Song of the week: Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off'

"I never miss a beat," Taylor Swift sings on Shake It Off, the lead single from her forthcoming fifth album, which has a can't-stop-won't-stop beat so massive it's positively inescapable.

Lyrically, Shake It Off is Mean 2.0, with the 24-year-old singer/songwriter taking all the criticisms leveled at her and dismissing them flippantly. It's a total swerve musically, however, with horn-blast grooves grounded in early '60s proto-soul and girl-group pop, plus a spoken-word breakdown that would come off as awkward if it weren't so knowingly funny.

Hate me all you want, Swift seems to be saying, but you're missing all the fun.