Taylor Swift might not have made an appearance at this year’s MTV video music awards but the singer still made her presence known with the release of a dark new video.

Last week the 27-year-old unveiled the first single from her new album, Reputation, the dark electro-pop track Look What You Made Me Do, accompanied by a lyric video that broke viewing records.

The accompanying visuals for her new video open with the star crawling out of a grave with a tombstone reading “Here lies Taylor Swift’s reputation”.

After playing a zombie, Swift soon takes on a variety of different hard-edged personas, including the leader of a squad of female robots, a bank robber and a celebrity involved in a paparazzi-caused car crash.

Mirroring the lyrics of the song, the video implies that the old Taylor is dead and a darker iteration is here instead. Swift also skewers her overly earnest image during a finale that brings together all of her characters and includes a throne of snakes, in reference to the snake emoji used by Kim Kardashian to describe her.

Reviews for the track have been largely mixed, with the Guardian’s Maura Johnston calling it “a skeletal bit of electropop”, yet sales have been robust and her initial lyric video racked up 19m views in 24 hours – a new record.

This year’s VMAs are hosted by Katy Perry and have so far seen Fifth Harmony winning best pop video and Kendrick Lamar predicted to win the most trophies.

Swift’s album Reputation, with rumored duets with Drake and Kesha, will be released in November.