Style (Taylor Swift song)

Style (Taylor Swift song)
"Style" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the third single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift wrote the song with producers Max Martin, Shellback, and Ali Payami. "Style" was released to radio on February 9, 2015, by Big Machine in partnership with Republic Records. An incorporation of pop, funk, disco, and electronic styles, "Style" is built on an electric guitar riff, pulsing synthesizers, and dense vocal reverb. The lyrics are about an on-and-off couple stuck in an unhealthy relationship because they are never "out of style".
When "Style" was first released, critics generally praised the production and deemed it a highlight of 1989, but a few considered the lyrics unsophisticated. In retrospect, critics have regarded it as one of Swift's best songs. "Style" was ranked in year-end best-of lists by Pitchfork (2014) and Pazz & Jop (2015). In the US, the single peaked at number six and was 1989's third consecutive top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100, and it was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Style" also reached the top 25 and received multi-platinum certifications in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Filmmaker Kyle Newman directed the song's music video, which premiered on February 13, 2015. It features Swift and actor Dominic Sherwood as a couple who reminisce about their relationship through illusions and flashbacks using broken mirror pieces. Swift included "Style" on regular set lists for three of her world tours: the 1989 World Tour (2015), the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018), and the Eras Tour (2023). Following the 2019 dispute regarding the ownership of Swift's back catalog, she re-recorded the song as "Style (Taylor's Version)" for her re-recorded album 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023).
Production and release
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift was inspired by 1980s synth-pop and its experimentation with synthesizers, drum pads, and overlapped vocals to embrace a pop production for her fifth studio album, 1989. She described 1989 as her first official pop album and abandoned the country stylings of her past works. Swift began working on the album in mid-2013 and recorded much of it with Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, who produced the electronic-pop tracks including the US pop radio number-one single "I Knew You Were Trouble" on her fourth album, Red (2012). She enlisted Martin as co-executive producer, and Martin and Shellback produced seven songs for the 13-track standard edition.
"Style" was one of the last songs produced for 1989. It was originally composed by producer Ali Payami and guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt for themselves. Ljungfelt finished a guitar-driven instrumental inspired by "funky electronic music" artists such as Daft Punk. Payami played the instrumental to Martin, and Swift became fond of the track after overhearing it. Swift and Martin wrote new lyrics, and the two are credited as the song's writers with Shellback and Payami. Martin, Shellback, and Payami are credited as producers. Michael Illbert and Sam Holland, assisted by Cory Bice, recorded the track at MXM Studios in Stockholm and Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles. The song was mixed by Serban Ghenea and John Hanes at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, and it was mastered by Tom Coyne at Sterling Sound in New York City.
The song debuted as a snippet in a Target commercial for the album on October 22, 2014. On December 28, 2014, Scott Borchetta, CEO of Swift's former record label Big Machine held an impromptu Q&A via Twitter. When asked by a fan about 1989s upcoming single following "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space", Borchetta responded that he was in favor of "Style". On February 9, 2015, Republic Records, in partnership with Big Machine, serviced the track to US hot adult contemporary radio as the third single. The following day, Republic serviced "Style" to US contemporary hit and rhythmic contemporary radio. The song was released to Italy's contemporary hit radio on April 3, 2015.
Music and lyrics
As with the rest of 1989, "Style" features prominent electronic stylings and marks a dramatic change from Swift's past country-music songs—it incorporates pulsing synthesizers, a throbbing bassline, and dense vocal reverb. The track exhibits influences of eclectic genres: it is built on a recurring electric guitar riff that evokes funk, R&B, and 1980s rock, and its groove is propelled by a 1970s-disco-tinged beat. Critics categorized "Style" as synth-pop, pop rock, Italo disco, and "funk-pop". Ed Masley in The Arizona Republic and musicologist James E. Perone deemed it a hybrid of disco and new wave. The refrain's first half is built on major chords of D and G, which create a relatively radiant atmosphere that complements a more sorrow one of the second half brought by a B minor chord.
