Shake It Off
| "Shake It Off" | ||||
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| Single by Taylor Swift | ||||
| from the album 1989 | ||||
| Released | August 18, 2014 | |||
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| Genre | Dance-pop | |||
| Length | 3:39 | |||
| Label | Big Machine | |||
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| Lyricist | Taylor Swift | |||
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| Taylor Swift singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Shake It Off" on YouTube | ||||
"Shake It Off" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the lead single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). She wrote the lyrics by herself and composed the melody with the song's producers, Max Martin and Shellback. The lyrics express Swift's disinterest in her detractors' negative remarks, inspired by her experience with media scrutiny. An uptempo dance-pop song, "Shake It Off" features a looping drum beat, a Mellotron-based saxophone line, and a handclap-accented bridge. Big Machine Records released it on August 18, 2014, to promote 1989 as Swift's first pop album after her previous country-oriented image and sound.
Initial reviews mostly praised the production as catchy, but some criticized the lyrics as weak and shallow. Retrospectively, critics have considered "Shake It Off" an effective opener for 1989, transforming Swift's status to that of a pop star. NME and Consequence ranked it among their best songs of the 2010s decade. The single reached the top 10 and was certified multi-platinum in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and the UK. In the US, the single spent four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Mark Romanek directed the music video for "Shake It Off", which portrays Swift as a clumsy person unsuccessfully attempting several dance moves. Some critics accused the video of cultural appropriation for featuring dances associated with people of color such as twerking. Swift performed the song on the 1989 World Tour (2015), the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018), and the Eras Tour (2023–2024). "Shake It Off" received several awards and nominations, including three nominations at the 2015 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. Following a 2019 dispute regarding the ownership of her back catalog, Swift re-recorded the song as "Shake It Off (Taylor's Version)" for her re-recorded album 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023).