Look What You Made Me Do

Taylor Swift released her fifth studio album, 1989, on October 27, 2014; it sold 10 million copies worldwide less than three years after its release, and its singles received heavy rotation on radio for one year and a half, leading to Billboard describing its success as "a kind of cultural omnipresence that's rare for a 2010s album". The album propelled Swift to pop stardom, and her fame was accompanied by increasing media scrutiny on her image. Her once-wholesome "America's Sweetheart" reputation was tarnished by short-lived romantic relationships and public celebrity controversies, including a publicized feud with the rapper Kanye West and his then-wife, the media personality Kim Kardashian, over West's song "Famous" (2016), in which he claims he made Swift a success ("I made that bitch famous"). 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. After the West–Kardashian controversy, Swift became a subject of an online "#IsOverParty" hashtag, where online audiences used the "snake" emoji to describe her. 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. Swift became increasingly reticent on social media despite a large following and avoided the press amidst the commotion and ultimately withdrew from public appearances. She opted to take a hiatus after The 1989 World Tour concluded in December 2015, stating "I think people might need a break from me". On August 18, 2017, Swift blanked out all of her social media accounts, which prompted media speculation on new music. In the following days, she uploaded silent, black-and-white short videos of CGI snakes onto social media, which attracted widespread press attention. Imagery of snakes was inspired by the West–Kardashian controversy and featured prominently in Swift's social media posts. On August 23, she announced on Instagram a new album, titled Reputation. The following day, she unveiled the lead single from the album, "Look What You Made Me Do", which was released for streaming and download on digital platforms by Big Machine Records. A lyric video was released simultaneously; it was produced by Swift and Joseph Kahn and directed by ODD. The lyric video features prominent snake imagery, depicting the chorus with an ouroboros, and its graphics were influenced by the aesthetics of Saul Bass for the 1958 film Vertigo. 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. "Look What You Made Me Do" was released to US contemporary hit radio on August 29, 2017. ==Production and music==

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. 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. 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, The verses and chorus are built on a minor-key motif, The pre-chorus incorporates piano and synth-simulated brass, The Fairbrass brothers 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" would be able to use a portion of their song for her latest single; they found out that the artist in question was Swift after the song was released. The New York Times 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". dance-pop, progressive pop, and synth-punk. The production incorporates retro elements of electroclash, while Maura Johnston in The Guardian said that the atmosphere evoked Spears's "Piece of Me" (2007) and the beat was reminiscent of Peaches's "Operate" (2003). ==Lyrics and interpretations==

With the key themes being betrayal and vengeance, The verses contain lyrics such as, "I don't like your perfect crime/ How you laugh when you lie"; according to Pareles, these lyrics resemble a nursery rhyme, and they could be interpreted as referring to either the celebrity feuds or the feelings after a romantic breakup. In the pre-chorus, Swift's character asserts that she became wiser and hardened, "I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time." Swift said that these lyrics were the most important part of the song. Although "Look What You Made Me Do" does not mention any particular person, many publications interpreted some of its parts as references to the West–Kardashian controversy: "I don't like your tilted stage", There were also comments that some parts referenced Swift's fallout with Katy Perry According to Carson, the songwriting contains some of the "storybook lyricism and fairytale tropes" that Swift had employed before, such as the imagery of kingdoms and dreams and the idea of revenge, which recalled songs like "Should've Said No" (2006), "Better than Revenge" (2010), and "Bad Blood" (2014); Billboard Tatiana Cirisano said that the dreams imagery evoked the songs from 1989 such as "Blank Space" or "Wildest Dreams". ==Critical reception==