Many critics remarked that "Style" not only resembles music of the 1980s that inspired 1989 but also features a modern-leaning production. Masley remarked that the track "would have sounded right at home on MTV a few years earlier than 1989", and Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone deemed it "extremely 1986-sounding". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian likened the opening guitar riff to that on Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" (1983) and the electronic soundscape to the music of the soundtrack Drive (2011) and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories (2013). In NME, Matthew Horton said the "retro-modern atmosphere" evokes 1980s "piano-house" and the music of Electric Youth and Blood Orange. Two critics from Slate compared the guitar riff to the sound of Nile Rodgers, and the song to music of Don Henley and Madonna's "Into the Groove" (1985). Perone summed up that although "Style" strongly evokes 1980s music, it does not reference any particular influence.
Swift was inspired to write "Style" by an unstable relationship which she compared to "fashion staples that ... we never throw out of our closet". The lyrics are about a couple who is in an on-and-off unhealthy relationship but could not end it because they are never "out of style". The opening lines set a scene, "Midnight/ You come and pick me up, no headlights"; for some critics, these lyrics allude to sex, a theme Swift had not openly embraced—Jon Caramanica of The New York Times cited them as an example of her relinquishing the youthful innocence of her past songs. The refrain depicts the couple as conventionally attractive: the male lover resembles the 1950s actor James Dean with his "daydream look in [his] eye", and the female narrator flaunts her "red lip classic thing that you like" and "good girl faith and a tight little skirt". Some journalists wrote that the beauty depicted is rather conservative and embedded with racial undertones. In the second pre-chorus, both characters mutually admit to cheating. For Swift, the lyrics represented her evolved viewpoints on past relationships by admitting wrongdoings of both sides instead of her "I was right, you were wrong" mindset in previous songs.I say, "I heard that you've been out and about with some other girl"He says, "What you've heard is true, but I,Can't stop thinking about you and I"I said, "I've been there too a few times"
Critical reception
In reviews of 1989, many critics regarded "Style" as an album highlight. Kitty Empire from The Observer called it a "percolating" song that "satisfies on every level". PopMatterss Corey Beasley was impressed by Swift's departure from country to new styles that "fit her like a cashmere-lined leather glove" and deemed the song "immaculate". Nows Benjamin Boles selected "Style" as the album's highlight. Houston Chronicle writer Joey Guerra praised the song as "compelling". Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times also named the track the album's standout for its "sensual" atmosphere. Robert Leedham of Drowned in Sound praised the track's theme of celebrating past relationships and embracing positivity instead of Swift's traditional "[playing] the victim."
Caramanica labelled "Style" the "high mark" of 1989 that embodies Swift's "savage, wry, and pointed" maturity from her previous albums. Billboards Kristen He praised "Style" for showcasing "Swift's songwriting at its purest" by evoking "worlds of emotion" despite utilizing a generic song structure. The Independents Andy Gill described the song's theme as a "piquancy", and its music direction as "desperately inclusive electropop grooves and corporate rebel clichés". Consequences Sasha Geffen lauded the song's musical styles, but criticized its theme of conventional beauty standards of "white people" as a cliché that blemishes Swift's "girl-next-door likability" on the album.
Critics have retrospectively considered "Style" one of Swift's best songs. Pitchfork ranked "Style" at number 50 on their list of 2014's best songs. On behalf of the publication, Jordan Sargent remarked that while the lyrics embraced Swift's "familiar tropes of Western romance" on previous releases, the instrumentation as well as Swift's "tense and restrained" vocals signaled her transformation in music and image. The song placed at number 24 on the 2015 Pazz & Jop poll, an annual mass critics' poll conducted by The Village Voice. At the 2016 BMI Awards, the track was one of the Award-Winning Songs that earned Swift the honor of Songwriter of the Year. "Style" also received a nomination for International Work of the Year at the APRA Music Awards of 2016. In 2020, Hannah Mylrea of NME placed the song among the 10 best songs by Swift, labelling it as "Swift at her best". In 2021, Clash critics picked "Style" as one of Swift's 15 best songs.
