In case you ever doubted poptimism, here is Taylor Swift being covered by one of the realest bands in punk or DIY or whatever you want to call it over the past decade. It’s Screaming Females putting their spin on “Shake It Off.”
Translating a massively produced song like this into three instruments is tough, so Screaming Females switched things up. Guitarist-singer Marissa Paternoster keeps the guitar sparse early on, leaving plenty of room for bassist King Mike and drummer Jarrett Dougherty to fill in the beat. Later on, she revs up the guitar presence, and even goes through Taylor’s spoken-word breakdown, making it sound many, many times cooler.
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The video comes as part of the AV Club’s Undercover series, where artists pick songs to cover out of what’s left of a staff-made list. Really though, we wouldn’t mind if Screamles continued to cover Taylor on their own; who knows what shredding Paternoser would do on one of her songs that actually has guitar in the first place.