“I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.” “Why?” “Oh, ‘cause she’s dead!” With her new album Reputation, the multi-Grammy award winning American singer Taylor Swift once again dominates the iTunes market. With the clash between electroclash and pop music, she alters her style completely, leaping beyond the old persona and indicating a comeback of the New Taylor.

Prior to the release on August 24, Taylor Swift filled her social media with trailers showing the body of a snake. The inspiration for this imagery is believed to come from the comments under her previous posts, filled with green snake emojis. As feuds and rumors with other contemporary stars surrounded Taylor Swift, the artist was being compared to a deceitful snake. By coming back with this symbol on the screen, Taylor Swift demonstrates growth along the path of her career. The cover features the artist with loose clothes, a choker, and excerpts from newspapers, each also symbolizing something significant in her life. The loose clothes show that the artist herself is vulnerable to attacks by the rumors. The choker is designed to serve as a chain, locking the artist’s words inside, making her seem unable to combat the speeches from the newspapers.

Not only do the album and the cover indicate a breakthrough, the music video also displays a complete farewell to the past. Opening with graveyard footage, the scene then transfers smoothly to a series of queen-like figures. These images, when put together, elaborately build a vivid persona of Taylor Swift. Finally, toward the end of the video, an abundance of Swifts appears in the view. Each of them represent a different personality, showing the multiple dimensions of the artist. The footage, aside from its well-polished lighting and color schemes, also match perfectly with the lyrics, proving an image not only euphonious to the ears but also highly attractive to the eyes.

It is notable that this complete change in style might be attributed to the feud between Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. In July of 2016, Kim Kardashian posted a Snapchat Story of what she claimed to be the evidence that Taylor Swift is who Kanye West’s “Famous” is about. The two female stars soon started a Hollywood civil war on Twitter, with each side posting as aggressively as possible. Taking this context into consideration, one can then infer the meaning of the song through the lyrics. A line that repeats throughout the whole song, “I don’t like”, is Kanye’s remix of Chief Keef’s song; the phrase “tilted stage” could be specifically referred to Kanye’s tour at Saint Pablo, where he established a floating platform.

Now what was the “Old Taylor” like? Towards the end of the music video, the artist provides a variety of them, but still leaves some room for interpretation. Characters from the albums “1989”, “Fearless” and even “Red” all appear as the dead old Taylors. In other words, the girl with her guitar and country-music style is forever gone. In her place now stands a New Taylor, in the shape of a serpent and marking the start of a new era that is shaped by pop-electroclash.

Aside from this single, the single “…Ready for it?” is receiving even more attention. Some say that the ellipse in front of the words indicate the three year span since the feud. Moreover, such title phrasing is unheard of from Taylor. This seeming small symbol could be indicating her “exuviation”.