Dan + Shay Cover Taylor Swift’s “Back To December” (A Rant)
I heard that Dan + Shay were going viral with their version of Taylor Swift’s song “Back to December,” and decided to give it a quick peep. Next thing I knew, my manhood proceeded to shrivel like a maggot in a microwave, and spontaneously invert into my pelvic region until all that was left was a full-on life-sized Mattel Ken Doll version of a completely featureless man-gina. Thanks Dan + Shay, you twerps.
You crave hearing a new song from Dan + Shay like you crave hearing Christmas music before Halloween. The emasculated tones, the aggressive use of AutoTune, the entirely soul-bereft delivery, it’s everything safe and dull about American music concentrated and purified into its most generic form.
You’d call it a snooze fest, but a sedate, emotionless reaction is not exactly what Dan + Shay’s music inspires. It’s more of a sense of wanting to self-immolate if necessary to permanently and forever remove one’s self from the audience of another single auditory note from this maniacally terrible duo, even if that comes with the complete expiration of one’s life to fulfill this wish.
So apparently after a clip of these two grown ass men singing “Back To December” at a sound check went viral, they decided to record a studio version of a song Taylor Swift wrote when she was 18—totally and completely normal behavior for a couple of dudes who are 33 and 38 respectively, but like Peter Pan, seem to be permanently affixed to a prepubescent state, despite the stubble.
And no, we’re not just twisting off on some B-side off-cycle single that will pass like a shart in the wind. Dan + Shat’s version of “Back To December” currently sits in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, they performed it on the poor Opry, and some are calling it the “song of the winter” and surmising it might become the latest edition to the Christmas music canon.
Yeah, move over Mariah Carey and Brenda Lee. Dan + Shay can’t even knock off Brothers Osborne and a mostly retired Brooks & Dunn for a CMA Best Duo trophy, but all of a sudden they’re roaring back to “country” music relevancy with a 15-year-old Taylor Swift song.
But please don’t misunderstand this as a knock on Taylor Swift or “Back To December” specifically. She’s was punching way above her weight in 2010 when she wrote the album Speak Now all by herself, along with co-producing it too. Taylor Swift has way bigger balls than Dan + Shay combined, and according to her new song “Wood,” a shaft like a redwood tree to climb via her famous hubby.
As for Dan + Shay, why don’t they make like Florida Georgia Line and split? It’s amazing how much damage they can do with two microphones, a piano, and enough Antares AutoTune to to draw Nicolás Maduro out of a bunker with his hands up.
October 29, 2025 @ 8:20 am
Dan + Shay suck, but questioning their manhood because they covered a great song by a female artist is pretty low, even for you, Kyle.
October 29, 2025 @ 8:24 am
Who’s questioning who’s manhood? I’m the one with the man-gina now.
Lighten up. It’s a stupid rant.
October 29, 2025 @ 8:28 am
Well, you got the “stupid” part, right.
October 29, 2025 @ 8:55 am
There have been semi-ironic metal covers of T-swift songs for over a decade now but this rendition is utter trash. This song is made for stupid people with garbage musical taste. It’s made for people who select “Tequila” to sing at karaoke. It’s for people who think Drake is talented. This is music for people on anti-depressants living in a town house with a golden doodle who talk about using those voice buttons to “train their dog to communicate” like that one doodle on instagram. This awful type of music is just the adult version of Wiggles music.It’s adult – children’s music. It’s for people who liked the show Barney as a kid.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:08 am
I never said it was a good version. I said that Kyle questioning their manhood for covering the song was low. I stand by that.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:28 am
He’s joking about HIS OWN manhood, not D & S. It’s a humorous post about an act he’s ripped on before for being soft and faux-country. I needed a laugh and i find this post to be funny. I’ve read rants here that are far harder on their subject than this one. Judging from what I’ve seen from you here, you seem to almost like being offended and I feel slightly badly for you. Nothing further from me here…
October 29, 2025 @ 10:05 am
Clearly reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:51 am
Don’t be a pussy, Interstate.
October 29, 2025 @ 10:05 am
Don’t be a fucking bitch, MH.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:01 pm
we have a good philosophical song about that from the deep mind of Buck Fuffalo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIouFbv8JKE&list=RDKIouFbv8JKE&start_radio=1
I’m a woman and I approve of this message
October 29, 2025 @ 1:38 pm
I question where they put their respective manhoods – probably in each other.
