Taylor Swift has been through many different phases in the past years. From her Honky Tonk to Reputation phase, Swift has acquired more than 200 awards along with many other nominations. Swift is known for leaving intriguing little metaphors and delicate details in her writing, creating her own masterpieces within her albums. If you’re like me and have been a Taylor Swift fan since 2008, you have likely been guilty to being caught jamming out with a hairbrush, making “music videos” with your childhood friends, and going to way too many concerts, being overflowed with emotion every time. And of course, you own every album with the track order memorized and lyrics burnt into your brain as a familiar little friend.

Her newest endeavor, however, leaves many fans disappointed. The unoriginal beat and repetitive qualities of “ME!” is sadly not something unexpected, just exacerbated from her last album Reputation. Swift started her transition to pop in her fourth album, Red, but she completely converted to pop in her following 1989 phase. There was a lot of hesitation from her original fan base, most saying she was straying too far from her roots, but Swift stayed true to herself and thanked her loyal fans for understanding and supporting her through her musical journey.

A common theme found in Taylor Swift’s writing is change, and I have quickly found out that if you like a certain style of an album, that’s probably the last album you will experience with that style due to Swift always testing her boundaries and seeing where she can go. “ME!” starts out with the same sort of style as her Reputation album and doesn’t seem all too bad until you get about halfway into the song. The chorus repeats more times than I can count, which only comes down to lack of creativity. This can also make it easier to become annoying, which is never a good sign for an artist.

Also, I’m sorry but what is the whole “Hey kids spelling is fun” lyric all about? It’s inevitably child-like when you directly address a specific audience. When I listen to it, it makes me feel I am driving a minivan and getting cheerios thrown at my head while driving my three kids to soccer practice, and frankly, that’s cringey music to a 16-year-old girl. She narrowed her audience, and I guess she thought that bringing in a feature artist like Brendon Urie would compromise, but many of his fans are annoyed at the switch he has made in the music industry.

There is a theory circling around, though, is that this new song will be on the new movie soundtrack The Secret Life of Pets 2, which all starts making sense. However, Taylor Swift has not confirmed or denied this, but has stated that the new song will be on her new album, which is rather disappointing. Again, I love Taylor Swift and have been in her corner from day one, so it would be unfathomable for me to not give her a second chance. So, I’ll wait patiently for her next release, whether it be an album or song, hoping it is not as bad as the creation she has currently dropped onto our laps with her fans trying to convince themselves that it’s up to their standards.