Taylor’s power move to reclaim her music crown
Last week, Taylor Swift’s new single became the most viewed video debut by a female artist in history.
TAYLOR SWIFT’S record-breaking video for comeback single Me! begins with a CGI snake exploding into a cloud of butterflies. Then, we see Taylor and Brendon Urie from emo band Panic! At The Disco having a blazing row – in French, but with mockserious movie subtitles. Taylor storms out of the room and into an ice cream-coloured wonderland which looks like Mary Poppins crossed with The Good Place. The snakes and disses of Taylor’s last album campaign are long gone, replaced by a dazzling pastel-hued fantasy where Taylor’s dress turns into a pink waterfall and her duet partner Brendon rides a flying umbrella across the sky.
Taylor has always used her carefullycrafted videos to give fans an insight into her life – remember the star-studded girl squad she assembled for 2015’s Bad Blood, released at the peak of her Katy Perry feud?
Me! is no exception, and though it must have taken a small army of backing dancers and production crew to create, it still feels like a personal effort. Taylor co-directed the video with industry veteran Dave Meyers, and gives cameo roles to her beloved cats, Olivia and Meredith.
Me! is another major reinvention from Taylor, but one that harks back to the sunny girl-next-door of her early years. ‘This time around, Taylor wanted a complete rethink over her strategy and personal brand – and she decided that everything had to be extremely upbeat and positive,’ a well-placed source told Grazia. Another insider added: ‘This single and music video had to be about reintroducing Taylor as a figure of fun, making light of all her eccentricities, and giving nods to her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn – that’s why Big Ben is featured in the background. She purposefully wanted it to look light and fluffy. It’s a direct contrast to the hard-edged look and sound of her last record, which presented Taylor as an angry figure fighting back.’
What’s behind Taylor’s latest rebrand? Fans reckon it’s simply an authentic reflection of her cosy personal life with Joe, whose own career is sky-rocketing after he appeared with Oscar-winning Olivia Colman in The Favourite. ‘Joe is a clear influence on Taylor’s new regime,’ an insider says. ‘She’s happier than she has been in a long time, so there’s no heartbreak to provide inspiration for new songs. They’ve been quietly dating for two years now, and the next step is finding a home in London so they have bases in both the US and UK.’
But let’s not forget that Taylor is also a savvy businesswoman who pays close attention to the bottom line. Though 2017’s Reputation album sold an impressive 4.5 million copies worldwide, it was a significant drop from the 10 million sold by her previous album, 1989. ‘There’s a feeling in Taylor’s team that she believed Reputation was a huge disappointment,’ a source tells us. ‘None of the first singles became big US radio hits, she struggled to fill her stadium tour, and she got some negative feedback from the press, who accused it of being “self-absorbed” and focusing too much on her petty dramas with Katy Perry and Kim and Kanye.’
Taylor’s unnamed new album, which fans are calling TS7, is definitely a chance to start afresh. After 12 years with Nashvillebased independent label Big Machine Records, she’s signed a new deal with Republic Records, part of major label UMG. It appears that boosting her streaming audience is a big priority – last year, she was only the fourth most-streamed female artist on Spotify, behind Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa and Cardi B.
So far, she’s off to a fantastic start: the Me! video achieved a record-breaking 65.2 million views in its first 24 hours – more than any female-artist video, ever. Fans are appreciating the song’s sweetly self-referential lyrics (‘I know that I’m a handful, baby’) and rumours that she’s reconnected with her country roots by collaborating with the Dixie Chicks (who are featured as a portrait hanging on the wall in the video). But Taylor is unlikely to be satisfied yet. A well-placed source tells us: ‘With this album, Taylor is looking to solidify her status as a musical legend.’