October 29, 2025 @ 5:11 pm
Thank you for contributing to the “country music is for bigoted assholes” mindset. That you think it is an insult to insinuate that people are gay, tells me all I need to know about you. Kyle, as we’ve talked about via email, why do you want to be linked to this shit?
October 29, 2025 @ 6:48 pm
It’s enlightening seeing what triggers boomers like Douglas Carter: 90s humor, lol.
It provides insight into why their children (millennials) turned out to be what they did.
October 30, 2025 @ 10:12 am
Person who refers to himself as a honky cracker, I am not triggered by 90s humor. I am disgusted by bigoted comments. Call it 90s humor if you like, but the alleged humor is due to believing a gay male is less than a straight male. Be honest and say, ” It’s funny because gay sex is disgusting and a real man doesn’t engage in it.” Don’t hide behind bullshit. Own your beliefs.
October 29, 2025 @ 7:27 pm
Quit being so soft. Not everything needs to be offensive.
October 29, 2025 @ 10:41 am
You say that as if they ever had any manhood to question.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:17 am
You don’t have any manhood to question, either, so you really shouldn’t be talking, Tom.
October 29, 2025 @ 10:51 am
Clearly YOU need some better reading comprehension skills, Interstate Daydreamer. Trigger didn’t say anything about the decision for these two dildos to cover a Taylor Swift song, it’s HOW they did it. The only thing that might lend your stance some creedence is that he pointed out that they’re two guys in their 30s covering an 18 year old girls song.
Either way, lighten up.
Anyway, I’m listening to it now and it fucking sucks. This is the soundtrack to a house with a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign in the kitchen and pumpkin spice candles everywhere.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:18 am
Proving that reading comprehension isn’t Andrew’s strong suit, either.
October 29, 2025 @ 12:13 pm
Just cause you say it doesn’t make it true, Interstate. You could back up your claim with your thoughts but that’d require you to think critically.
October 30, 2025 @ 3:11 am
It’s true because it’s true, whether I say it or not.
October 29, 2025 @ 4:42 pm
“This is the soundtrack to a house with a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign in the kitchen and pumpkin spice candles everywhere.”
That, Andrew, is a great line.
October 30, 2025 @ 4:55 am
I was gonna add in an early 40s divorced woman who’s wearing Uggs and an off shoulder sweater but figured that would be kinda harsh.
October 29, 2025 @ 6:08 pm
Interstate,
Have you considered crying about this profusely on Tik Tok? Like, really letting it out, with lots of cussing and mucus dripping off your chin?
It would be glorious. Do it.
October 30, 2025 @ 3:12 am
Have you considered getting a vasectomy so you don’t procreate? Never mind, that would require a woman actually wanting to fuck you.
October 30, 2025 @ 5:20 am
Many of these ‘’true American patriots’’ trad wives are immigrants. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just appears that many of them look to other cultures for the ‘’American’’ values they cherish in a marriage.
October 30, 2025 @ 6:34 am
Because most modern American women lack those American values.
October 30, 2025 @ 1:34 pm
Rando who calls himself “Country Knight”, please explain specifically what those “American values” are that you say “most modern American women lack”. Thank you in advance.
October 30, 2025 @ 7:28 am
I think you missed the point. Teenage Taylor Swift was writing songs for and about girls. That’s great. I thought she was a great roll model for my daughter back then. I never got into to “bash Taylor” thing that a lot of other guys did because I recognized her talent and that her artistry spoke to people not like me. The thing here is that these two have not artistry. Technically they sing fine but there is nothing behind it. Them doing this song is kind of link a guy wearing a woman’s clothes without being transgender or even a drag queen. There is clearly no actually feeling for the substance.
October 29, 2025 @ 8:49 am
All-male cast XXX videos are straighter than this.
This is a good example of why I feel so strongly against auto-tune and vocal pitch correction. Dan and Shay shouldn’t be thing. This cover shouldn’t be a thing. AI-created music sounds more natural than this. I don’t know which is which in this video but the guy singing lead looks like a beneficiary of ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’ in the military. How about “Don’t make this crap and don’t post it online.”
October 29, 2025 @ 9:03 am
The AutoTune on this track is so egregious, it’s insulting to the audience, and in an era where hiding AutoTune use has become easier and easier.
But a song like this is also a good illustration how when people throw AutoTune accusations out there (here’s looking at you, Oliver Anthony) without any real evidence just because they don’t like an artist, it can become like the boy crying wolf.
