Decoding Pop’s Biggest Theories: Conspiracies, Easter Eggs and Hidden Messages
Pop music has a long history of hidden messages, easter eggs, and even conspiracy theories, that have captivated fans for decades and fuelled endless speculation. From secret messages in album artwork to cryptic lyrics that spark debates, it’s now become part and parcel of the fangirl life. Whilst some might take theories too far, it can build a sense of community and make fandoms a more interactive experience.
So how do these musical mysteries affect artist’s relationships with fans, and how has it evolved over time?
Taylor Swift is a Mastermind
Did you know that Taylor Swift is a mastermind… of foreshadowing? No one does easter eggs quite like Taylor. A whole dissertation could be written on how the singer has interwoven puzzles, clues and hidden messages into her artistry, particularly when teasing new music. Love or hate her, even non-Swifties must admire her attention to detail.
From a Lover billboard featuring in the Me! music video before its announcement to wearing a black and white outfit to the 2024 Grammy’s before announcing The Tortured Poet’s Department, Swifties know that everything is intentional.
It has resulted in a more interactive experience as a fan as the relationship between Swift and her listeners becomes more reciprocal. Swifties get a (not entirely fair) reputation for being “crazy” and are one of the most overly-criticised fanbases in pop culture. However, I have nothing but admiration and respect for the fans who can decode vault track titles, and it just goes to show how being in a fandom can be a positive thing and increase media literacy.
Plenty of pop girls similarly drop hints for new music for fans to spot. Ariana Grande has done this multiple times (dropping an easter egg with 7 Rings written on a license plate in her Thank U Next video before release, for example). More recently, Chappell Roan posted the lyrics to her unreleased single “She gets the job done” on social media before its debut performance on SNL. However, few artists can claim to have done it with such meticulous planning as Swift.
The real question is, is she ever going to release Reputation (Taylor’s Version)? Maybe she’s already started dropping hints.
Guess Who and Love Triangles
As well as hidden messages designed for fans to figure out, plenty of pop songs deliberately leave meanings ambiguous. However, this doesn’t stop fans trying to solve the mystery – particularly when there are other pop culture icons involved.
Charli’s Angels are still speculating who Charli XCX’s track Sympathy is a Knife is about – with all clues pointing to the one and only Taylor Swift. Upon the release of the album Brat, fans also immediately theorised that Girl, So Confusing was about Lorde, and were proved right after the most iconic collab of the summer as they worked it out on the remix. Although it’s still uncertain whether Sympathy is really about Taylor, fans have yet to be proven wrong.
Love songs in particular capture fans’ interests – with Swift’s songs yet again being a prime example of this as fans guess which song is about which relationship. Some examples include Joe Jonas in Mr Perfectly Fine and Taylor Lautner in Back to December.
Love triangles are also often intensely scrutinised. One unsolved mystery that comes to mind is the question: who exactly is “Becky with the good hair”? This lyric from Beyonce’s Sorry has fans scratching their heads as fellow celebrities like Rita Ora have been (falsely) accused of having an affair with her husband, Jay-Z.
Another love triangle that dominated pop culture is Sabrina Carpenter/Olivia Rodrigo/Joshua Bassett. Although this is not exactly a mystery, fans still speculating which of Carpenter and Rodrigo’s songs concern these events. More recently, Rodrigo’s song Lacy has been theorised to be about Carpenter.
This is one example of how this sort of scrutiny can go too far. After the release of Olivia Rodrigo’s hit song, Driver’s License, Sabrina Carpenter was bullied online, even receiving death threats – which she describes in her song, Because I liked a boy.
Notice how a lot of these mysteries revolve around pitting women against each other? Whilst musical mysteries and puzzles can be fun and bring fan communities together, they can also take a nasty turn. However, nowadays, it seems that most fans are likely hoping that Sabrina and Olivia will also work it out on the remix!
Sneaky Lyrics You Might Not Know About
Many pop songs have deeper meanings that are not obvious on the first listen. A classic example is TLC’s song, Waterfalls. The popular song actually contains quite mature and gritty themes including the HIV crisis.
Some are more obvious than others – one of my favourite “sneaky” lyrics is from Britney’s If U Seek Amy. If you don’t know it already, I’ll just let you Google it. Another cheeky hidden message is from Lady Gaga’s Poker Face, which she revealed to be about thinking about a woman whilst being with a man. Again, what she’s really saying instead of Poker Face in parts of the song isn’t exactly PG, so I’ll leave that up to you to investigate.
Most of these songs were released at times when online communities were not what they are now. Obviously people know about a lot of these now and there was likely speculation in fan communities, but lyrics were nowhere near as heavily scrutinised as they are now – many people still don’t know what Poker Face is really about, for example. Are we more interested in singers’ personal lives now versus back then?
Crazy Conspiracies
Whilst fan speculation these days is far more intense, fan theories and detailed analysis of pop music go back decades. The Paul McCartney conspiracy is a classic; it was falsely theorised that the Beatles singer died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike. The rumours were further fuelled by claims that the band left hidden messages in their music trying to tell the world about his death when certain parts were played backwards (such as “Turn me on, dead man”). Similar rumours have followed Avril Lavigne, who has allegedly been replaced by a lookalike called Melissa.
Both of these conspiracies are untrue and have no concrete evidence to support them. Though this is taking fan speculation a step too far, even the artists have found humour in it. Lavigne, for example, stated: “it’s just funny to me”.
Whilst these theories can have negative consequences, some fan conspiracies turned out to be more accurate than initially thought. The #FreeBritney movement originated due to fans’ concerns about the pop singer’s well-being after she posted a series of bizarre videos on Instagram. It turned out that Spears was in a conservatorship against her wishes, and the documentary Framing Britney Spears was subsequently released in 2021. Consequently, audiences re-evaluated their opinions on Spears and how she was treated by the media in light of this new information.
Sometimes, fan theories go too far. However, the Britney Spears situation was a rare example of fan concern coming from a genuine place and turning into more of an investigative journalistic endeavour rather than a silly conspiracy.
