A Year After Reputation

I didn't click with reputation. It took my least fave direction of her music and doubled down on them, with a few exceptions I rly like. But every album is so different that I'm not rly worried about it. She's lost me a bit since 1989 but I think she's just not interested in making the kinda music I want from her rn and I'll be patient until it's my turn!

I think she will continue to be this polarizing for a while. People love to build up a popstar and tear them down, and despite what Taylor might think, she's never actually had that torn down flop phase that most popstars have. Every record shows that the ppl who try to tear her down are a loud minority and she's still p beloved. I think that makes people hungrier and hungrier to see her fail because we're so used to those falls from grace and she just keeps maintaining and building on her success. People love to see women fail and all but sis isn't giving them the satisfaction. She is v aware and intelligent about her place in the industry and how she's viewed. Every time the tides start to turn against her a bit she has the ability to redirect it in the direction she wants. I cant think of another popstar with such good intuition in that sense.

 

Album still holds up for me a year later. For the sake of comparing, I still think 1989 is my favorite record by her, but I really enjoy Reputation quite a bit.

I listened to "Look What You Made Me Do" as soon as it was released, on the L train in Chicago on my way back to my hotel from seeing Green Day at Wrigley Field (what a stark contrast in genres). I didn't immediately love it but it definitely grew on me. I really felt the "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me" bridge. I've always been in Taylor's court 100%, especially during the 2016 Kanye bullshit (once again, for the record, no matter what the truth is - no female should ever have even had to "approve" that kind of lyric in the first place). This was the album she needed to make after all that, and I think it turned out better for her than anyone expected.

"Don't Blame Me" is easily one of my favorite TS songs of all time. "I Did Something Bad" and "So It Goes..." are probably my other extreme favorites from this album. The Reputation Tour was phenomenal. What an insane production. Probably one of the best productions of a live show I've ever seen out of the 300+ concerts I've been to in my life. Was able to snag tickets during presale which ended up being great because we were right by one of the B stages.

I was also really happy to hear Jack Antonoff had a big hand in this album. I actually got to meet him in Kansas City last year, the night before Reputation was released.

 

On that same wavelength though, she seems to be completely UNAWARE of the fact that while a lot of her fans LOVE the new pop direction (though clearly not everyone), she could 100% just do an arena tour tomorrow in just sweatpants and her acoustic guitar and we'd still show up. She knows her fans love her but I don't think she understands *why* they love her or she wouldn't have been so afraid of things like taking political stances or Kanye's general messiness for all these years. Seems like the anxiety went beyond "but I'll lose money" to a general anxiety about being universally loved. But... that's just my spicy take on the subject. I'm excited to see what she does next!

That part.

 

Ha yeah I was gonna say she seems simultaneously very self aware and also not aware at all. Def aware when it comes to marketing herself but maybe not in some other aspects. I think she's made comments about how she's an irl Monica from Friends so I wouldn't be surprised if she had an uncontrollable need to please people, espesh as a woman where we're already socialized to please, and one who started out with an aw shucks lovable country image where a lot of her image did revolve around being an americas sweetheart. I think she has ideas of what a popstar looks like and acts like on stage so she is doing that for her poppier eras, and clearly it's working for her, but I'd def prefer a sweatpants and acoustic guitar show from her!

 

Good read @Anna Acosta! I listened to this today for the first time in awhile and it's definitely grown on me a lot since my first listens. I remember actively disliking most of it on day 1. I've come around on all but two tracks, I think: "End Game," which I straight up deleted, and "King of My Heart," which I just think is pretty dull writing. But you hit the nail on the head with the bit about the themes/narrative of the record and how they're a lot different from what got teased with "Look What You Made Me Do." The second half of this album especially is super intimate and personal, and I like those bits a lot more than the more bombastic first half.

What I'm hoping for with the follow up is that she'll work with some new people, in terms of writing and production. I'm ready for the Max Martin and Jack Antonoff partnerships to end, I think, at least for awhile. Above all I'd love a return to something closer to the country vein, but I'm not sure if that's in the cards just yet. Eventually.

 

I didn't mention those two tracks because while I don't hate either one of them (even though I initially despised "End Game", I have far too much respect for the lyric "I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put 'em" to turn my back on it completely), they didn't need to be on the record at all. Alas, here we are.

Honestly, I wouldn't be at all upset if she returned to her roots a bit. (Shocking no one, I think, since I'm a diehard Red apologist/stan.) The fact that she's publicly and openly written for (or at least, sold songs to) two major country artists in the past couple of years is just fanning the flames.

 

This album. This review. Was hoping for a bit more concert reaction interspersed in, but loved what you brought to us here.

 

I thought about it, but I wanted to make this specifically about the record! Maybe in May I'll do a "year after Reputation tour" post.