Usually when AutoTune is involved as a blanket vocal effect as opposed to just tuning a flat note or two here or there, you can hear it. There’s no disputing it. This cover is a perfect example of this.
October 29, 2025 @ 12:39 pm
I’ve never once thrown out that accusation because I don’t like someone. I believe that’s the case for most others throwing that case out there. I was never an Oliver Anthony fan and his throwing out those accusations isn’t what made me start making those accusations of auto-tune and pitch correction – I was just glad he was bringing that conversation to the mainstream. You are using Oliver Anthony’s poorly stated accusations to discredit and get people to stop talking about autotune and pitch correction by artists who deny it, and by artists you like (or don’t hate because they are traditional-adjacent).
Using this as the example of how to spot autotune and pitch correction is a weak, chicken shit argument against the point of pitch correction being pervasive in modern Country music. The auto-tune in this song couldn’t be any more blatantly obvious, but the use of pitch correction extends to all corners of modern Country with only a few exceptions. Yes there is a temptation to automatically wonder or assume something to be “computer-corrected” but to anyone with a decent ear, it’s not that hard to catch. I hate the sound of pop production in Country music or any genre. It’s soulless. There is a reason Zach Top is popular – because it’s his voice.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:04 pm
This record is awful.
I can’t get any more worked up about HOW awful it is.
But I cliked on the link to you-tube and it’s filled with comments from people who think it’s one of the greatest recordings in history. Evidently, they have their fans.
As far as auto-tune–When I hear detectable auto-tune, it’s kind of a deal killer. But I’ve come to realize that Gen Z or whatever the lates generation is called do not see things that way. They’ve grown up on auto-tune, etc. and all kinds of computer geterated or enahnced art and media and they LIKE hearing and seein that in music and video. The recording engineers of this “Back to December” song did not carelessly let the evidence of auto-tune slip through. They put it in made it prominent deliberately because that’s the the sound they’re going for. Their audience likes it. Maybe they like it because “old people” hate it, but that’s just a guess.]
October 29, 2025 @ 2:56 pm
It’s also millenials who grew up with autotune. There is a general fondness and nostalgia for Linkin Park – who used autotune. The just as shitty rock acts of the 2000’s also used autotune.
I was at my parent’s house over the weekend and my Dad plays Youtube videos on the TV – many of the videos are AI-narrated. The autoplay feature then played some AI cover of ‘When You Say Nothing At All.’ They would have never noticed it. There are people who truly care about the content they consume and others who are very passive about it.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:13 am
You strike me as the type of person who has a double-digit IQ. You’re a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:05 am
I know you are but what am I?
October 29, 2025 @ 8:59 am
Makes sense. Female singers singing a fellow female’s song.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:07 am
There is a difference between emasculation and misgendering, though I’ll take credit for bringing these comments on with my commentary.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:12 am
C’mon, Trigger, it is the same kind of joke. Your rants are classic for the merciless cutting.
Dan + Shay deserve it for their putrid country music.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:09 am
Just the kind of comment I’d expect from a trash person like you.
October 29, 2025 @ 10:52 am
Found Dan + Shay’s account on SCM right here!
October 29, 2025 @ 11:15 am
So you’re one of those people who types before thinking.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:14 am
Listen, I will chalk up your scalded cat comments and Dan + Shay’s cover to it being that time of the month.
Lighten up.
October 30, 2025 @ 3:14 am
I’ll chalk up your comments to you just being a shitty person. Then again, I’ve known that a long time already from your comments on here.
October 30, 2025 @ 6:30 am
How cute. You view disagreement as a moral failing. What a childish viewpoint.
October 30, 2025 @ 8:31 am
If that makes you feel better about being a shitty excuse for a human being, you keep telling yourself that.
October 30, 2025 @ 12:07 pm
I think you need to look in a mirror and rethink your life.
Being called shitty by your ilk isn’t the burn or truth your mind envisions it to be.
October 29, 2025 @ 9:14 am
I hate this thing in modern music where men and women sing in the same octave, so men sing high and women sing low. If this had been in a different key or sung an octave lower I probably wouldn’t dislike it as much. As it is, he’s basically belting every note which bleeds the emotion out of the performance.