Commercial performance
In the United States, "Style" was 1989's third consecutive top-10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 after the chart toppers "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space". It debuted at number 60 on the chart dated November 15, 2014, after 1989 was released, and it re-entered at number 75 on the issue dated December 27, 2014, following Swift's performance at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. "Style" peaked at number six on the Hot 100 in March 2015. On Billboard's airplay charts, the single peaked atop Pop Songs, Adult Pop Songs, and Adult Contemporary. It was the seventh-best-performing song on US radio of 2015, earning 3.163 billion audience impressions from 550,000 plays. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the single triple platinum denoting three million units based on sales and streams. By November 2017, "Style" had sold 2.2 million downloads in the US.
The single peaked in the top 20 on several European singles charts such as in the Czech Republic (11), Poland (13), Slovakia (14), and Hungary (18). In the English-speaking countries, "Style" peaked in the top 25 of singles charts and received platinum or higher certifications. It peaked at number six in Canada and was certified triple platinum by Music Canada (MC). In the United Kingdom, the single peaked at numbers nine and 21 on the Scottish and UK Singles Charts respectively and was certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for surpassing 1.2 million sales and streaming units combined. In Australasia, "Style" peaked at number eight in Australia and number 11 in New Zealand, and the single was certified eight-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and triple platinum by Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ). It also peaked atop the South African music chart.
Music video
American filmmaker Kyle Newman directed the music video for "Style", which was shot in Los Angeles and completed within four days in summer 2014. Before its release, Swift posted several teaser images and short clips from the video on her social media accounts. She planned to premiere the video on Good Morning America on the morning of February 13, 2015, but Canadian music channel Much released it at midnight. Swift uploaded the video to her Vevo account on the same day. In the video, English actor Dominic Sherwood plays Swift's love interest. Swift contacted him by text message roughly a month before the shooting; the two had known of each other through mutual friends. By the time they worked on the video, Sherwood had finished the film Take Down, which was later renamed Billionaire Ransom (released in 2016).
The video does not have a clear narrative but features disparate flashbacks of Swift and her love interest by the seashore, in the woods, and on car rides. At some points, the broken mirror pieces, through which Swift and her lover see each other, symbolize memories of a past relationship that linger on. Media publications noted and praised the video's darker, more abstract and sensual atmosphere compared to the videos for "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space". Vox's Kelsey McKinney opined that Swift embraced her sexuality using "sensual imagery" of her touching herself, which showcased her maturity as an artist. Emilee Lindner of MTV called the video "mature, tasteful, and ... sexy". Spence Kornhaber from The Atlantic, meanwhile, remarked that Swift expressed her sexuality in a more conservative manner compared to her contemporaries that distinguished her from "the pop obsession with women's bodies." InStyle writer Hayley Spencer deemed it "Swift's most cinematic video to date."
Several images in the video featuring silhouettes of Swift's head overlaid by other scenes of her lover, the forests, smoking clouds, or thunder storms, were compared to the opening credits of the crime drama series True Detective. The Wall Street Journal Michael Driscoll, meanwhile, compared the video's atmosphere to that of 1980s pop videos, specifically Chris Isaak's 1989 single "Wicked Game". Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times labelled the visual "a creepy homage" to David Lynch's mystery film Mulholland Drive (2001).
Live performances and other usage
Swift first performed "Style" live as part of the "1989 Secret Session", which took place on the rooftop of the Empire State Building and was broadcast live by Yahoo! and iHeartRadio on October 27, 2014. On December 2, she performed the song along with "Blank Space" at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2014 in London. "Style" was included on the set list for Swift's headlining 2015 world tour in support of 1989. Swift also included the song on the set list for her 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour, where it was part of a medley with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me".
