‘Style’ is the third single from Taylor Swift’s chart breaking new album 1989, currently at no. 14 in the Billboard’s Top 200 digital songs.
Following astounding reception of singles ‘Shake It Off’ and ‘Blank Space’ prior to ‘Style’, Swift released the music video for the track on the 13th February following a Good Morning America interview.
‘Shake It Off’ has already sold 4 million copies in the US and over 750,000 in the UK, as well as peaking at No. 1 on iTunes in 64 countries. ‘Blank Space’ reached No. 1 in 82 countries and sold over 450,000 in the UK alone.
‘Style’ is expected to do just as well, if not better, than these two.
Swift, Max Martin, Shellback and Ali Payami wrote the pop rock song. It was released by Republic Records in partnership with Swift’s label Big Machine Records and has already reached number 10 in US charts, gaining Swift a hat trick of top ten singles.
Co-Writer Max Martin has crafted previous hits like Britney Spear’s ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ and Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’, as well as Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’. Meanwhile, Shellback has worked with Swift previously on tracks such as ‘Never Getting Back Together’ and ‘22’.
Kyle Newman, who has previously co-directed Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summertime Sadness’, directed the music video. The video has already reached over 20 million views in just 6 days of release.
The video used double-exposure effects wherein images are projected onto Swift and co-star model Dominic Sherwood, and was shot in various settings; the woods, the beach, the ocean, dimly lit rooms, cars, etc, with the two clasping onto shards of glass for the majority of the video.
The symbolic nature of the video is clear. When the two seem to endure a break-up, the water of the sea is calm and when they re-unite it becomes much more ferocious with big waves to show the passion in the relationship. The shards of glass show how fragmented the relationship is. But the most talked about symbol in the video is the necklace Swift wears – a paper airplane, supposedly given to Swift by ex-boyfriend Harry Styles, making viewers of the video question if the song (or even the whole album) is a dig at the One Direction singer.
This video is much more gothic, mature and tasteful than the playful videos of ‘Shake It Off’ and ‘Blank Space’.
The video has been likened to Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, which was released in 1989, and David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive.
You can watch the single on Taylor Swift’s VeVo:
And order the album ‘1989’ on iTunes: