Is It Over Now? by Taylor Swift

Every New Zealand #1 single…

8

Is It Over Now?

Topped the NZ chart: from 6 November 2023 for 1 week

It’s a little perverse for the randomiser to suggest a Taylor Swift song for this column when she’s just released a new album.

But Swift is currently in record-setting mode. Except for her debut, released at 16, her albums have all topped the US charts. She’s amid her Eras tour, reportedly the highest-grossing ever. Recent relationships with The 1975’s Matty Healy and NFL star Travis Kelce have demanded attention. She’s even been targeted by right-wing pundits, concerned that Swift’s popularity could influence the outcome of the upcoming elections.

If I was Swift, I’d be curious to see how far my popularity stretched. Right now it seems likely that Taylor Swift reading her grocery list would top the charts. And she recently pushed ‘Is It Over Now’, a decade-old outtake, to #1 on the New Zealand singles charts.

‘Is It Over Now?’ is taken from Taylor’s reworking of her 2014 album 1989. Named for the year of her birth, 1989 explores the textures of mainstream 1980s pop. It’s still her best album, with killer tracks like ‘Style’ and ‘Out of the Woods’.

Following a dispute with record executive Scooter Braun over the ownership of her music, Swift has been busy reworking her first six albums. 1989 received the Taylor’s version treatment in 2023. Swift rerecorded all of the album’s tracks and also included rerecorded outtakes.

‘Is It Over Now?’ wasn’t included on the original 1989 album. With a wealth of strong material, it’s perhaps not surprising. Musically it’s similar to ‘I Wish You Would’, while lyrically it mines similar territory to ‘Out of the Woods’. Fans have surmised it’s about a relationship with Harry Styles.

But it’s a strong effort all the same. Swift is an impressive enough lyricist to pull off a quadruple rhyme, never an easy feat.

Let’s fast forward to three hundred awkward blind dates later
If she’s got blue eyes, I will surmise that you’ll probably date her
You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor
You search in every model’s bed for something greater

She works with Jack Antonoff, who’s still collaborating with Swift a decade later. Antonoff frames Swift’s vocals in reverbed Moog and Juno 6 synthesizers.

Swift’s been one of the world’s most relevant stars for over 15 years while remaining prolific and scandal-free. Even if she fades into irrelevance tomorrow, it’s unprecedented.

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