The new
Taylor Swift (sorry, the old one can't come to the phone right now on account of the fact that she's dead) is proving to be more feisty and devious than we thought. After wiping everything off all her social media profiles, and leaving fans in the dark for a few panicky weeks, Swift teased out the release of her new album Reputation with a serious of dark, moody Instagram posts including a creepy snake animation.
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Okay, Taylor – we get it.
She released a series of singles including Look What You Made Me Do, which was ripe with not-so-discreet jabs at her mortal enemies
Kim Kardashian,
Kanye West, and
Katy Perry. The full album came out on November 10 last year, and she's still milking it for what it's worth by slowly releasing the music videos over recent weeks.
And now, in a behind-the-scenes "making of" video for the End Game music video, Swift revealed another sneaky trick she used so no one leaked anything from her highly coveted album before November the 10th, and landed themselves on the mortal enemy list themselves. The way she protected her music from co-workers, backup dancers and even her besties is kind of genius, and also telling of Swift's trust issues.
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Swift reveals that when they're recording dance or party sequences in the music video, she doesn't let her backup dancers or anyone on set listen to the music. Uh... but then how do they dance in time to the beat? Well, apparently the dancers use a "click track" when cameras roll so they can hear the beat they should sync their moves to, but they don't hear the actual lyrics or melody. Skip to 3:56 to see a bunch of dressed up people acting tipsy and dancing together in a silent room. Yep, it looks as embarrassing as it sounds.
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"I commend them fully because um... they've been pretending like there's music playing when there's not," she says in the video. Swift revealed that she wears beige-coloured wireless headphones when recording so that she can silently mouth the lyrics to the camera.
And it's not just backup dancers she's cautious about. Even Ed Sheeran – one of few certified Swifty besties, whose vocals also feature in End Game – was treated with scepticism when given details about the track.
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"I remember when I did a song with [Taylor] for her album, I was in San Francisco, and they sent someone with a locked briefcase with an iPad and one song on it," Sheeran recalled. "They flew to San Francisco and played the song I’ve done with her and asked if I like it...I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and they took it back. That’s how I hear it.”
No doubt the individual entrusted with delivering the track personally to Sheeran was wearing some kind of Men In Black costume and an expression reminiscent of The Terminator. Yeesh, the lengths this girl went to to protect her music!