Upon release, "Look What You Made Me Do" polarized music critics. 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. USA Today said that the polarized reaction to the song illustrated Swift's position as a "ubiquitous cultural force". The Daily Telegraph 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. Varietys Chris Willman also praised Swift's embrace of darker-styled pop music and the stylistic conflict between the song's pre-chorus and chorus. 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. 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. The single was noted as being darker and angrier than what Swift had done before. Meaghan Garvey from Pitchfork referred to it in a review as "a hardcore self-own" track. Retrospective reviews have considered "Look What You Made Me Do" a career-defining song for Swift. In 2019, Slant Magazine listed "Look What You Made Me Do" as one of the 100 singles that defined the 2010s decade; Sal Cinquemani described it as Swift's first "bona fide misstep" but also a bold and authentic artistic work. In 2023, Zoya Raza-Sheikh of The Independent opined that the single portrayed Swift as a "beleaguered" pop star. ==Commercial performance==

"Look What You Made Me Do" broke various streaming and sales records upon release. It earned two records related to streaming in the Guinness World Records in 2018: most streamed track on Spotify in the first 24 hours, and most streamed track in one week (female). In the United States, the single debuted at number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100, based on airplay data within its first three days of release. It sold slightly under 200,000 digital copies within its first day of sales. In its second charting week, the song rose to number one with 84.4 million streams and 353,000 downloads. It became Swift's fifth number-one single and largest jump to number one since her 2012 single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", which debuted at number 72 before topping the chart a week later. "Look What You Made Me Do" ended the 16-week run at number one of Luis Fonsi's "Despacito", scoring the largest sales and streaming week of 2017. It also had the largest streaming week since Baauer's "Harlem Shake" (2013) and the biggest digital sales week since Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!" (2016). The single stayed at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks. In its second week at number one, Swift's single "...Ready for It?" charted at number four, making it the first time a female artist had two songs in the top five of the Hot 100 since 2015, when Swift's singles "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off" were both in the top five. "Look What You Made Me Do" also topped the Pop Songs chart, becoming Swift's eighth single to do so. In July 2018, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the song four-times platinum for surpassing four million units based on sales and streams. and it spent two weeks at number one. As of December 2022, the single had sold over one million combined units in the United Kingdom. Elsewhere, the single peaked at number one on the Euro Digital Song Sales chart by Billboard, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines. It was certified double diamond in Brazil, seven-times platinum in Australia, triple platinum platinum in Canada and New Zealand, and double platinum in Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. ==Music video==

