Taylor Swift deconstructed: Artists remix 'We Are Never Ever'

September 28, 2012|By Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic

L.A. duo Kid Infinity remakes Taylor Swift in a new collection. (Kid Infinity / Imps of Marge…)

There are a few different ways to digest a mega-hit song like Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." If you love it, you'll memorize all the words, lap up every verse, chorus, hook and bridge until you get its message on a cellular level. If you're ambivalent about it, maybe you'll tap your foot while thinking about something else.

And if you hate it, it will torture you relentlessly as it embeds itself into your psyche. Those who are sick of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and are looking to deconstruct it might follow Mabson Enterprises' lead.

Similar in concept to Mabson's recent collection covering Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," the new collection, released Tuesday, sees acts such as Kid Infinity, EAR PWR, Greenday with Reverb, and others offering 26 different takes on Taylor Swift's pop meme.

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Fans of the original should brace themselves: The accumulated mess of covers distorts Swifts voice, buries it in noise and transforms it into low-fi dance music. Kid Infinity's version pushes the song's melody while shoving a chopped-and-screwed voice into the mix, while Clay TV's surreal "Weeeee Neeeeever" buries Swift's voice in beautiful, echoed static. Among the most abrasive is Murphy the Law's "Justdoingme," which mixes Kanye West's notorious interruption of Swift's MTV VMA acceptance speech with frantic rhythms and general chaos.

This chaos is what makes the collection so beguiling. It may not land in the Taylor Swift Army's top 10 of the year, but nestled within the "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" collection is evidence of the myriad ways in which artists can take one thing and make it into another. Listen below.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Mabson Enterprises

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Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit