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reputation - Taylor Swift

‘Reputation’ is a culmination of many things, the jigsaw pieces and songwriting scraps of Taylor Swift’s career turned into an eerie electronic pop art form for the new age. It’s a pulsing, echoing blast of mockery, of romance, of desire. And the newly crowned snake queen sits on her throne above it all.

The history of Taylor Swift’s many romances, conflicts and career snapshots has been well-documented in the public eye. From her fleeting 2009 relationship with a young Joe Jonas leading to bitter break-up comments on ‘The Ellen Show’, to the #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty brought on by the spreading of her private phone conversations with Kim Kardashian and husband Kanye West, every second of Swift’s life has been broadcasted to the world. For better or for worse, attention has chased this woman everywhere she’s gone. Now, it has evolved into one hell of an album.

Opening with the bass-driven ‘...Ready for It?’, a football game anthem leading with Swift clearing her throat and sort-of-almost-rapping, ‘Reputation’ begins with a crackling oddity. ‘...Ready for It?’ may be questionably titled in regards to grammar, but the lyrics are even more confusing. A stretched comparison to burglaries and prison cells, as a way of running with the ‘partners in crime’ metaphor, doesn’t seem to work very effectively here- Swift claims her new man can “join the heist”, and then follows it up with, “he can be my jailer”. Ignoring the clunky lyrics, the song itself doesn’t seem to fit in its own skin; the verses sound completely different to the blossoming pink chorus of Swift past, making for an interesting track, but not something as ‘sonically cohesive’ as Swift has boasted for the past three years. Nevertheless, the absolute strangest thing about ‘...Ready For It?’ is that when all of these mismatched parts come together, somehow… it still works. It’s not a top track, but something certainly manages to hold it together, which is no easy feat.

The follow-up is the Future and Ed Sheeran number, ‘End Game’, another very rap-oriented song. Surprisingly, Swift sounds right at home on the track, leaving Sheeran in the dust. It’s nice to hear the more unfiltered sound of Swift’s vocals on this number too, with her laughing chants of “big reputation, big reputation!” echoing throughout the song. It’s far from the best track of the album, but its hook and catchy rhythm are at least enjoyable. The structure, however, is choppy, and the song quickly wears itself out after a few replays.

When we reach ‘I Did Something Bad’, we see a side to Swift we have never seen before. She is completely owning the dark, brooding bitch personality that recent events have attributed to her, and it results in everything ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ should have been. This is the blasting lead single, the number soaked in snake imagery and fire and murder, everything the dark and edgy ‘new Taylor’ promised and more, and it’s without a doubt a major highlight of the album. Swift’s chants of, “why’s it feel so good?”, the gunshot sound effect, and the dubstep cries reminiscent of 2012’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ will haunt you until the very last crooning moment.

‘Don’t Blame Me’ is another peak of ‘Reputation’, its gospel-infused cries injecting into your bloodstream. The recently released karaoke version of the album also highlights some of Swift’s incredible backing vocals on this number, with a deep, swooning hum sweeping underneath the song, and some astounding harmonies in which she reaches surprisingly high notes in her criminally underused belt. Taylor’s shouts of “trip of my life!” and her glorious high note at the start of the last chorus are an out-of-body experience, proving her true versatility and unappreciated power as a vocalist.The dazed, heady passion of this track speaks for itself as one of ‘Reputation’’s greatest successes.

The notorious track five of any Swift album, ‘Delicate’ seems to be a rather polarising song. Swift sings through a robotic vocalising effect for the majority of the track and as a result, it becomes a real love-it-or-hate-it number. Pretty lyrics, pretty echoes, but it sounds nothing like the title would lead you to believe. However, these cautious whispers and repeats of “isn’t it?” echo with an unspoken beauty, and something about the strange track has such an immense appeal that it eventually becomes tough to dislike. It’s perhaps the one song on the album that really does grow on the listener before it can be appreciated.

