In an effort to keep Drake from snagging the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 10, Taylor Swift has been “Willowâ€-ing her latest single, “Anti-Hero,†from Midnights. What’s “Willowâ€-ing?, you may ask, on a Friday filled with online shopping to cope with the fact you didn’t get the Eras Tour tickets? During Swift’s forgotten child Evermore’s era, she released several different versions of her lead single, “Willow.†Five, to be exact. Now, Swift is doing the same thing to “Anti-Hero,†possibly to try to earn another record: most weeks at No. 1 on the Artist 100, Hot 100, and Billboard 200, an honor currently held by … Drake, with 16 weeks. Swift released seven versions of the song, including one with frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff’s band Bleachers.
In this acoustic version I am dubbing “Sexy Baby Winter,†à la Sad Girl Autumn, the sweet chimes float through the reflective lyrics of “Anti-Hero.†It takes on a less pop-y approach to her other remixes (the Illenium remix is a banger), but doesn’t transform the song into a full-on crying track as one might hope. Or not, if you’re a normal human being that doesn’t find immense joy in sobbing to really sad songs. There is still time for Swift to make the saddest version of “Anti-Hero†yet. She might if she wants to keep her No. 1 spot to break more records, with the same intensity that her fans broke Ticketmaster. Questions still remain: What record will Swift break first? The most weeks at No. 1 or the most remixes of one of her singles? And when will we get the “Lavender Haze†music video?