Taylor Swift debuted her music video for her latest single, “Delicate,” in March at this year’s iHeartRadio Music Awards — and I was disappointed.
When she announced that she would be dropping another video for “Delicate,” I was kind of relieved. I thought maybe she saw that not a lot of people enjoyed the first video and she was going to give it another go — which sounds crazy, yes, but I adore “Delicate” (the song) and believed it deserved better than what it initially got.
But… I was disappointed, again.
Before I go on about “Delicate” video No. 2, I have to make it clear that “Delicate” video No. 1 wasn’t terrible. It still stands as a decent video with a heartfelt message about Swift’s life.
It opens with Swift having a glazed look on her face as she stands on a red carpet in front of frenzied reporters and flashing camera lights. In the chaos, she is given a note by a mysterious figure. Next we see her in a fancy hotel lobby where she is shadowed by bodyguards, stopped by fans and grabbed by a crazed bellhop.
Then we see her alone in a dressing room, away from the chaos. She opens the note, smiles and proceeds to make goofy faces in the mirror in front of her. She’s startled when a group of women walk into the room and she pauses before turning back to the mirror. When she does this, she sees that she no longer has a reflection. She’s invisible.
From there, with no prying eyes from the media, fans or strangers, she dances like no one’s watching. She can be her true self when she is not in the public eye.
Overall, it’s a nice message that gives us insight into how Swift felt when she disappeared from the public eye prior to the release of her sixth album, “Reputation.”
However, when I first listened to “Delicate,” I pictured a potential video that was, well, delicate. Video No. 1 is more humorous than anything and, to me, it didn’t “fit” the feel of the song.
Video No. 2 is a vertical video — think filmed on an iPhone. When you make it full-screen on your phone or on a desktop, it’s still vertical, and you have to deal with the huge black bars going down the side. Filming vertically for a video that is widely going be viewed in landscape mode, is like the worst thing you could do. And to top it off, the video was released on Spotify — I don’t know why; please don’t ask me.
The new video opens with black text on a white screen that reads “delicate” (video No. 1 opened with white text on a black screen that read “delicate”). Then it cuts to Swift standing in an empty field surrounded by woods, holding the camera and lip syncing to the song in one continuous take. We only see her from torso up as she spins and walks around the field, flashing coy smiles to the camera every now and again.
Swift looks genuinely happy in this video, and I love that. But while we now have that delicate vibe that was lacking in video No. 1, we now lack a storyline in video No. 2.
Video No. 2 is beautiful, but boring and underwhelming. And now I’m left to wonder, why release a second video at all? Is this part of a bigger plan? Are we going to get another video released via Apple Music or Amazon?
I just need answers, Taylor Swift. What did “Delicate” do to you to deserve this injustice?