 

It'd be cute if she wrote an album on her own again to see where is now with it vs Speak Now

 

I'd be here for it. I debated for a long time writing a comparison piece between my two experiences at OTRII and Reputation tour, but work got in the way. Continuous awe, really, also, doesn't quite translate to the page.

 

I haven’t been a TSwift fan since the beginning. I’m an old dude so it just wasn’t my thing. In fact, I was the opposite until 1989. And that’s mostly because of my now 10 year old daughter’s obsession with a few of the songs back when they were her favorites. But once I gave it a spin on my own I loved it. So when Reputation came out it didn’t have the polarization effect on me that it had for some. I didn’t have the connection to the country Taylor that some have so the pop is what I always enjoyed. I like Reputation but wish it had been edited a bit since there’s a few songs I could do without. But when she’s on, she’s definitely on.
I also got a chance to go to the show a few months ago and while as I said earlier, I’m not a fan of the older tunes, seeing her perform then and seeing her fans reaction, I can definitely appreciate people’s love for that version of Taylor. She killed it on every tune and it was amazing to watch! I still prefer 1989 and I like spinning some tunes from Reputation. But there was nothing like experiencing thousands of people singing along to those songs together in once place. It was amazing!

 

Reputation didn’t click with me. This is such a wonderful piece, though, that I think I was in the wrong in only giving it a few listens. I’ll have another listen today!

 

Even if you end up feeling differently about the record than I do after another listen, this is pretty much the highest praise music writing can get - so thank you!

 

I do like the "hatchets" line, actually! I forgot about that. I just didn't like anything about that song musically.

I think we're both big Red stans, so I'd love to hear something along those lines again. Very short list of albums this decade that I like more than that one.

That would be really cool. That album has some growing pains, but also some of her absolute best writing. I feel like she could put together something even more impressive now.

 

I really love this album and have done since my second listen. I'm interested why there haven't been any big unmissable singles aside from Look What You Made Me Do. 1989 and Red both had heaps but nothing really seemed to stick from this one in terms of radio play. I'm not sure whether it was to do with the songs themselves or simply lack of promotion.

 

Heard Look What You Made Me Do on TV again yesterday. What an absolute train wreck, even worse than Shake It Off.

 

Delicate went number 1 on Top 40 radio.

 

One of the songs I least expected to be able to do that

 

Great piece, Anna. I always love reading your Taylor thoughts.

I wasn't a fan until 1989 because of really dumb reasons. I think I held a lot of internalized misogyny against Taylor and what I perceived that she stood for. "Blank Space" kind of made me do a double take on her- like, oh, is she in on this joke actually? And from there I became a totally invested fan.

I'm willing to say that I like Reputation more than 1989, simple because it feels a bit less safe. There are a lot of lyrics and themes throughout this album that make me feel like she is really ready to be done living in the box she created for herself. I don't love every single song, but I think at almost 30, she's done catering to people and trying to be #1 on top always. I also applaud the bait and switch of releasing LWYMMD and then putting out an album that's actually full of songs about love, the anxiety of public perception on love, and contending with your own massive image coming before you as an actual person.

Overall, I think she's the smartest in the game, but she got caught up in her own hubris. The past year has really felt like a self-examination and coming to peace with herself. I'm really glad she's started to speak out about politics, though I don't think she ever was obligated to. I'm really excited to see what the next chapter brings.

 

Same, I was surprised it was a single. Then again, I do not understand pop radio at all right now, haha

 

Gosh, this is such a great write-up. Your idea of Reputation being "the most and least quintessentially Taylor Swift album she could possibly have released" is spot on, I think.

This probably sounds extremely cliche, but seeing her on the Reputation Tour this fall suddenly made this album click for me. I don't really know how to explain it, other than seeing her command the stage and perform these songs just seemed perfect in a way that I couldn't gather from the album when it dropped last year.

 

Thank you! And even though I loved the album well before seeing her on the tour in May, I actually 100% get what you mean. Seeing it live is what made the songs I was iffy about (KOMH and End Game come to mind) make sense to me. Although, with End Game that very well could've been because it was JUST Taylor's parts and I'm still confused about why she chose the features she did for that particular track.

 

Not surprised Delicate smashed cause it's one of the best on the album and felt v genuinely Taylor and not the snake ice queen image thing that didn't feel super sincere she was doing with some other stuff on Reputation. Had a nice blend of "old" Taylor with the sound she's doing currently and what I'd enjoy seeing her do more of going forward.

 

The snake ice queen thing never felt insincere to me because I always interpreted it as being sarcastic or frustrated as opposed to her genuinely saying "I'm a snake ice queen". If I'd felt otherwise I doubt I would've loved this record the way I do. It's interesting.