Taylor Swift performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California.
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Taylor Swift's "secret sessions" have been hosted solely in the intimate space of her several living rooms across the Western Hemisphere, but on Monday the pop star brought fans across the Internet and radio in on one in a far more out-there setting. Promoting the release of her new album 1989, Swift delivered a five-song set on a Manhattan rooftop with the Empire State Building providing a light show, flashing behind her, for a likely once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The pop star opened the Yahoo Live and iHeartRadio-broadcasted performance with "Welcome to New York" as she took the stage dressed in a sequined all white, contrasted by her band in all black and the dark New York sky, and followed with "Out of the Woods."
Swift introduced "Style," bantering about her inspiration for the song. She said, "I was thinking about how there are trends that never go out of style and then how there are feelings that never go out of style," referencing the song's lyrics of her love interest's white white T-shirt and her skinny black dress and how some emotions are just as classic as the clothes we wear.
Next, she played "Blank Space," promoting her Target-exclusive deluxe edition release that includes "songwriting voice memos" recorded onto her phone, which she said for that track started as a joke but was realized when she later brought in to the studio and worked on with producers Max Martin and Shellback.
Finally, she closed her set with her massive hit, "Shake It Off," thanking her fans for being "the most amazing factor of my life" as well as making that song the most popular in the country. "So, come on and shake it off with me," she said.