Look What You Made Me Do
"Look What You Made Me Do" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the lead single from her sixth studio album, Reputation (2017). Big Machine Records released the song on August 24, 2017, after approximately one year of Swift's hiatus due to the controversies that affected her public image throughout 2016. While secluding from public appearances, she wrote and produced the track with Jack Antonoff.
For other uses, see Look What You Made Me Do (disambiguation)."Look What You Made Me Do"
August 24, 2017
Rough Customers (Brooklyn)
3:31
- Taylor Swift
- Jack Antonoff
- Fred Fairbrass
- Richard Fairbrass
- Rob Manzoli
- Taylor Swift
- Jack Antonoff
"Look What You Made Me Do" has an electronic production combining electropop, dance-pop, and progressive pop with elements of electroclash, industrial, and electro. It contains an interpolation of "I'm Too Sexy" (1991) by the English pop group Right Said Fred, whose members received songwriting credits as a result. The melody incorporates strings, plinking piano, and synthesizers, and the refrain consists of drumbeats and rhythmic chants. The lyrics are about a narrator's contempt for somebody who had wronged them; many media publications interpreted the track to be a reference to the controversies that Swift faced. The accompanying music video premiered at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards and contains various implications of Swift's celebrity that received widespread media speculation. Both the song and the video broke streaming records on Spotify and YouTube upon release.
The song polarized music critics: some deemed it a fierce return and an interesting direction but others criticized the sound and theme as harsh and vindictive that strayed away from Swift's singer-songwriter artistry. In the United States, "Look What You Made Me Do" peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 with the highest sales week of 2017 and was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single also peaked atop the singles charts of countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom, and it received multi-platinum certifications in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Critics have considered "Look What You Made Me Do" a career-defining single for Swift, who included the song in the set lists of her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and Eras Tour (2023–2024).
Background and release[edit]
Taylor Swift released her fifth studio album, 1989, on October 27, 2014,[1] it sold 10 million copies worldwide,[2] and three of the album's singles reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100.[3] The album propelled Swift to pop stardom;[1] Billboard wrote that it bought forth "a kind of cultural omnipresence that's rare for a 2010s album".[3] Swift's popularity turned her into a media fixation,[4] and her once-wholesome "America's Sweetheart" reputation was tarnished by short-lived romantic relationships and public celebrity controversies, including a feud with rapper Kanye West and media personality Kim Kardashian over West's song "Famous" (2016), in which he claims he made Swift a success ("I made that bitch famous").[5][6][7] Although Swift said she never consented to the said lyric, Kardashian released a phone recording between Swift and West, in which the former seemingly consented to another portion of the song.[8] After the West–Kardashian controversy, Swift became a subject of an online "#IsOverParty" hashtag, where online audiences used the "snake" emoji to describe her.[7][9] Detractors regarded Swift as fake and calculating, a conclusion that surmounted after years of what they saw as a deliberate maneuver to carefully cultivate her public image.[10][11] Swift became increasingly reticent on social media despite a large following and avoided the press amidst the commotion and ultimately withdrew from public appearances.[12][13] She went through a hiatus mid-2016 and felt "people might need a break from [her]".[14]
On August 18, 2017, Swift blanked out all of her social media accounts,[15] which prompted media speculation on new music.[16] In the following days, she uploaded silent, black-and-white short videos of CGI snakes onto social media, which attracted widespread press attention.[16][17][18] Imagery of snakes was inspired by the West–Kardashian controversy and featured prominently in Swift's social-media posts.[19] On August 23, she announced on Instagram a new album, titled Reputation.[20] The following day, she unveiled the lead single from the album, "Look What You Made Me Do",[21][22] which was released for streaming and download on digital platforms by Big Machine Records.[23] A lyric video was released simultaneously; it was produced by Swift and Joseph Kahn and directed by ODD.[24] The lyric video features prominent snake imagery, depicting the chorus with an ouroboros,[25] and its graphics were influenced by the aesthetics of Saul Bass in the 1958 film Vertigo.[26] It was viewed over 19 million times within the first 24 hours on YouTube, setting a record for the most-viewed lyric video in that time frame.[27] "Look What You Made Me Do" impacted US contemporary hit radio on August 29, 2017.[28] In Germany, the track was released as a CD single by Universal Music on October 27, 2017.[29] Media publications regarded "Look What You Made Me Do" as Swift's "comeback" after a year of her hiatus from the public spotlight.[30][31]
Composition and production[edit]
Swift wrote and produced "Look What You Made Me Do" with Jack Antonoff, who also programmed the track and played its instruments, recorded at Rough Customer Studio in Brooklyn.[32] Other musicians on the track included Evan Smith (saxophone), Victoria Parker (violin), and Phillip A. Peterson (cello). Laura Sisk engineered the song, and Serban Ghenea mixed it at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The track was mastered by Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound in New York.[33]