Production and release Preparation for the music video began in January 2017, while the shooting took place in May. The dance was choreographed by Tyce Diorio, who had previously worked with Swift on the video for her 2014 single "Shake It Off". The song's music video premiered on August 27, 2017, at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. 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. 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. The video was named the fifth-best music video of 2017 by Rolling Stone and the seventh-best music video of 2017 by Billboard. In 2020, Parade ranked the video 20th on the list of 71 Best Music Videos of All Time. Synopsis Swift has said that part of the premise of the video is rooted in the idea that, "If everything you write about me was true, this is how ridiculous it would look." It is a satirical send-up of media theories about her true intentions that have little validity. The video begins with an overhead shot of a cemetery before the camera zooms in on a grave with a headstone that reads "Here lies Taylor Swift's reputation." After that, a zombie Swift, wearing the dress from her "Out of the Woods" music video, crawls out of the grave before proceeding to dig another grave for her Met Gala 2014 self. The next scene shows Swift in a bathtub filled with diamonds, with a necklace spelling out "No" next to a ring, supposedly sending up tabloid press rumors of her past romantic relationships. She is then seen seated on a throne while snakes surround her and serve tea. Swift later crashes her golden Bugatti Veyron on a post and sings the song's chorus holding a Grammy as the paparazzi take photos. She is also seen swinging inside a golden cage, robbing a streaming company in a cat mask, and leading a motorcycle gang. Afterward, she gathers a group of women at "Squad U" and dances with a group of men in another room. Then, she is seen standing on top of the wing of a plane in an airport hangar, sawing off the wing in half and spray-painting "reputation" in pink on the side of the plane. At the video's climax, Swift is seen standing on a T-shaped throne mountain while clones of herself (from her past music videos, stage performances, and red-carpet appearances) struggle and fight against each other trying to reach her. The Swift at the top of the mountain stretches out her arms, and many of the other Swifts fall off the mountain, while Swift from another scene picks up a phone and says "I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead!" The video concludes with a scene of a line-up of surviving Swift clones bowing in the hangar while Swift stands and watches on the wing of the plane. The clones bicker with one another, describing each other as "so fake" and "playing the victim". The 2009 VMA Swift clone then says "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative", resulting in the other Swifts yelling at her to "shut up!" in unison. Several scenes from the music video were compared to the works of Croatian singer Severina, particularly the scene with the group of women at "Squad U" and the scene with the T-shaped throne. The former was compared to her 2016 music video for "Silikoni", and the latter was compared to the performances from her 2013 Dobrodošao u Klub Tour. Analysis The video contains numerous hidden meanings and references. In the opening scene, there is a subtle "Nils Sjöberg" tombstone shown when Swift is digging up a grave, referencing the pseudonym she used for a songwriting credit on Calvin Harris's 2016 single "This Is What You Came For". Similarly, Swift—masked as a cadaveric version of herself in the "Out of the Woods" music video—was shown digging a grave for herself in the gown worn to the 2014 Met Gala. The zombie Swift rising from her supposed "grave" is also speculated to be a subtle reference to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video, which showcases a zombie rising from their grave very similarly to the position Swift was in. A single dollar bill in the bathtub full of diamonds that she bathes in was also speculated to symbolize the dollar she was awarded for winning a sexual assault trial earlier in 2017. In a separate scene, Swift is shown sitting atop a golden throne, where a carving of the phrase "Et tu, Brute?" could be seen on the armrest, a reference to William Shakespeare's drama Julius Caesar. was also represented when a snake slithers onto the throne to serve Swift some tea. The scene where Swift's car crashes and is surrounded by paparazzi was speculated by some to be a jab at Katy Perry, as Swift's hairstyle is similar to Perry's in the scene and the car crash itself is reminiscent of the one in Perry's music video for "Unconditionally" (2013). The sports car was also suspected to be a reminder of a car in Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas" (2009) video, which Kahn also directed. However, given the video's theme of mocking the media, the car crash scene likely makes fun of the theory that Swift's real fallout with Perry was a dramatized act for publicity and album material. Swift is ridiculing the idea that she would damage her friendships for business gains, with the car crash being a metaphor for her feud with Perry and the Grammy Award in her hands in the wreckage symbolizing the awards won from the songs "inspired" by the aforementioned feud. Swift's withdrawal of her entire music catalog from streaming services and the media's claims that she was doing this for greed and to start her streaming company was hinted at when Swift and her crew robbed a streaming company's money vault in the video. The video's ending features an assembly of "old Taylors" in front of a private jet who are talking amongst one another and making snide references to the many false and exaggerated media portrayals of her throughout her career. These include claims that Swift fakes her classic surprised face at award shows; that her "nice girl" façade masks a truly mean, manipulative personality; accusations that Swift always plays the victim instead of taking responsibility for her actions and decisions; and numerous mentions of her 2016 feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, ignited by the release of his 2016 song "Famous". Examples include the "that bitch" line in "Famous" which Swift had disapproved of, and Kardashian illegally recording and editing Swift's phone call with West. In June 2016, discussing the relationship between her and West after the release of "Famous", Swift wrote on Instagram, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative." The same line is spoken by the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards Taylor clone just before the video ends. She is wearing the same outfit Swift had worn during the actual 2009 MTV Video Music Awards when West infamously interrupted her acceptance speech for the Best Female Video award and ignited tensions between the two for the first time. ==Live performances and other uses==

