Star Analysis - Taylor Swift

Katie's Star Analysis on Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift started off as focusing on the ‘country’ genre of music with her singing. In 2006 she released her first album ‘Taylor Swift’ with 11 songs on it. It was all country based. She was nominated for ‘The Academy of Country Music Award for Album of the Year’ for this album.

Analysing the music video for ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’- Just a few shots

The establishing shot shows that it is set in a school atmosphere, and so possibly is about a teen romance? The next shot change shows Taylor, who instantly shows that she is most probably the main character. This is an aspect of the music genre ‘country’. It starts off with a narrative. There is a small conversation between Taylor and a boy.

At the end of this narrative, the music begins and a new scene appears. It’s of Taylor in what seems like a dark themed bedroom. Then there is an extreme close-up shot of Taylor. She is miming to the lyrics in this part, although this part of the video seems like she is singing there and then. In other words, it’s like she is not miming, she is just singing to the camera sort of thing. In this next shot she seems to be lying on her bed holding her guitar. Giving the sense that this music that she has created has in fact got a ‘country’ theme to it.

  After a few scenes of her in her room singing with the guitar. It goes back to a bit of the story that she is explaining in her lyrics. It is a scene of her and the guy.

  It then goes back to her singing with the guitar, and then goes back to this library scene, telling the story. It transfers between these scenes a lot (Between the story/narrative scene and her actually ‘singing’ to the camera). The story is that the guy only sees Taylor as a friend, and likes another girl.

It ends with a fade and a slightly tilted angle movement of Taylor lying on the bed with her guitar, singing the final lyrics. But actually the final thing you see is the guitar on the bed.

8 years later, she has changed quite a bit. There have been a few bits in the media about her change. She has changed from doing ‘country’ music, to doing more ‘pop’-style music. One of her new pieces of music, ‘Shake it off’ was actually number one in the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in September 2014.

Analysing the music video for ‘Shake it off’- Just a few shots

The establishing shot shows possibly some ballerinas, getting ready to perform a routine? The music starts up too. But no lyrics yet. It’s only when they are all just about to start the routine (?) that there is a mid-shot of Taylor, starting off the lyrics of the song. She sings to the camera a lot in this music video. There are many different shots of all of them in the same room. They are all ballerinas, including Taylor.

The scene then changes into a more ‘urban’ themed mise-en-scene. Although the music style stays as it is. There is some ‘break-dancing’ shown in this urban theme. Even Taylor has a go…

It then switches to the ballerinas. And Taylor has now got a ballerina costume on. Going for a more ‘delicate’ ‘Ballerina-style’ theme. Some more dancing is involved too.

Then she goes for a more ‘gymnastic’ theme (?).They do all these ‘stretchy’ ‘gymnastic’ moves.

It transfers between these themes for a few seconds, until the beat of the music changes a bit, and she is now doing a ‘robotic’ ‘retro’ themed mise-en-scene and dance.

She then changes to another different type of ‘urban’ theme. Perhaps you could say a more ‘chavy’ theme (?) This is because of the costumes she, and the others are wearing at this time.

As well as switching between all of these different themes. Some scenes show her singing to the camera, with a band behind her. She is also holding a microphone. She also raps. When she starts rapping, the theme of the mise-en-scene is cheerleaders/cheerleading. BUT she seems to ‘accidently’ make a mistake, by dropping her pom-pom on the floor. She makes some mistakes in most of her themes in this video. Which I think shows that she wants to make this song ‘fun’ and ‘upbeat’ and wants to tell her fans that don’t worry about making mistakes. We all do it. I may be wrong though.

And the last ‘theme’ is quite basic. Just a small band, her and what seems like her fans. They are all wearing basic everyday clothes, and are just dancing.

DIFFERENCES

I can see quite a big difference between one of her very first songs ‘Teardrops on my Guitar’ and her newer, more recent song ‘Shake it off’.

One of the differences I see is that ‘Teardrops on my Guitar’ has a narrative and story to it. It tells the story of a girl who wants to be more than friends with a guy she likes, but she can tell that he only sees her as a friend, and likes another girl. This is shown in the music video, by the way it shows a narrative storyline that follows along with the lyrics and appears every so often.

The ‘country’ genre is very often pointed out in the music video by the use of mise-en-scene. Mainly by the guitar that is shown with her, in the scenes where you can physically see her singing whilst lying on her bed. You can also tell it’s a country theme by the pace of the shots and the song in general. They seem much more slower.

‘Shake it off’ doesn’t have a narrative storyline, although I think it does have a moral. The lyrics and the way she shows different themes and cultures, through the use of mise-en-scene show this. I think the moral that she is putting across is that if you make mistakes, don’t worry. Try and laugh it off and try again. Also there are going to be people who dislike you, just ignore them and ‘shake it off’- be the better person and don’t let it get to you. Shake it off is definitely more of a ‘pop’ genre. This is because there is no narrative, a lot of dancing, fast paced editing, different themes etc.

Although these two songs differ, they have one similarity in that they both use a lot of mise-en-scene to help enhance the quality, and to help people identify the genre and themes of both of the music videos.

Taylor Swift has obviously felt that in this era ‘pop’ is most probably more popular than ‘country’, and so created a pop song and music video. I think she has most definitely moved on from ‘Country’ now and so has changed a lot in almost 10 years.

Katie Tancred