Bad Blood (Taylor Swift song)


"Bad Blood" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, from her fifth studio album 1989. Swift wrote the song with its producers Max Martin and Shellback, with a remixed version featuring additional writing and guest vocals from American rapper Kendrick Lamar. The remix version was released by Big Machine Records on May 17, 2015, as the fourth single from 1989. "Bad Blood" is a pop and hip hop song with lyrics that describe betrayal by a close friend. The album version is the eighth track on 1989.
The song reached number one in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, and the United States, becoming the third song from 1989 to do so. The accompanying music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, and produced by Swift, the video features an ensemble cast. The video previously held the 24-Hour Vevo Record with 20.1 million views, before being surpassed by Adele's "Hello". It won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. The song received a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance while its music video won Best Music Video at the 58th Grammy Awards. "Bad Blood" was certified 6× Platinum by the RIAA in March 2020.

Writing and composition

Swift co-wrote "Bad Blood" about an undisclosed female musician. Swift says the artist attempted to sabotage one of her concert tours by hiring people who worked for her. Publications such as Billboard, Rolling Stone, Time, and The Washington Post have speculated that Katy Perry is the subject of the song. Daniel D'Addario for Time and Emily Yahr for The Washington Post noted parallels between "Bad Blood"'s lyric "If you live like that, you live with ghosts" and "Ghost", a song from Perry's 2013 album Prism.
Jem Aswad of Billboard felt the song is "reminiscent of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". The Guardian Kitty Empire wrote that the song "faintly recalls Charli XCX with its stark beats." It is a pop and hip hop song written in the key of G major, following a chord progression of C–G–D–Em, and the tempo runs at 85 beats per minute. Swift's vocals in the song span from E3 to E5.

Critical reception

The album version received mixed reviews from critics. Some described the song as "clichéd" while also criticizing its writing, chorus, and production, while others, including Entertainment Weekly, listed it as one of the best songs on the album.
In contrast, the remixed version of the song featuring guest vocals from Kendrick Lamar received acclaim from critics, with praise from music critics directed at Lamar's guest verses and the reworked instrumental. George Seabrook of The Edge awarded the song four and half stars out of five, and called it "glorious" and "intoxicating". He praised the song for "Lamar’s simple, brutally effective verses" and acknowledged the collaboration as "not just one more meaningless stunt collaboration, but a powerful new duo". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian listed it as Swift's twenty-first best single, dubbing it "a masterstroke" with "potent and effective" verses from Lamar and an "even more anthemic" chorus compared to the album version.
However, some critics considered it one of Swift's worst songs and singles in her discography. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone placed the song at the bottom of his ranking of all 153 Taylor Swift songs, describing it as "melodically parched, lyrically unfinished, rhythmically clunky". Vulture writer Nate Jones placed "Bad Blood" at number 132 on a similar ranking, writing "The lyric here indulges the worst habits of late-period Swift - an eagerness to play the victim, a slight lack of resemblance to anything approaching real life - attached to a schoolyard-chant melody that will never leave your head, even when you may want it to", also criticizing the remix for "hollow out the production". In another ranking of Swift's singles, Emma Dibdin of Digital Spy called the track's lyrics "trite" and a "mess", also noting the presence of a "hook so grating that it barely feels like work at all".

Commercial performance

"Bad Blood" first charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in November 2014 and January 2015 as an album cut from 1989, peaking at number 78.
Following the music video premiere at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards, the remixed version of the song featuring Kendrick Lamar re-entered the chart at number 53 and number 26 on the Digital Songs Chart, selling 47,000 digital copies. The following week, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 on the week ending May 24, 2015, selling 385,000 copies and jumping 52 positions, one of the largest jumps to the top spot in Billboard history. It became her fourth number one single and the third number one from 1989, making Swift the first artist since Adele to yield three Hot 100 chart toppers from the same album; it is also her fourth consecutive top-10 single from 1989. It also became her 18th top 10 single and Lamar's second. It dropped to number two the week after, being replaced by Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again", where it stayed for five consecutive weeks. It spent another five consecutive weeks at number four, before leaving the top ten of the chart after thirteen consecutive weeks in it on September 5, 2015. By the end of 2015, the song had sold 2,584,000 digital copies in the US, becoming the tenth best selling single of the year. On March 13, 2020, "Bad Blood" was certified 6× Platinum by the RIAA, indicating six million copies moved.
The song also topped the charts in Australia and Canada becoming the third number one single from the album in the countries. It also peaked at number one in New Zealand becoming the second number one single from the album there. In the UK the song peaked at number four becoming the third number one single from the album.

Music video

Background

The music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, and produced by Swift. Kahn previously directed the music video for the second single from 1989, "Blank Space". The video was filmed in Los Angeles on April 12, 2015, but is set in London. The music video was premiered on May 17, 2015, at the start of the Billboard Music Awards. Each actress chose her character's name. Swift began teasing the video in May on Instagram by posting photos of each character.

Synopsis

The music video starts with Catastrophe and her partner, Arsyn, fighting off a group of men wearing suits in an office in London, for a mysterious briefcase. When all of the men are defeated, Arsyn double crosses Catastrophe by stealing the briefcase in Catastrophe's hand and kicking her out of a window. The song begins with Catastrophe lying on a broken car, as Welvin da Great begins to rap his verse and Lucky Fiori smokes a cigar. Catastrophe is shown being nursed back to health by a trio of girls called The Trinity, and after some time, she is ready to start training for her revenge. The other characters in the video are shown in succession, some in training with Catastrophe. They are :
When her training is complete, Catastrophe and her friends strike out to exact their revenge on Arsyn and her masked henchwomen. The two teams approach each other in what seems to be slow motion while an enormous explosion goes off in the background, blotting out the London skyline, including The Gherkin, and the video ends with both of the women simultaneously striking each other in the face.

Reception

Rolling Stone described it as a "futuristic neo-noir" video. Daniel D’Addario of Time called it Swift's "most elaborate" music video yet, and compared its visuals to those of Sin City. Slate agreed and found other film inspirations: "Along the way, they pay homage to countless films. Besides the video’s Robocop premise, there’s its Sin City aesthetic, its nod to Tron’s light cycles, and its Kill Bill-like fight in the snow." Billboard drew parallels between the video and the music videos for the Britney Spears songs "Toxic" and "Womanizer", which were both directed by Kahn. The video broke Vevo's 24-hour viewing record by accumulating 20.1 million views in its first day of release, beating the 19.6 million 24-hour record previously held by Nicki Minaj for the music video of her song "Anaconda" in 2014. It was later broken by Adele's "Hello" in October 2015, with 27.7 million views in the first 24 hours. As of January 2020, the video has amassed over 1.3 billion views and was Swift's third video to achieve this milestone. It is in the top 100 most viewed videos on YouTube.
"Bad Blood" received eight nominations at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Ultimately, it won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video. The video was named the ninth-most iconic pop music video of the 2010s by PopSugar.

Accolades

Track listing

  1. "Bad Blood" – 3:19
  2. "Bad Blood" – 3:31

    Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes of 1989 and Tidal.
;Recording and management
;Personnel

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Brazil 60

Certifications

Release history

Ryan Adams' version

A cover version of "Bad Blood" was released as the first single from singer-songwriter Ryan Adams' interpretation of Swift's 1989 album, released in September 2015.

Charts

Chart Peak
position