Taylor Swift to interrupt ’Despacito’’s chart record attempt – and bury the Perry feud?

After a total eclipse on social media, Taylor Swift has announced a new single ’Timeless’ and an album, Reputation, that’s already guaranteedto be Q4’s biggest seller.

’Timeless’ will drop overnight, which could be perfect timing for an unscheduled appearance at this weekend’s MTV Music Video Awards.

Reputation will follow on November 10, much to the relief of music retailers around the world, in the run-up to Christmas sales.

Her last album 1989 sold 10 million units around the world.

The announcement campaignfor the new releases demonstrates Swift’s marketing savvy and clearly plays on her, ahem, reputation.

For much of the year, Swift has been invisible. No public appearances, She abandoned her annual Fourth of July party which she shares on Instagram with the world.

The silence led to the usual wacky rumours. The best of these was that the singer was so obsessed with privacy that she was being carried in and out of her apartment building in a box.

The only publicity came from the case of the groping DJ. That set her up as a strong independent woman who clearly didn’t do it for the money but on behalf of the sisterhood who also had to contend with such disrespectful behaviour,

Through the trial, she was calm and collected as the DJ’s attorneys came at her.

After the case finished late last week, she closed all her social media accounts. That created a media tsunami.

Her reconnection three days later – denoted with a series oflooped videos of a twitching reptikian tail – caused just as much hysteria.

The first snake wriggled in on the same day of the socialeclipse. Social media went into overdrive: she was going to make her announcement during the eclipse.

That didn’t happen.

But a page on Genius quietly noted that a new Taylor Swift single called ’Timeless’ was “coming soon” and that a timeless.com website was registered.

Yesterday the album cover art (shot by Mert & Marcus) for Reputation saw light of day via Instagram.

A tweet about the new single and album led to 62,000 retweets and half a million Instagram posts in the first hour.

The speculation about the VMAsis not so much for its own popularity: it’s been losing viewers for years in America, and last year drew just 6.5 million.

Butthey’re being hosted by Katy Perry, her one-time nemesis. Both starshave through the year officially called for a truce, meaning this would be the perfect place to hug and kiss and make it official.

You can already see the Mexican wave of headlines and photos circling the globe after that moment.

Given that ’Timeless’ is going to bombard every chart going, this creates a problem for Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee.

This coming Monday was the day that ’Despacito’ was to set a new record by staying at #1 for 17 weeks on the Billboard US charts – the longest reign on the chart’s 59-year history.

However ’Timeless’ looks like it will most likely be raining on that parade by debuting at #1.