"Look What You Made Me Do" is 3 minutes and 31 seconds long.[23] It is written in the key of A minor and has a tempo of 128 beats per minute.[34] The track begins with string swell and plinking piano keys and progresses into an electronic production; The New York Times wrote that the opening strings and piano were melodramatic and evoked a "dark, fantasy-film" atmosphere,[17] whereas The Daily Telegraph's Sarah Carson described the strings as "Hollywood"-inspired.[35] The verses and chorus are built on electronic tones and hip-hop-inspired beats and vocal cadences.[17][36]
The pre-chorus incorporates piano and synth-simulated brass, and the bridge incorporates strings. The chorus consists of drumbeats and rhythmic chants of the title, which is repeated eight times with different tones of delivery.[17][37] Jon Pareles commented that the piano and strings in the pre-chorus and bridge gave them a "melodramatic, emotional" feel, whereas Swift's repeating the title in the chorus sounded "vindictive, mocking, dismissive, even a little playful".[17] Music critics mostly described the track as electropop.[26][38][39][40] NPR's Lars Gotrich said that the beats and vocals evoked electroclash,[40] Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos said it was a dance-pop song,[41] and Fact's Chal Ravens deemed it progressive pop.[42] The production incorporates elements of mid-1980s and 1990s industrial and electro.[17][32] Some critics commented that the track showcased a "darker" soundscape compared to Swift's previous releases;[17][32] Spanos attributed this effect partly to the "dark techno" of Britney Spears's 2007 album Blackout.[43]
Lyrical interpretations[edit]
The song emphasizes the blame that is placed on an enemy, in particular the line "I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined", which was inspired by Arya Stark's kill list in the television series Game of Thrones.[44] The middle eight of the song features Swift saying, "I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now / Why? / Oh, 'cause she's dead!" Spanos noted a "nightmarish aesthetic" present in the song, and believed it to be a continuation of the "antagonistic persona" from "Bad Blood".[41] Richard Fairbrass, Fred Fairbrass, and Rob Manzoli, the members of the British dance-pop group Right Said Fred, are credited as songwriters because the song interpolates the melody of their song "I'm Too Sexy".[45][46] According to Fred Fairbrass, he and his brother were contacted one week before the release of "Look What You Made Me Do" and were asked whether a "big, contemporary female artist who hasn't released anything for a while" – whose identity they were not told – would be able to use a portion of their song for her latest single.[47] Although the brothers agreed to a deal, they did not officially find out that the artist in question was Swift until the morning after the song was released but had deduced that it was her based on the description they were given.[47] Both of the Fairbrass brothers said that they enjoyed "Look What You Made Me Do"; Fred Fairbrass told Rolling Stone, "I like the cynical aspect of the lyric, because 'I'm Too Sexy' is a cynical song, and I think she channeled that quite well."[47] A representative for Swift confirmed that the song interpolated the melody from "I'm Too Sexy", but did not include sampled audio from the earlier song.[48]
Critical reception[edit]
Upon release, "Look What You Made Me Do" polarized music critics.[49][50][51] Some considered the single a fierce return and an interesting move for Swift to reclaim her public narrative, whereas others found the production and themes vindictive, harsh, and off-putting.[52] USA Today said that the polarized reaction to the song illustrated Swift's position as a "ubiquitous cultural force".[53] The Telegraph's Sarah Carson praised the song, deeming Swift and Antonoff's work as "blowing past the production clichés of clap tracks and hiccuped syllabic hooks that have proliferated across Top 40 fare in recent years with boldly inventive textures and fresh melodic, rhythmic and sonic accents". She also added how the track musically and sonically shifted alongside the lyrics.[35]
Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times wrote a positive review of the song, saying: "The reverberating crescendo builds and ever more delicious is the wickedness of Swift's menacing protagonist", praising Swift for her successful embrace of the villain character the media has portrayed her as previous to the song's release.[37] Variety's Chris Willman also praised Swift's embrace of darker-styled pop music and the stylistic conflict between the song's pre-chorus and chorus.[54] Mark Harris, writing for Vulture, thought of Swift's song as a pop art anthem for the Trump era in how she reappropriates her public feuds as empowering badges of honor without acknowledging her responsibility or blame.[55]
Maura Johnston of The Guardian wrote a negative review of the song, faulting the "sloppy" lyrics and blaming Swift for not giving a clear context in the lyrics.[26] Lindsay Zoladz of The Ringer said, "Unleashed on a deeply confused public late Thursday night, the song is a strange collage of retro reference points: mid-aughts Gossip Girl placement pop, the soundtrack to Disney's live-action Maleficent, and — yes, really — Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy", except devoid of the self-effacing humor and wit. Yes, the new Taylor Swift song just made me compliment Right Said Fred." Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone believed that the song marked a continuation of the feud between Swift and rapper Kanye West; the latter had previously name-dropped Swift in his song "Famous" by using the line, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? / I made that bitch famous". The single was noted as being darker and angrier than what Swift had done before.[41][56] Meaghan Garvey from Pitchfork referred to it in a review as "a hardcore self-own" track.[57]
