Taylor Swift Shakes It Off in the Streets of LA

Ya girl Taylor Swift performed on Kimmel last night and there were no riots, but if you listen closely you can hear the frenzied din of freaking-out fans beneath her.

She did “Shake It Off” and “Out Of The Woods” and spent some time chatting with ya boy Kimmel about 1989‘s runaway success, even though it’s not out yet. Kimmel breathlessly read her excerpts from the album’s early reviews—from the New York Times, and Time—at which point Swift tried to pretend she cares about Time as an outlet for contemporary music criticism. Same, Swift. “Time Magazinemy guhhhhuhhhh.”

Then Jimmy asks hard-hitting questions such as “Are you nervous about the new album coming out,” setting the tone for a radical reworking of Swift’s “aw shucks” narrative, which is actually welcome: she talks about being “more confident about this album than I’ve been about any of the other ones I’ve put out.” Thank goodness, because Swift’s young fans need to hear her owning her confidence, and feeling good about her hard work, as opposed to the false modesty jam she’s been on. More of that, please.

There was also a bit about Taylor being dissed by Kimmel’s booker at age 14 which was completely boring and constructed in a way that made us wish David Foster Wallace were still alive to comment on the banality of modern late night TV appearances. At the very least, it would be interesting to hear what he thought of Swift’s performances, which in my estimation were physically stiff and hard to watch, although she did do that nice off-script vocal run at the end of “Shake It Off,” which showed off her chops even as it was a little flat.

Taylor’s doing the rounds right now to promote 1989, her fifth album and the 2014 release that the music industry hopes will save it and go platinum. (Irrespective of the forthcoming releases by Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, of course, which may do a proper murkage themselves.) Swift appeared on Ellen yesterday as well, and talked about jail and sea urchins, two things she will never have to worry about in her life.