Saturday 28 January 2017

Someone Please Save Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik from This Music Video and Each Other

The video for the 50 Shades soundtrack's lead single is just as 50 Shades as you think.

Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik have released a video for "I Don't Want to Live Forever," their collaboration that backs the inescapable trailer for whichever of the 50 Shades movies comes out next, and folks, not since Mariah Carey on New Year's Eve has America beheld lip-syncing this halfhearted. I honestly wasn't sure until a full two lines into his verse whether Zayn was actually trying to mouth his lyrics, or just struggling to work a stubborn piece of leftover roast beef out from between his teeth.

A slickly-blended hybrid of the "Out of the Woods" backing vocals and an instrumental from what sounds like a generic The-Dream deep cut, the "I Don't Want to Live Forever" video is exactly what you would expect from songwriters charged with compressing the minor key-ethos of the 50 Shades franchise into four minutes of radio catnip: dimly lit, vaguely ominous, and stuffed full of sexy imagery that doesn't make sense if you think about it, but then again, not thinking about it is the entire point. Swift in sort-of lingerie, gloomily lounging by herself in a swanky hotel bar? A foamy, overflowing glass of expensive-looking champagne, which might as well have been accompanied by a giant flashing "SYMBOLISM" chyron? Zayn trashing a hotel room and tearing to shreds the pillows I thought he loved so much, while Swift kneels on a bed in another room and writhes about like an animatronic beta version of herself that doesn't quite have human movements mastered just yet? Check, check, and check.

Although its co-stars exhibit all the chemistry shared by 50 Shades leads Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, this song isn't bad, really. It's perfectly serviceable pop music that you wouldn't play in front of other people, but would probably sing along to if it came on in the car and you were driving by yourself. It's just that it—kind of like the franchise for which it was made—tries a bit too hard to make its point.

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