Retrospective reviews considered "Look What You Made Me Do" a career-defining song for Swift. In 2019, Slant listed "Look What You Made Me Do" as one of the 100 singles that defined the 2010s decade.[58] In 2023, Zoya Raza-Sheikh of The Independent opined that the single portrayed Swift as a "beleaguered" pop star, and functioned as a "clap back at the critics, media, and celebrity rivals who had celebrated her public "downfall" in 2016".[59]
Commercial performance[edit]
"Look What You Made Me Do" broke several streaming records upon release.[60][61] In the United States, "Look What You Made Me Do" debuted at number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100, with that week's chart capturing its first three days of airplay.[62] It also sold slightly under 200,000 digital copies within its first day of sales in the country, where it became the fastest-selling download since Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You".[63] One week later, the song ascended from number 77 to number one on the Hot 100 after its first full week of tracking, becoming the fifth-largest rise to the top position and Swift's fifth number-one single in the United States. Ending the record-tying 16-week reign of Luis Fonsi's "Despacito", "Look What You Made Me Do" became one of the most dominant number-one hits of all time, leading ahead of "Despacito" with more than double the Hot 100 points.[64]
The song also topped the nation's Streaming Songs chart with 84.4 million streams, becoming its most streamed song within a week by a female artist at the time and second overall behind the 103 million that Baauer's "Harlem Shake" gained in 2013. The track also had more weekly streams in the US than any other song in 2017. The song stayed atop the charts for three consecutive weeks, tying with American rapper Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow" as the longest-running female at the number one spot on the charts in 2017.[64]
With 353,000 copies sold in its first week, "Look What You Made Me Do" opened atop the US Digital Songs chart and had the country's biggest sales opening since Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!" in 2016 as well as the best weekly sales for a song by a female artist since Adele's "Hello" in 2015. The track also became the country's first number-one song by a female artist since Sia's "Cheap Thrills" (both in 2016). It additionally was the first solo song by a female to top the US charts since "Hello".[64] It remained atop the Hot 100 and Streaming Songs charts for a second week with 114,000 copies sold and 61.2 million streams. That week, it was bumped to number two on the Digital Songs chart by Swift's track "...Ready for It?", which debuted at number one with 135,000 digital copies sold. As a result, Swift became the first artist to have two tracks sell over 100,000 digital copies in the nation within a week since Sheeran did so with "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill". It also became the first time a female had two songs within the top five of the Hot 100 since 2015 when Swift's songs "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off" respectively were at numbers four and five on the chart.[65] The single also topped the Mainstream Top 40 chart, becoming Swift's eighth single to do so.[66]
In the United Kingdom, "Look What You Made Me Do" sold 20,000 copies and was streamed 2.4 million times in less than a week.[67] The song debuted at the top of the UK Singles Chart on September 1, 2017 – for the week ending date September 7, 2017, with opening sales of 30,000 copies and 5.3 million streams within the week and becoming Swift's first chart-topping song in Britain.[68] It spent two weeks at the top spot.[69] As of December 2022, "Look What You Made Me Do" has sold over one million combined units in the UK.[70]
"Look What You Made Me Do" also debuted at number one on the Irish Singles Chart on September 1, 2017, and became Swift's first song to top the chart in Ireland. "Look What You Made Me Do" opened at number one in Australia on September 2, 2017, becoming her fifth track to top the ARIA Charts.[71] It spent another week at the summit.[72] The song has been certified Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments of 70,000 units.[73] After debuting at number one on the Canadian Hot 100,[74] "Look What You Made Me Do" was also certified Platinum by Music Canada for shipments of 80,000 units on September 14, 2017.[75] In New Zealand, "Look What You Made Me Do" entered the number one spot on September 4, 2017, becoming Swift's fourth chart-topping single there.[76] In the Philippines, "Look What You Made Me Do" debuted at number seven on the Philippine Hot 100 in its first week. A week later, it ascended to the number one spot, ending the ten-week reign of "Despacito".[77]
Music video[edit]
Production and release[edit]
Preparation for the music video began in January 2017, while the shooting took place in May.[78][79] The dance was choreographed by Tyce Diorio, who had previously worked with Swift on the video for her 2014 single "Shake It Off".[78] Swift's makeup as a zombie was done by Bill Corso.[79] Post-production of the video lasted until the morning of its release date.[79] A 20-second music video teaser was released on Good Morning America on August 25.[80]
The song's music video premiered on August 27, 2017, at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.[81] The video broke the record for the most-watched video within 24 hours by achieving 43.2 million views on YouTube on its first day.[82] It topped the 27.7 million Vevo views Adele's "Hello" attracted in that timeframe, as well as the 36 million YouTube views of Psy's "Gentleman" video.[83][84][85] It was viewed at an average 30,000 times per minute in its first 24 hours, with views reaching over three million views per hour.[82] The video was named the fifth-best music video of 2017 by Rolling Stone[86] and the seventh-best music video of 2017 by Billboard.[87] In 2020, Parade ranked the video 20th on the list of 71 Best Music Videos of All Time.[88]