The pop star briefly dropped a live version of “thanK you aIMee” — not-so-subtly retitled “thank You aimEe” — as The Tortured Poets Department bested Ye’s latest on the charts
Never one to skip an opportunity to twist the proverbial knife on an old foe, Taylor Swift marked the release of Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s new album Vultures 2 by briefly releasing a live version of “thanK you aIMee” with a not-so-subtly tweaked title: “thank You aimEe.” (The capital letters spell out YE now, in case you were wondering.)
The performance itself was recorded at one of Swift’s shows in London earlier this summer (June 22, to be exact), and notably found the musician mashing-up the Tortured Poets track with its spiritual predecessor, 2011’s “Mean.” The performance was tacked onto a digital edition of The Tortured Poets Department along with a mash-up of “The Prophecy and “Long Story Short” from Swift’s show in Lyon, France.
When Swift first released the expanded Anthology edition of The Tortured Poets Department, fans were quick to pick up on the peculiar lettering of “thanK you aIMee,” interpreting the capitalized letter as a pretty clear signal that this was a Kim Kardashian diss track.
And while Swift frames the song as if she’s thinking about an old school bully, lines like, “There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you,” or even ”And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues” made it fairly clear who she was actually thinking about.
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As for the new live version, it doesn’t look like Swift tweaked the lyrics in any particular way to make them more Ye-specific. But again, her intent was pretty clear with the capitalization and the timing of the release: A little over a week after the arrival of Vultures 2 and just as the album was bowing at Number Two on the Billboard 200 albums chart, right behind — you guessed it — The Tortured Poets Department.
Interestingly, Swift only made the “thank You aimEe”/”Mean” mash-up available for a few hours, taking it down right before midnight Thursday, August. 15. That means it probably won’t boost streams for The Tortured Poets Department too much as the LP goes for its 17th week at Number One — thus giving Swift’s good friend Post Malone a fighting chance on the Billboard 200 next week with his new album F-1 Trillion.
