"Style" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the third single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift wrote the track with its producers Max Martin, Shellback, and Ali Payami. An incorporation of pop, funk, disco, and electronic styles, "Style" is built on an electric guitar riff, pulsing synthesizers, and dense vocal reverb. The lyrics are about a couple who could not escape from an unhealthy relationship because they are never "out of style". Big Machine in partnership with Republic Records released the song to US radio on February 9, 2015.
In the United States, "Style" peaked at number 6 and was 1989 third consecutive top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100, and it has been certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The single reached number one in South Africa and the top 10 in Australia, Canada, and Scotland. It has been certified multi-platinum in Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Early reviews were generally positive and praised the production but a few of them deemed the lyrics unsophisticated. Retrospective opinions have regarded "Style" as one of Swift's best songs, and one of the best pop songs in recent history.
Kyle Newman directed the song's music video, which premiered on February 13, 2015. It features Swift and Dominic Sherwood as a couple who reminisce about their relationship through illusions and flashbacks using broken mirror pieces. Swift included "Style" on the set lists for three of her world tours: the 1989 World Tour (2015), the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018), and the Eras Tour (2023–2024). Following a 2019 dispute regarding the ownership of Swift's back catalog, she re-recorded the song as "Style (Taylor's Version)" for her re-recorded album 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023).
Background and production
Taylor Swift had identified as a country musician, up until her fourth studio album, Red, which was released on October 22, 2012. Red incorporates eclectic pop and rock styles beyond the country stylings of Swift's past albums, which led to critics questioning her country-music identity. Swift began writing songs for her fifth studio album in mid-2013 while touring on the Red Tour. Inspired by 1980s synth-pop, she named the album 1989 after her birth year to signify an artistic reinvention: she described it as her first "official pop album". In 1989, Swift and the Swedish producer Max Martin served as executive producers. Out of 13 tracks on the standard edition, Martin and his frequent collaborator Shellback produced seven, including "Style".
According to the liner notes of 1989, Swift wrote some of the first lyrics to "Style" in February 2014. The producer Ali Payami and the guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt composed the instrumental of "Style", a guitar-driven track inspired by Daft Punk and what Ljungfelt described as "funky electronic music". Payami played the track to Martin, which Swift overheard and led to her becoming fond of the track. She and Martin wrote new lyrics to the instrumental, and Shellback and Payami co-wrote the track. Martin, Shellback, and Payami produced "Style", which was recorded by Michael Illbert and Sam Holland, assisted by Cory Bice, at MXM Studios in Stockholm and Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles. The song was mixed by Serban Ghenea and John Hanes at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, and it was mastered by Tom Coyne at Sterling Sound in New York City. "Style" was the last song produced for 1989; Swift said that once she finished the track, she knew the album was complete: "There was a huge missing piece, and that song filled it."
Music and lyrics
"Style" features prominent electronic stylings. It incorporates pulsing synthesizers, a throbbing bassline, and dense vocal reverb. The track exhibits eclectic influences: it is built on a recurring electric guitar riff that aligns with funk, R&B, and 1980s rock, and its upbeat groove evokes dance and 1970s disco. The refrain's first half consists of major chords of D and G that create a radiant atmosphere; the second half switches to a B minor chord that creates a rather sorrow one.
Critics mostly categorize "Style" as synth-pop and funk-pop. Other reviews deem it Italo disco and pop rock. Ed Masley in The Arizona Republic and the musicologist James E. Perone regard it as a hybrid of disco and new wave, while Alex Hudson and Megan LaPierre from Exclaim! say that it has a "synthwave atmosphere". According to many critics, "Style" not only resembles the music of the 1980s but also features a modern-leaning production. They liken the sound to the works of 1980s musicians such as Chaka Khan, Nile Rodgers, Don Henley, and Madonna, or contemporary acts such as Daft Punk, Electric Youth, and Blood Orange. Masley writes that the track "would have sounded right at home on MTV a few years earlier than 1989", and Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone deems it "extremely 1986-sounding". For Perone, although "Style" strongly evokes 1980s music, it does not reference any particular influence.
Swift was inspired to write "Style" by an unstable relationship which she compared to timeless fashion staples. The lyrics are about an on-again, off-again relationship, and the couple in question could not end it because they are never "out of style". The opening lines set a scene, "Midnight/ You come and pick me up, no headlights"; for some critics, these lyrics allude to sex, a theme Swift had not openly embraced—Jon Caramanica of The New York Times cited them as an example of her relinquishing the youthful innocence of her past songs. The refrain depicts the couple as conventionally attractive: the male lover resembles the 1950s actor James Dean with his "daydream look in [his] eye", and the female narrator flaunts her "red lip classic thing that you like" and "good girl faith and a tight little skirt". For some journalists, the beauty depicted is conservative and embedded with racial undertones. In the second pre-chorus, both characters mutually admit to cheating; Swift said the part displayed her evolved viewpoints on past relationships by admitting wrongdoings of both sides instead of her "I was right, you were wrong" mindset in previous songs.
Release and commercial performance A snippet of "Style" premiered in a Target commercial for 1989 on October 22, 2014. Big Machine Records released 1989 on October 27, 2014; "Style" is number three on the standard track listing. Big Machine in partnership with Republic Records released the song to US hot adult contemporary radio on February 9, and to US contemporary hit and rhythmic contemporary radio on February 10, 2015; it was the third single from 1989. In Italy, Universal Music released "Style" to radio on April 3, 2015.
"Style" debuted at number 60 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart dated November 15, 2014, and peaked at number six on March 21, 2015; it was 1989 third consecutive top-10 single after the chart toppers "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space". On Billboard airplay charts, the single peaked atop Pop Songs, Adult Pop Songs, and Adult Contemporary. It was the seventh-best-performing song on US airplay of 2015, earning 3.163 billion audience impressions from 550,000 plays. The single has been certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for surpassing three million units based on sales and streams. By November 2017, "Style" had sold 2.2 million downloads in the United States.
The single peaked atop the South African chart and in the top 20 on charts in the Czech Republic (11), Poland (13), Slovakia (14), and Hungary (18). In the English-speaking countries, "Style" peaked at number six in Canada, number eight in Australia, number nine in Scotland, and number 11 in the United Kingdom and New Zealand; it has been certified multi-platinum in all said countries: triple platinum in Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and ten-times platinum in Australia.
After Swift embarked on her sixth headlining world tour, the Eras Tour, in March 2023, sales and streams of her discography resurged. "Style" peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Global 200 chart dated August 26, 2023. It appeared on new singles charts of Italy (peaking at number 80), Vietnam (number 37), the Philippines (number 15), Portugal (number 14), and Singapore (number 2).
Critical reception
In reviews of 1989, many critics regarded "Style" as an album highlight, including Caramanica, Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times, Benjamin Boles of Now, and Joey Guerra of the Houston Chronicle. The production received praise: Kitty Empire from The Observer called it a "percolating" song that "satisfies on every level", Paul Nolan from Hot Press deemed it a "brilliantly executed" song with an "infectious" and "irresistible" production, and PopMatterss Corey Beasley described the track as "immaculate". In Vulture, Lindsay Zoladz commented that "Style" showcased Swift as an artist who made pop music "bend to her will". The song placed 24th on the 2015 Pazz & Jop poll, an annual mass critics' poll conducted by The Village Voice. At the 2016 BMI Awards, "Style" was one of the Award-Winning Songs that earned Swift the honor of Songwriter of the Year. It received a nomination for International Work of the Year at the APRA Music Awards of 2016.
Reception of the lyrics was not as uniformly positive. Caramanica and Robert Leedham of Drowned in Sound opined that "Style" embodied Swift's adult viewpoint on romance; the former said it depicted her as "savage, wry, and pointed", and the latter applauded the song for celebrating "being young and reckless [as] a part of growing up". Pitchfork ranked the song 50th on their list of 2014's best songs; Jordan Sargent opined that the lyrics were not groundbreaking but the production and Swift's "tense and restrained" vocals represented her artistic reinvention. The Independents Andy Gill said although the song had a "certain piquancy", it also contained "desperately inclusive electropop grooves and corporate rebel clichés". Consequence of Sounds Sasha Geffen said the song had one of the album's catchiest hooks but criticized its lyrics mentioning "conventionally pretty white people" as a cliché that blemished Swift's "girl-next-door likability".
Critics have retrospectively considered "Style" one of Swift's best songs. According to Annie Zaleski, the track is one of Swift's "most beloved" songs. She lauded its "disco-funk vibe" for evoking a sentiment similar to "the ecstatic feeling of speeding down the highway in a convertible" and the dynamic chorus that sounds like "a confident catwalk strut". American Songwriter Alex Hopper wrote that the single was "arguably the blueprint for pop music in the mid-2010s", and Billboards Kristen He said that it displayed "Swift's songwriting at its purest". In rankings of Swift's entire catalog, the song was placed among her 20 best songs by Billboard staff, Clash's staff, The Independent Roisin O'Connor, Paste's Jane Song, and Vulture Nate Jones, and her 10 best by Exclaim! Alex Hudson and Megan LaPierre, The Guardian Alexis Petridis, NME Hannah Mylrea, and Variety's Chris Willman.
Music video
Kyle Newman directed the music video for "Style", which was shot in Los Angeles and completed within four days in summer 2014. Before its release, Swift posted several teaser images and short clips from the video on her social media accounts. She planned to premiere the video on Good Morning America on the morning of February 13, 2015, but the Canadian music channel Much released it at midnight. Swift uploaded the video to her Vevo account on the same day. In the video, the English actor Dominic Sherwood plays Swift's love interest. Swift contacted him by text message roughly a month before the shooting; the two had known of each other through mutual friends. By the time they worked on the video, Sherwood had finished the film Take Down, which was later renamed Billionaire Ransom (released in 2016).