Lead single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ has been discussed to death. It samples Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’, an entirely unlikely song for Swift to use, but unfortunately that moment seems to be the song’s ultimate weakness. The verses are lyrically strong and achieve the spooky, threatening feel Swift strives for after the haunting introduction. Each pre-chorus is even stronger, serving the noteable one-liner “honey I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time”. But with all this build-up, it only makes the boring, repetitive chorus an even greater disappointment; there is no power to it, no excitement, nothing strong whatsoever. Swift’s monotone repeating of one simple phrase is worsened in her live performances of the song, which only serve to further prove how gutting that chorus really is after the beauty of the verses and pre-choruses. A special mention is also deserved by the fact that the second verse lazily uses the line “the world moves on”, twice in a row in quick succession, but somehow, to most listeners it goes unnoticed.

‘...So It Goes’ is another of the album’s weaker songs, wasting its strong lyrics on a mediocre melody. Making comparisons between a lover and a magician, each word paints a dreamy, ethereal picture, but almost the entire song seems to be composed of only two or three notes. The track would be completely lost within ‘Reputation’ without its standout bridge, in which Swift whispers, “you did a number on me, but honestly baby, who’s counting?” It again pushes how much of a waste it was to use such beautiful lyrics on this less-than-average tune.

There’s no doubt that ‘Gorgeous’ is the weakest song on the album. It’s painfully repetitive, there’s a weird disconnected baby voice as an introduction, and award-winning lyricist Taylor Swift rhymes ‘face’ with ‘face’. It’s still catchy, of course, and the sparkly, feel-good production makes it a fun sing-along number, but the words are weaker than anything in Swift’s entire discography, and hearing the same four-note riff looping over and over quickly drives the listener crazy. Of course, if this song has one thing going for it, it’s the iconic line, “I guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats”. Well played, Swift.

After a three-track run of the album’s worst, ‘Getaway Car’ sounds like an offcut from 2014’s ‘1989’, reaching the record’s absolute peak. It’s a snappy, soaring song with fantastic lyrics and the instantly recognisable pop production of Jack Antonoff. A pulsing drum beat paired with catchy clicking and powerful cries leading into each chorus drive this number to success, plus, the key change in the bridge further lifts the song higher off the ground. ‘Getaway Car’ perfectly represents how to use build-up, and it’s where ‘Reputation’ finds its climax, in its synths, stacked backing vocals, and steady drum beats, building a song that only gets better and better.

‘King Of My Heart’ is better appreciated if its titular lyric is disregarded entirely. Most of the song is beautifully written, with wordy verses following a beautiful descending melody, which speeds up and ascends during the catchy pre-chorus. Clicking and synth chords carry the song through, and it also provides some of the most beautiful harmonies on the album, again better heard on its karaoke edition. However, this song is again rather polarising, as it really makes use of Swift’s new vocalising effects and heavy bass. It’s not something the old Taylor would have released, but it’s wonderful in its own right, even with its new age sound and clunky name. Again, the bridge is a highlight, and Swift’s use of British slang in “say you fancy me, not fancy stuff” calls to mind her current boyfriend Joe Alwyn, born and raised in the heart of England. It’s a not-so-subtle callout, but it’s nice to hear most of this album as a callout of love rather than revenge.

Fans have greatly underrated another of ‘Reputation’’s true peaks, found in the pulsing dance track ‘Dancing With Our Hands Tied’, which details a romance lost to the media frenzy often faced by Swift. The dreamy lyrics and melody on this song are highlighted in its woozy bridge, in which she claims, “I’d kiss you as the lights went out, swaying as the room burned down”. It’s undeniably romantic, whilst still maintaining the sheer panic at the core of the song. Every word is carefully perfected, with the rush of a pre-chorus further building on this fear, leading up to that incredibly powerful chorus. It truly lives up to its name, in that this song leaves the listener dancing, but not sure if they should want to.

Following ‘Dancing With Our Hands Tied’ is a song deemed controversial by Swift, but sadly very tame for any other artist, defeating the shock value after the first listen. ‘Dress’ is entirely all built around the key line “only bought this dress so you could take it off”, which Swift says she likes because it sounds like a “bad pick-up line”. However, it’s kind of a terrible lyric, and it’s a shame, because it’s probably the song’s one true weak point, much like ‘King of my Heart’. The rest of the song is an otherworldly rendition of desire and lust, with more breathy harmonies and production. The pre-choruses, met with Swift’s gasps, are reminiscent of her 2014 song ‘Wildest Dreams’, but here they seem more natural and fitting. ‘Dress’ is one of the album’s slower moments, but it still pulls through with the more electronic production present throughout ‘Reputation’, making it sound cohesive when by all accounts it shouldn’t fit in. It’s a beautiful song, but perhaps overshadowed by the album’s other heights, which just seem to reach higher.

There was inevitably going to be one song on the album which was a bite back at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, after their infamous feud with Taylor over the past few years. That song is found in ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’, a ridiculous, over-the-top chant that sounds like children yelling on the playground. And yet somehow, it works. The delivery of each line, sneering and snapping, makes the song so much more intense. The instrumentation is always on the verge of collapsing on itself, and the childish chanting manages to both make a mockery of the Kardashian-Wests, and of Swift herself; she knows exactly how silly she is for indulging the feud, but she owns it. Her drawl on the line, “if only you weren’t so shaaaady…” emphasises the joke of the song, making it so much more enjoyable, and that cackle before the final chorus is so ugly that it’s pretty. This petty revenge jam is the perfect contender to close her upcoming ‘Reputation’ stadium tour.

We then fall into familiar Taylor Swift territory with ‘Call It What You Want’, which is unforunately a clear case of a song having been done better before. But here, the real shame is that lovey-dovey almost-ballads have been done better before by Taylor herself. Even if we’re taking the song on its own without comparing to her previous works, ‘Call It What You Want’ is lyrically weak, and structurally confusing. It makes use of Taylor’s love of following melodies which have barely any changes between notes, and also her almost-rapping style, but it never tries to work in any of the smart, piercing lyrics that brought her other love songs up so high above the rest. It also contains the disturbing lyric, “trust him like a brother”, which is an uncomfortable thing to say about a lover, and a declaration that would have been far better suited to Taylor’s redneck country days. Intended as a cutesy love song, the fact that ‘Call It What You Want’ never goes anywhere makes it easily forgettable in comparison to the rest of ‘Reputation’, and its almost unforgivably bad bridge places it very, very low in the rankings.

‘Reputation’ closes with the simplistic ballad ‘New Years’ Day’. Its time signature is bizarre and wonderful, and it’s a refreshing moment of stripped-back Taylor Swift after the extremely high-end production that makes up the rest of the record. There’s very little vocal editing, and no instruments other than a piano and acoustic guitar, leaving the focus on Swift’s sweet harmonies and untouched voice. This song is warm and homely, dancing with the idea of true love being found with the person who “helps you clean up the mess on New Year’s Day”, rather than the one you kiss at midnight. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the album at all, and it’s perfect that way. ‘New Years’ Day’ doesn’t sound particularly like anything Taylor Swift has done before, but it’s still familiar. Walking that line is what makes this album closer so nice, so comforting, and so beautiful.

All in all, ‘Reputation’ is a strong record, amongst Swift’s best and an interesting flip on her 2012 effort ‘Red’. There has been little public discussion of how this seems to be an intentional contrast; for starters, ‘Red’ was characterised all in capitals, whereas ‘Reputation’ is written entirely in lower case. Both albums also feature many mirroring lyrics, aligning with the track numbers. Amongst the most notable are 2012’s “stay, stay, stay” at track nine, versus ‘Reputation’s’ “go, go, go!”, and the opening number on ‘Red’ proclaiming that “love is a ruthless game”, whilst here, ‘...Ready For It?” urges that we “let the games begin”. At its core, that is what ‘Reputation’ is. It’s a Twitter clapback, it’s a declaration of adoration, it’s a love letter to her people. Most importantly, ‘Reputation’ is a challenge to Taylor Swift’s past self, and to her many future selves we have yet to meet.

Rating: 8/10

Review by youngBLOODfreshMEAT 4th April 2018