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Taylor Swift: New video targets trolls

The top-selling vocal star assumes a ‘Black Swan’-inspired ballerina look for part of ‘Shake It Off,’ her new, very pop-ish music video

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Taylor Swift's move from country-pop to pop seems just about complete with "Shake It Off."

The song, which she released Monday afternoon, is a prelude to her upcoming fifth album, "1989," which is due out Oct. 27 on Big Machine records. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1989 is the year Swift was born. She'll turn 25 on Dec. 13.

Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off"

"Shake It Up" is a collaboration with veteran producers Max Martin and Shellback, who also teamed with Swift on her top-selling 2012 album, "Red."

Buoyed by a bouncy beat, the song's lyrics seem directed at her most vocal detractors, with anonymous online trolls and the tabloid press appearing to be two of her primary targets. Or, as Swift put it Monday: "Shake It Up" addresses "the idea that people can say whatever they want about us at any time, and we cannot control that."

She addresses her detractors head on with the song's opening verse:

I stay up too late / Got nothing in my brain / That's what people say /That's what people say / I go on too many dates / But I can't make them stay / At least that's what people say / That's what people say / But I keep cruising / Can't stop, won't stop moving / It's like I got this music / In my mind, saying it's gonna be alright

She concludes, in the song's chorus, that "Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate." But no matter, because -- as Swift then vows: "Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake it off."

Those seeking greater levels of profundity and insight will have to look elsewhere. Then again, "Shake It off" is a pop single, not a discourse on pop culture in an age of social media run amok.

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