“Bad Blood” (Taylor Swift cover) by Tiffany Alvord, Friday, May 27, 2022

As a singer-songwriter and YouTube cover artist, Tiffany Alvord has collaborated with other YouTube musicians such as Alex G, Tyler Ward, Megan Nichole, and Boyce Avenue. She released a number of pop covers albums until 2016 and then began releasing singles. She released a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” on her 2016 I’ve Got It Covered, Vol. 6, which includes three other 1989 Swift covers, “Blank Space,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Out of the Woods.” The album’s opener, “Blank Space,” falls flat, as Alvord doesn’t add anything to the Swift masterpiece. Tyler Ward adds a masculine perspective to “Wildest Dreams.” But where Alvord shines is on the blander Taylor Swift tracks, “Out of the Woods” and today’s song, “Bad Blood.” While Swift is a good singer, Alvord’s vocal color brings the two seemingly monotonous versions alive.

TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE. Celebrity feuds aren’t particularly interesting. But when we talk about Taylor Swift, we have to talk about the long-standing, but now resolved, feud between Swift and Katy Perry. There are different accounts about who started it, but each singer took their own jabs whether it was award show snubs or diss-tracks such as Katy Perry’s “Swish Swish” featuring a savage bridge by Nicki Minaj and Taylor’s Kendrick Lamar collaboration, the remix of “Bad Blood.” Slate’s podcast Hit Parade’s episode about the history of remixes points out that Swift learned a lesson about single promotion from Katy Perry’s hit record Teenage Dream, an album that technically tied with Michael Jackson’s Bad for most number one singles from an album. However, critics are divided this accolade. Perry’s fourth #1 from the album, “E.T.,” was propelled to the top of the chart because of the non-album remix featuring Kanye West. Swift scored three number ones from 1989 with the third being propelled by the non-album remix for “Bad Blood” and its big budget music video. The remix keeps the same boring chorus as the song’s main hook, but Lamar takes the verses.

STILL GOT SCARS IN MY BACK FROM YOUR KNIVES. Even the energy that Lamar instills into the track can’t save “Bad Blood.” The auto-tuning renders the chorus soulless and the instruments feel canned. Alvord’s version feels much more authentic. But the worst thing about Swift’s version is how self-obsessed it is. This was the beginning of my love affair with Ms. Swift cooling. From “Bad Blood” we got the plastic hip-hop elements in her follow up, Reputation, especially on the lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Music video effects and auto tune sacrifice the authenticity of a young girl and her guitar. The early singles and most of 1989 gave us a fun look at authenticity in pop music, but just like an enemy can spoil the fun, “Bad Blood” makes Swift much less fun. So as much as fans love Folklore, we cannot blame Reputation for insincere Taylor, but rather the music industry that says the remix of “Bad Blood” is hit material. The original is much better. And much better than that is Tiffany Alvord’s cover. But even that doesn’t fix the “nah-nah-nah-nah boo boo” sounding rhyme scheme.

Read the lyrics on Genius.

Tiffany Alvord’s version: