Why Taylor Swift's Bad Blood Video is the Best Thing Ever

Taylor Swift premiered her new video for 'Bad Blood' at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards last night, where she picked up a monumental eight awards including Best Album for 1989.

Today the internet has been awash with everyone buzz and hyperbole about the greatness of this video, and here is why it is the best thing ever.

The video is produced by Tay Swiz herself and directed by Joseph Kahn, who was also behind her video for 'Blank Space.'

The version of 'Bad Blood' that has now been released is decidely different from her previous album version, featuring a collaboration on two verses with To Pimp A Butterfly's Kendrick Lemar and a heightened electronic presence.

Stylistically, 'Bad Blood' goes down the neo-noir route, with definitive shades of 2005's Sin City.

Taylor Swift stars as her alter ego action hero, Catastrophe, who is betrayed - and pushed out of a window - by Arsyn (played by Selena Gomez). Catastrophe finds solice in a training camp with Girls frontwoman Lena Dunham at its head, and Kendrick Lemar stars alongside her as Welvan Da Great. In the training camp Catastrophe is trained up by a star-studded team of badass women; including Ellie Goulding, Hayley Williams, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, Jessica Alba and Cindy Crawford. It is essentially a four minute long all-female superhero film, something that maybe Marvel could learn a few things from.

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What is so great about this video is the wealth of representation of females who are extremely successful in their field. Its stars transcend across the music, modelling and acting worlds and showcase the amount of female talent that is out there.

In fact, Kendrick Lemar is the only male allowed to enter the powerful realm of this video.

'Bad Blood' shows women being strong and powerful - whilst looking incredible in a range of leather ensembles - without men. That is important.

Swift's album 1989 was initially slated for being all about her breakup with One Direction's Harry Styles, and after her winning Best Album at the BMAs, Twitter has still buzzed with comments that it basically should have gone to Harry since it was all about him. What 'Bad Blood' shows is that the songs from 1989 are not intrinsically tied to Harry Styles - actually, they have a lot more important messages in them than breakups with members of boy bands.

The message that rings through the 'Bad Blood' video is centred on the success of women, and on successful women helping other women.

Catastrophe is trained up in a badass female bootcamp in order to come head-to-head with her betrayer whilst professing that "band aids don't fix bullet holes." The amount of powerful females in one place, too, is a rarity. We probably have not seen so many women in unity since the groundbreaking female presence in Orange Is The New Black, which led to the realisation that having more than ten females in one place, without males, really does not happen often.

The 'Bad Blood' video is important because of its strong female representation. But it is also a pretty cool video, put together with an interesting noir narrative and costumes that ooze power. Kendrick Lemar's collaboration on the track sets it apart from Swift's repetoire, and he has an amazing talent for making everything sound that little bit better.

Taylor Swift and Joseph Kahn deserve to be applauded for this video, and you should watch it - again, and again.

Why Taylor Swift's Bad Blood Video is the Best Thing Ever

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