Marcel Winatschek

Wildest Dreams

Brunette Taylor lying before a lion is the image that stayed with me from the Wildest Dreams video. The whole thing is shot in this elaborate African setting—giraffes, zebras, impossible landscapes, romance against a safari backdrop. She has the resources and creative control to build any world she wants, and she built this one well.

I watched it when it was everywhere, and I didn’t think much about it after. The song itself isn’t strong enough to carry that production. It’s pleasant and forgettable. 1989 had already spent its best tracks—Shake It Off, Bad Blood, Style—and by Wildest Dreams the album was working with what was left.

A big video doesn’t fix that. All that craft and budget just makes the void at the center more obvious. I appreciated the technical accomplishment, the way everything came together, but I wasn’t hearing the song in my head the next day. I wasn’t curious to hear it again. It was just a moment, and not a particularly memorable one.