Taylor Swift is back with a bang, completely shaking off her what-a-perfect-rolemodel image from the past. Sharper than ever – it's first class entertainment. Her single Look What You Made Me Do has shattered possibly every record that is possible to shatter.

LWYMMD went straight to number one in over 90 countries, her lyric video broke records for lyric videos (which is now a thing we learned), and broke Spotify and Vevo records. And YouTube records. We're talking 50 million views at the time of writing, and the video came out yesterday. 

There's a lot of numbers.
She beat them all basically.

And when you need a big league music video, Joseph Khan is who you gonna call. Having directed iconic videos like her own Blank Space, but also ranging from Britney's Toxic to Wu-Tang Clan's Gravel Pit and Eminem's Without Me – their collaboration on this video was perfect.

It was an announcement: it's Blank Space Taylor, the Album.

No offence, I know you just died (many times) Taylor, but that's our favourite Taylor.

Whereas before, Taylor would interact with fans online, be surrounded by a squad of supermodels – and often explain her intentions in some way; she has gone the opposite direction this time.

From the moment she wiped her social media accounts clean last weekend, there has been no interview, no personal posts, no comments.

She drops enough clues in her work to let smart fans figure out what's up, but no statement is being made from Taylor herself except just the work.

From deleting her entire online presence ('shedding the skin like a snake only to come back stronger') to using the beat from Mean Girls referencing a shady past tweet – Swift weaves in a narrative not just to her songs but also into how her strategy is executed.

The wit and the humour and the layers ensure that the media cycle for this week will be all the newly-shady Swift. And if you don't get it, "you don't deserve to get it".

It is an absolute pleasure to watch. She understands entertainment like no other, and delivers on exactly that.

The video itself is self-referencing to the point of almost self-sabotage, and so filled with references to show biz, and the industry at large – that anyone who's anyone is scrambling to make sense of them all and be the first to reveal the layered meaning before anyone else does.

"She really is the Madonna of this generation" – PZH

The contrast between the 1989 album campaign and this one is stunning.

During the 1989 era, she'd play nice with the media, go on talk shows, be available for street shots, and execute the textbook version of 'here's how to release an album'.

This time, instead of giving the media their perfectly crafted press releases and tailored talks – they find out what's up when everybody else does, on social and must eat up fan theories that have already circulated.

Before, she served the stories on a silver platter – now, it's on the media to dig up the interesting details and pick up on the sharp stabs.

And it doesn't seem like her fans have a problem with it, at all. After all, she knows how to reward those finding the correct clues.

She's unapologetically her smart, sexy self – as is.
Find that intimidating? Good.

It's Taylor, on Taylor's terms.

And we love it, stud.