After a bout of social media teasing pop star Taylor Swift made good on a vow to drop new music, releasing early Friday the rainbow-colored video for her latest single, “ME!” The chipper track the 29-year-old superstar says celebrates individuality is a sharp departure from her previous album and much harsher lead single and video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” which went heavy on black and white and saw her grapple with her very public celebrity dramas.
“’Me!’ is a song about embracing your individuality and really celebrating it and owning it,” Swift told ABC late Thursday, where she made a brief appearance at the National Football League draft.
“With a pop song, we have the ability to get a melody stuck in people’s heads,” she said. “I just want it to be one that makes them feel better about themselves, not worse.”
The video bathed in pastel—something of a psychedelic mash-up between Mary Poppins and kaleidoscopic 60s musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—sees Swift engage in relatively banal arguments with a love interest, played by the singer Brendon Urie of Vegas rock band Panic! at the Disco, who also contributes vocals.
In the video featuring cats and a heavy dose of unicorn imagery, Swift memorably shouts out “Spelling is fun!” midway through but proceeds to spell nothing.
Swift has seen a decline in her status in the industry—scoring just one nomination at this year’s Grammys, where pop was largely ignored in favor of hip hop and country-tinged work—but commercially remains a megastar.
Her last international tour reportedly grossed $345.7 million over seven months, after which she released a concert film on Netflix.
She has not yet revealed details of a new album but will appear in a film adaptation of Cats, set for a December release.
