There’s no awesome without ME!
Taylor Swift/Taylor Nation
For the past week and a half global superstar Taylor Swift has been teasing… something pastel pink and sparkly and exciting on Instagram.
On Thursday evening she put Swifties worldwide out of their misery, announcing a new single ME! featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco. The music video for ME! will premiere at midnight ET, April 26 on YouTube and the single will be available to stream or download at the same time.
“ME! is a song about embracing your individuality and really celebrating it and owning it,” said Swift, announcing the single on ABC. “With a pop song, we have the ability to get a melody stuck in people’s heads and I just want it to be one that makes them feel better about themselves.”
The single announcement is the end result of a 13-day countdown Swift posted to Instagram and our first glimpse of what to expect from her new album (for now being referred to as TS7). It’s the first music the multi-Grammy winner has released since 2017 and the follow-up to her bestselling album Reputation.
Taylor hearts Tumblr
Ahead of the announcement, Swift spoke Wednesday about her obsession with another social media platform: Tumblr. For Swift’s fans, Tumblr is the place they can go to interact with the star, share jokes or news from their lives and maybe even score an invite to hang out at her house.
Tumblr is one of Swift’s top three inspirations (along with Paul McCartney and cats), she told Time in an interview. “It’s like a window into what my fans are going through,” she said. “It makes me feel like I can know them better.”
In an essay for Elle last month, Swift detailed the ways in which she manages negativity on social media. Tumblr seems to generate less negativity for Swift than perhaps other social networks do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not as addictive.
“I definitely go down the Tumblr rabbit hole a lot — sometimes so much so that I need my brain to take a break, but then I just go right back,” she said. “It’s just, like, can’t stay away.”
Tumblr is where Swift is always unapologetically herself, so we’re excited to see how that manifests itself in the lyrics for ME! — which is now only hours away.
We’ll detail how to stream and buy the new single in our How To here.