The only good thing to come out of this is that it’s bringing attention to “Back to December”, which is one of Swift’s best and most underrated songs, in my opinion. It somehow is treated as an underperforming single even though it would’ve spent 10-11 weeks at number 1 had the modern Hot Country Songs chart existed at the time.
October 29, 2025 @ 1:43 pm
Country artists used to rarely sing in an upper register. Rock artists would sing in a higher register to stand out from the band. With a true Country-sounding band singing in a lower register should be more normal. Today belting out vocals is treated like explosions in a Michael Bay movie. It’s treated like the listener will get bored and hit skip if they don’t constantly try to keep the energy up.
October 29, 2025 @ 11:30 pm
hank williams would like a word
October 29, 2025 @ 9:27 am
Nice piece Trig. Good for you.
October 29, 2025 @ 12:09 pm
If you want to hear a man sing Taylor Swift, reach for Ruston Kelly.
There is this whole segment of ‘country’ music that I just do not understand: Dan + Shay, Old Dominion, Parmalee, LOCASH, Russell Dickerson, Mitchell Tenpenny, etc.
October 29, 2025 @ 12:26 pm
The kind of music they probably play at those awful ” wine and canvas” parties that the 30 something soccer moms flock to.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:17 pm
My sisters listen to this crap. It’s the type of music that somebody can put on as background noise, without thinking, because it sounds the same and doesn’t really make you think at all.
Ask them what the lyrics are, and they have no clue.
October 29, 2025 @ 12:48 pm
“Tsell me how’s your family”. So sick.
October 29, 2025 @ 1:11 pm
Not gonna listen, but I will say that their last studio album was surprisingly country and quite good.
October 29, 2025 @ 1:35 pm
Why are they even grouped in the country category? Their garbage music sounds like easy listening stuff like michael bolton or john tesh. Idk about shay but dan is from the suburbs of pittsburgh and theres nothing “country” about him.
October 29, 2025 @ 1:55 pm
Sue me, I enjoyed this.
I’ve always liked Taylor Swift’s writing. “You’ve got a smile that could light up this whole town/Haven’t seen it in awhile since she got you down.” She can make a hook out of anything. It’s something a lot of writers in the roots and Americana space could take a lesson from. You might hate the song, but you’re not about to forget it.
Yeah. They were a little heavy handed with the Melodyne but it’s pop.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:10 pm
I listened to the whole song and I’ve already forgotten it.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:40 pm
I got no problem with “Back To December,” or Taylor Swift’s version. I said it at the time and I said it in this rant: Taylor Swift was punching way above her weight class as an 18 year old songwriter. Do I need a version of it from Dan+Shay? Is it something that should be charting in the Top 10 in country? Absolutely not.
October 29, 2025 @ 4:51 pm
Yea, Taylor Swift shouldn’t take any of the heat for this. I listened to her first couple of albums driving my daughter to and from school. She was a great songwriter right from the start.
October 30, 2025 @ 3:13 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Speak Now is probably the best Pop-Country album released this century.
It’s a shame she hooked on with Max Martin and Shellback afterwards – they sanded off everything interesting about her perspective and her sound.
October 30, 2025 @ 3:20 am
Which is bullshit, and you know it, Kyle. You’re trying to re-write history. Go back and re-visit your original review of “Speak Now” (even as a pop album) and you DEFINITELY had a problem with it. Don’t try to claim now that “I got no problem with it.”
You’re the same self-absorbed asshole who is convinced Taylor wrote a song about you when the truth is you aren’t even a blip on her radar.
October 30, 2025 @ 7:43 am
I’ve written multiple retrospectives on Taylor Swift’s career, and on “Speak Now” specifically. Yes, I misunderstood the importance of the album initially, and said as much in these retrospectives.
https://savingcountrymusic.com/cma-2011-preview-we-were-wrong-about-taylor-swift/
https://savingcountrymusic.com/album-review-taylor-swifts-speak-now-taylors-version/
And as I said in this article, QUOTE, “But please don’t misunderstand this as a knock on Taylor Swift or “Back To December” specifically. She’s was punching way above her weight in 2010 when she wrote the album Speak Now all by herself, along with co-producing it too.”
I didn’t need to say that in this rant, and I didn’t need to respond to Conrad like I did. I said it because it was my full intention of not going after the song itself, but Dan + Shay’s version of it.
October 30, 2025 @ 8:35 am
LOL, except you’re trying to claim you “said it at the time” which you didn’t. You’re trying to re-write history and we all know it, Kyle.
