Taylor Swift's 6th album, reputation, was released amidst her most unfavorable public perception to date, after years of consistent media adoration. Wisely taking three years between the Grammy "Album of the Year" winning 1989, an ode to 80's style pop, the direction she would go with her next album has remained a mystery. After the polarizing first single, "Look What You Made Me Do," many wondered if we'd get an album full of songs that address the media, Kanye, Kim Kardashian and "haters," a narrative that was exhausting before it even really got started.
Instead, reputation is an album about the beginning of a relationship when everything else seems to be working against you, finding escape in this new person, and contentment with yourself. In terms of style, reputation sees Swift trying out different genres, from the alternative rock inspired "Don't Blame Me" (hands down Taylor's best vocal performance to date) to the upbeat hip-hop style of "End Game" (featuring Future and Ed Sheeran, probably next single, and all around a fun track.) She closes the album with the piano balled "New Years Day" that would fit perfectly on any of her first four albums, so maybe in that sense the 'Old Taylor' is only dead in theory?
Reputation is more akin to the lyrically rich albums "Speak Now" and "Red," than it is to 1989, the former two both being fan favorites for being littered with intimate details. Such as we see in the song 'Dress:'
"Flashback when you met me
Your buzzcut and my hair bleached
Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me
Flashback to my mistakes
My rebounds, my earthquakes
Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me"
and in the song 'King of My Heart' - which sounds like 3 different songs into one, but somehow works well enough to get stuck in your head:
"Is the end of all the endings?
My broken bones are mending
With all these nights we're spending
Up on the roof with a school girl crush
Drinking beer out of plastic cups
Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff
Baby, all at once, this is enough"
Production, however, is where reputation really soars. The album is split between tracks produced by Max Martin/Shellback (I Knew You Were Trouble, Blank Space, Etc.) and Jack Antoff (most of 1989, also Lorde's album), and features some of the most interesting production of the year. "I Did Something Bad" sounds like it came straight out of a dystopian drama as Taylor flaunts how much pleasure shes taking in being the bad guy for once. I never thought I'd hear gun shots in a TSwift song, but here we are, and it totally works. The refrain towards the end of the song "light me up, light me up" with the thunderous clapping is one of the album's highlights.
My favorite track of the album is "Delicate" - which seems inspired by Kanye's 808's and Heartbreaks with the use of the vocoder in order to make her voice sound more robotic and icy while singing the albums most vulnerable lyrics. "Is it cool that I said all that? Is it chill that you're in my head? Cause I know that it's delicate." Seriously, try to listen to this song and not have the urge to hit repeat. A melodic achievement and one of her best tracks, period.
There are a few "misses" on this album, and I'll admit I've deleted the tiresome "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" (spoiler alert, she's talking about Kanye, or some other famous foe, again) as well as the track "Gorgeous" which just comes off as trite and silly to me with lyrics like "You make me so happy it turns back to sad, There's nothing I hate more than what I can't have." I'm still not even sure what that means but it's a "No" from me.
The missteps aside, reputation should be applauded for Taylor trying so many different styles of production, owning (for the most part) her tainted public persona and for tracks like "Delicate," and "King of my Heart" being among her best tracks to date. All signs point towards this being available for streaming starting 11/17 - so if you haven't purchased it by now you should be able to hear it on Spotify and Apple Music now that she's crossed the 1M in first week sales threshold.