraine around 2021. This was prior to the Russian invasion and I can only assume reflects a nation that looks much different now. I cannot be sure why A$AP Rocky chose Ukraine as the location, but I think that it works to create an interesting fusion of cultures. Given the amount of brutalist architecture that shines through the background, it feels like a ghetto not unlike the many that A$AP Rocky is familiar with in the states. Even then, it’s got its own flavor with many fashionable fur coats and get togethers that look familiar while being a bit surreal.
The disorientation works because there is something recognizable about these images, but they’re not entirely decipherable. It’s there in the opening scene where a car ride reveals an unruly passenger yelling at a dog before cutting to a naked man sitting on the hood of a moving car. One would be quick to assume this is a reversal of man and dog. Then again, why would the dog be on the roof?
The next scene that takes place in a bathroom isn’t any easier to decode. There’s people breakdancing on the floor. The toilet has what looks like a stylized coffee drink. A yeti (?) peers through the doorway as a man urinates upside down. Short of commenting on everything that seems off in this video, it’s the introduction that proves how nothing is going to add up.
The best that can be assumed is that A$AP Rocky is creating a vision of the shenanigans he tries to get away with overseas. When you allow somebody to continue with reckless behavior, it can often swivel into madness and create its own interior logic. Is there any reason that a burned CD-Rom would work on a peacock? Not really. Then again, placing cooked beans in somebody’s hands is even more bizarre. If there is a method, it’s not to suggest that Ukraine is a backwards nation, but that chaos has been such a normal part of everyday life that people have found new ways to cope. There’s no time to complain as porta-potties rain from the sky. Instead, one has to pose the existential question of what life even means. Do we dare become numb to the absurdity?
A$AP Rocky’s intent on constant escalation also serves as a distraction from whatever the last major issue was. Why is there a forklift jumping ramps in the background? There’s no time to answer that. The song must carry on. Social gatherings seem peaceful until you realize an eight foot tall man is shooting arrows at a man acting like a dog. Why is the man acting like a dog? There’s no time for that. A$AP Rocky is about to be hit by a car and we have to check on if he’s okay. The fact that it all ends with him putting up a finger to symbolize “Hush” as he says “Don’t tell Taylor about this shit” only proves how much is either illegal or illogical. We have witnessed disorder and boy was it pleasurable.
I’d willingly listen to “Don’t Be Dumb” when it drops. I’m not one to follow album rollouts nor invest in singles. While there’s a handful that capture my attention, there’s not many that exist outside of the initial playthrough. As contradictory as it sounds, I do love the sense of complete discovery that someone like Billie Eilish offers by holding things close to the chest. As much as I like the feeling of anticipation – especially the kind that A$AP Rocky has effectively provided here – I do wonder if the future of entertainment is to embrace something more secretive.
Then again, it didn’t work for Beyonce. There’s nothing to expand the world and give the audience something to ponder over. It’s what I miss most about an era more indebted to MTV and word of mouth virality. While it’s a great song, I’d have to wonder if The White Stripes’ “Fell In Love With a Girl” would’ve resonated without that Michel Gondry LEGO video. Having a sense of world-building around any given song is an art unto itself that I don’t think I’ve appreciated too much in the past 15 years.
This is all to say that while I think “Taylor Swif” as a song (and title) are more attention-grabbing than a timeless jam, the music video does a lot of heavy lifting. I am addicted to watching it because of how many details I find. It’s like a detective game of trying to find every odd detail in the background and answer “How did they do that?” The fact that it’s so fluid only adds to the charm of something that never lets up. Even the closing credits provide close-ups on characters who will only exist in these three minutes. What are their lives outside of it? How do they all intersect? I doubt that A$AP Rocky actually knows. Then again, that’s the beauty of art. The best is meant to be interpretive and challenge our notions of reality. This may not be the most concrete story ever told, but I love how complete the vision becomes by the end.
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