October 30, 2025 @ 9:35 am
I said that in 2011—or 14 years ago and within the same period the album was released—and explained my evolution in thinking at that time, and then reinforced that opinion in 2023 when reviewing the “Taylor’s Version” of “Speak Now.” Maybe I could have been more clear in my language, but your insinuation that it’s “bullshit” that I don’t have a problem with “Speak Now” is just as misleading. No, I said this on the record in 2011, 2023, and in this very article, when if anything, sharing that opinion was barely relevant. What’s my incentive to lie about this? I could have avoided saying anything about Taylor Swift or her original version of the song, or the album it was on. I felt it was important to draw a distinction there in between Taylor Swift and Dan + Shay in an otherwise ridiculous, over-the-top rant that isn’t really meant to be taken seriously anyway.
You’re overthinking this Interstate.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:12 pm
Dang, I didn’t know Hallmark royalties paid so well, but then again, that’s all Dan + Shay are: a soundtrack to a stupid Hallmark movie. Boyfriend country just sucks.
While I despise bro-country with nearly every fiber of my being, I would take it every day of the week over this garbage. At least bro-country deals with cool topics like jacked up trucks, dirt roads, and good looking women.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:20 pm
At least they didn’t screw up “December” by Collective Soul or “A Long December” by Counting Crows.
October 29, 2025 @ 2:46 pm
Itd be impossible to further ruin those turds.
October 29, 2025 @ 4:53 pm
I cringe to think of them doing Merle’s “If We Make it Through December.”
October 29, 2025 @ 8:12 pm
“Ken Doll?” Hey,Trigger,you haven’t heard that Blaine (NOT Brady,but we all know why) is Barbie’s new-ish handsome beau?
October 29, 2025 @ 9:52 pm
” why don’t they make like Florida Georgia Line and split?” I got all the way to the end, to this line, before I remembered that those are two separate bands and not just one single Walmart of terrible
October 29, 2025 @ 11:20 pm
Lol. Being to hard on Dan and Shay. They did a song with Justin Beiber. Whst is more country that? In their video.of Speechless one of them is wearing skinny jeans with no socks and loafers. That is pure country. They are on my list of all time worst non-country country acts along with Parmalee. The only one more cringeworthy is Jelly Roll and that is because he is everywhere. Everytime you turn on the TV he is on some music show
October 30, 2025 @ 4:25 am
Whose bringing politics into this blog now with the Maduro reference?
Also there’s plenty on here about who is or isnt country, but at what point are Dan + Shay just pop acts that get to call themselves country because they base themselves out of Nashville
October 30, 2025 @ 4:29 am
So NASHVILLE is why pop acts get to call themselves Country ? Never dreamt that would happen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 30, 2025 @ 1:33 pm
“Back To December” has always been one of my favorite pre-“1989” songs of hers (alongside “Dear John”, “State Of Grace” and “Treacherous”) for two key reasons: 1) it was the first time we really saw Swift tap into feelings of remorse and acknowledging she was in the wrong on wax and 2) it feeling most sincere and heartaching. There was an authenticity, a conviction in how she delivered that song much like with “Dear John” that has held up remarkably well all this time even when I’m not typically a fan of more adult contemporary-sounding fare.
Dan + Shay’s cover is just simply lacking in that conviction and gravitas. I think they just saw December was in the title of her song and said, “Oh yeah, let’s cover this for the holidays!” instead of genuinely interpreting the backstory behind Swift’s original, trying to sit with that sort of youthful emotional inner-conflict and trying to channel it effectively. It just flat out doesn’t work here and results in a soulless, inert end result.
October 30, 2025 @ 1:47 pm
I listened to the first verse and chorus. I like the original TS version, I think it’s a good song, and this rendition is fine. If it wasn’t autotuned to death, it would even be pretty good.
But I don’t understand why it exists. They didn’t add anything to it. They did nothing to make it their own, it’s just the same song I’ve heard a hundred times.
October 30, 2025 @ 9:29 pm
Shay Mooney hopefully can have a second career as a solo artist like Peter Cetera did in the 80’s and 90’s.
October 31, 2025 @ 7:21 am
Perfect take Trig! Gawd the interstate person is such a drag.
November 2, 2025 @ 6:37 am
Trigger, that last line “draw Nicolás Maduro out of a bunker with his hands up” nearly chocked on my coffee this morning. It’s one for the ages. Thanks.