Swift performed "Look What You Made Me Do" live for the first time as part of the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball 2017 on December 1, 2017, in Inglewood, California. Two days later, Swift returned onstage to perform the song again as part of 99.7 Now!'s Poptopia in San Jose, California with the same setlist. The next week Swift sang the song on three other occasions; the B96 Chicago and Pepsi Jingle Bash 2017 in Chicago, the Z100 Jingle Ball 2017 in New York City, and the Jingle Bell Ball 2017 in London. The song was also a regular part of her set list for the Reputation Stadium Tour, with a tilted throne and golden snakes; while there are snakes on the high screen in the back during the part where she sings, "I don't trust nobody and nobody trust me, I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams", a large floating cobra appears onstage with the line from the bridge announcing the death of the "Old Taylor" spoken by comedian Tiffany Haddish. Swift included "Look What You Made Me Do" on the set list of the Eras Tour (2023–2024). On the Eras Tour, while Swift is performing "Look What You Made Me Do," she is surrounded by her backup singers and dancers, who are dressed as various past versions of herself and trapped inside large clear boxes. This iconography is similar to that which was used in the music video. Prior to the announcement and release of ''Speak Now (Taylor's Version)'', many fans noticed Taylor pounding on the box with the dancer dressed in the Speak-Now-era purple halter dress, and speculated that this interaction signaled that Speak Now would be the next album to be rerecorded. ABC used "Look What You Made Me Do" in a promotional video for its Shonda Rhimes's Thursday line-up an hour after its release. ESPN used the song in Saturday Night Football advertisements for the season-opening game between Alabama and Florida State, which was aired on ABC on September 2 along with her other song "...Ready for It?". In the South Park episode "Moss Piglets", the water bears in Timmy and Jimmy's experiment for the science fair dance to the song in response to Swift's singing. The song was used in the trailer for the 2019 comedy film Murder Mystery. American actress Reese Witherspoon performs the song for the jukebox musical film, Sing 2, in the role of Rosita. The "Taylor's Version" re-recording was used in the penultimate episode of Hulu's ''The Handmaid's Tale,'' "Execution," as the underscore for a montage of an uprising of Handmaids led by Elizabeth Moss' June Osborne. A cover version of "Look What You Made Me Do" was recorded by the band Jack Leopards & the Dolphin Club, and produced by Antonoff and Nils Sjöberg, the latter being a pseudonym that Swift first used as a co-writer for the song "This Is What You Came For" by Calvin Harris featuring Rihanna. The cover was featured in the opening credits of "Beautiful Monster", an episode of the television show Killing Eve that aired on May 24, 2020, and subsequently released on digital music platforms. There is no documentation of the band's existence before the release of the cover, and it was speculated the person singing was Swift's brother Austin Swift. Fans also interpreted the cover to be Swift's way of bypassing potential licensing issues with her former label Big Machine Records and its owner Scooter Braun, with whom Swift is involved in a dispute regarding Braun's acquisition of the label and, subsequently, the master recordings of her back catalogue. In 2025, a side project called SCATTERBRAIN formed by former I Prevail lead singer Brian Burkheiser released a cover of Look What You Made Me Do as a result of him not being able to release original music due to an unsettled legal dispute with the band. ==Accolades==

Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Reputation. • Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer • Jack Antonoff – producer, songwriter, programming, instruments • Richard Fairbrass – songwriter, interpolation • Fred Fairbrass – songwriter, interpolation • Bob Manzoli – songwriter, interpolation • Laura Sisk – engineer • Serban Ghenea – mixing • John Hanes – mix engineer • Randy Merrill – mastering • Evan Smith – saxophones • Victoria Parker – violins • Phillip A. Peterson – cellos ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==

=="Look What You Made Me Do (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 2019 dispute between Swift and the 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-recorded albums and songs are identified with an extended "Taylor's Version" moniker. On August 23, 2023, the re-recorded song "Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor's Version)" was teased in a trailer for the Amazon Prime Video series Wilderness, released on September 15, 2023; it was later also used as the show's theme song. The full first and second verses and the two choruses of the song were used in the opening scene of the penultimate episode of ''The Handmaid's Tale, released on May 20, 2025. Billboard'' wrote that the re-recording features recreations of the original synths and beats, while Swift's vocals are from "an older, more experienced Swift". ==See also==