On April 23, 2019, Swift performed an acoustic version of the song at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts during the Time 100 Gala, where she was honored as one of the "100 most influential people" of the year. Swift again performed the song on the Wango Tango festival on June 1, during the Amazon Prime Day concert on July 10, and at the City of Lover one-day concert in Paris on September 9, 2019. She included "Style" in the regular set list of her sixth headlining tour, the Eras Tour (2023–2024).
Rock singer-songwriter Ryan Adams covered "Style" on his 2015 track-by-track cover album of Swift's 1989. Adams changed the original James Dean-referenced lyric to "You've got that Daydream Nation look in your eye", a tribute to 1980s rock band Sonic Youth. His version incorporated rock-oriented styles, which critics compared to the music by Irish rock band U2 and its lead singer Bono. Annie Zaleski of The A.V. Club deemed it a standout on Adams's 1989, praising the cover as a "yearning, '80s college rock fever dream with snarling punk stabs". Slant Magazines Jeremy Winograd, by contrast, called the version "a bad U2 song."
Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of 1989.
Taylor Swift – vocals, background vocals, songwriter
Max Martin – producer, songwriter, keyboard
Shellback – producer, songwriter, keyboard, programming, additional guitars
Ali Payami – producer, songwriter, keyboard, programming
Michael Ilbert – recording
Niklas Ljungfelt – guitar
Sam Holland – recording
Cory Bice – assistant recording
Serban Ghenea – mixing
John Hanes – engineered for mix
Tom Coyne – mastering
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
"Style (Taylor's Version)"
After signing a new contract with Republic Records, Swift began re-recording her first six studio albums in November 2020. The decision followed a public dispute in 2019 between Swift and talent manager Scooter Braun, who acquired Big Machine Records, including the masters of Swift's albums which the label had released. By re-recording the albums, Swift had full ownership of the new masters, which enabled her to control the licensing of her songs for commercial use and therefore substituted the Big Machine–owned masters.
The re-recording of "Style", subtitled "Taylor's Version", was released as part of 1989's re-recording, 1989 (Taylor's Version), on October 27, 2023. Swift produced "Style (Taylor's Version)" with Christopher Rowe, who had produced her previous re-recordings. The track was engineered by Derek Garten at Prime Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee; mixed by Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia; and mastered by Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, New Jersey. Rowe recorded Swift's vocals at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles and Kitty Committee Studio in New York.
"Style (Taylor's Version)" received mixed reviews. Adam White from The Independent commented that the re-recording "sounds punishingly compressed [...] as though the mastering is off". Slant Magazine critic wrote that the "altered guitar tone" was a "distraction" but the song overall was "perfect pop songcraft".
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of 1989 (Taylor's Version).
Taylor Swift – producer, lead vocals, background vocals
Max Bernstein – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, synth keyboards
Matt Billingslea – membranophone programming
Bryce Bordone – engineer
Dan Burns – additional programming, synth bass programming, synthesizer programming, additional engineering, membranophone programming
Derek Garten – additional programming, engineer, editing
Serban Ghenea – mixing
Amos Heller – bass
Christopher Rowe – vocals engineering, producer
See also
List of Billboard Adult Contemporary number ones of 2015
List of Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles in 2015
List of Billboard Mainstream Top 40 number-one songs of 2015
List of number-one singles of 2015 (South Africa)
References
Cited literature
External links
2014 songs
2015 singles
Taylor Swift songs
Big Machine Records singles
Republic Records singles
Universal Music Group singles
Songs written by Taylor Swift
Songs written by Shellback (record producer)
Songs written by Max Martin
Song recordings produced by Shellback (record producer)
Song recordings produced by Max Martin
Song recordings produced by Taylor Swift
Song recordings produced by Chris Rowe
South African Airplay Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Ali Payami
Ryan Adams songs
American pop rock songs
American synth-pop songs
Song recordings produced by Ali Payami
American disco songs
Italo disco songs