Taylor Swift has released a music video for the song "Opalite", from her current album "The Life of a Showgirl". She released the video exclusively on Apple Music and Spotify Premium on Friday, just two days before Super Bowl weekend, adding a dose of pop-culture euphoria ahead of the big game.
With a new video featuring Hollywood stars, Taylor Swift once again proved her dominance in the digital era, as "Opalite" officially became the most viewed music video in the history of the Spotify platform in the first 24 hours of its release. It garnered a whopping 42 million views within the Spotify ecosystem alone in its first day, surpassing the previous record also held by her song "Fortnight." On the Apple Music Video Charts, "Opalite" is #1 in over 95 countries.
The superstar wrote and directed the video herself, filling it with '90s-evoking details, including mall scenes, commercials and MTV-style moments.
Swift revealed that the idea for the video came about while promoting the album on The Graham Norton Show last October. During that guest appearance, actor Domhnall Gleeson joked that he wanted to appear in one of her videos, and it was that comment that ultimately inspired Swift to invite him to participate in the project. The roles in the video are played by everyone who was a guest on Graham Norton's show that night: Domhnall Gleeson (star of the series "The Paper" and "Star Wars" trilogy) as Lonely Man (Lonely Man), winner of the Academy Award, Cillian Murphy ("Peaky Blinders", "Oppenheimer"), lends his voice in the advertisement for "Opalite", Graham Norton ("The Graham Norton Show") appears as the spokesperson for "Nope-alite", Lewis Capaldi, winner of the BRIT Award for the hit Someone You Loved stars as a mall photographer, Jodie Turner-Smith ("Tron: Ares," "Bad Monkey") as Aerobics Dream Girl, and Greta Lee ("The Morning Show," "Tron: Ares") as Indie Rock Goddess - both in cameos on retro TV screens. "Opalite" is a love song, about two lonely people (Taylor Swift, Domhnall Gleeson) who use a fictional spray called "Opalite" to transform their relationship from hopeless to happy.
Swift noted that the theme is especially fitting given her personal connection to the gemstone. She also shared that the creative process has yielded unexpected friendships, fashion choices and metaphors. She said she had "more fun than she could have ever imagined," adding that the video features many famous faces from her Eras tour.
