{"id":139,"date":"2024-01-29T17:05:54","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T17:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/?p=139"},"modified":"2024-10-04T17:18:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T17:18:19","slug":"reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/reputation\/","title":{"rendered":"reputation, six years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

an album review and a retrospective analysis on my relationship with taylor swift’s work<\/em><\/h3>\n

Even though this is an album review, I\u2019ll be writing this like a personal blog post recipe. So buckle up, folks: let me tell you a little bit about my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

I remember when <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i> came out\u200a\u2014\u200ahell, I remember when \u201cLook What You Made Me Do\u201d was announced. My life had been undergoing some major changes at the time: I was switching schools, moving across the country for the second time of my life, learning to slot into the daily lives of my new roommates, and starting to go offline due to various anxiety and mental health issues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for my feelings on Taylor Swift, well. They were mixed, because I was never a dedicated Swiftie. I enjoyed her music here and there\u200a\u2014\u200ain fact, I\u2019d deemed 2014 my \u201cyear of Taylor Swift\u201d because of how much I loved <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>. But since it was 2017, and since my enjoyment of her had always been casual because I\u2019d cringed at her brand of feminism at the time, I was\u2026skeptical, to say the least. Like the public masses, I was curious to see what she was going to sound like after a solid year of silence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But unlike the public masses, I wanted that sound to blow me away. I wanted her to tell me to be on her side, somehow, and prove to me that she could outdo <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>, and outdo herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The record we got was not what I expected. But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself here. What we got first was not the record: it was \u201cLook What You Made Me Do.\u201d I\u2019d seen, hours before it dropped (or perhaps days), that there was a comment of it being more of a rap\/hip-hop sound. And due to Taylor usually having a very\u200a\u2014\u200ato put it simply\u200a\u2014\u200awhite musical aesthetic, I was subsequently very, <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> wary after this. And then when LWYMD dropped I was there mere hours later, simultaneously filled with excitement and dread at what I was about to witness.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, I\u2019ll be honest. The musical impression LWYMMD left on me? Not great.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what the music video was supposed to be about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though I could say that my feelings on the song were lukewarm at best, I couldn\u2019t say that I hated the experience\u200a\u2014\u200abecause it was the presentation, the meta commentary on Taylor\u2019s self-awareness of her perception in the media, easter eggs and ironic self-jabs, the mountain of tumbling Taylors\u200a\u2014\u200athat was what <\/span>really<\/span><\/i> made an impression on me. Afterward, I\u2019d thought to myself, <\/span>that sure was a song<\/span><\/i>. But then that was followed by, <\/span>that was such a music video, I think my roommates who only have passing knowledge of Taylor Swift\u2019s public image should watch it.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I recommended it to them anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I didn\u2019t initially plan this article to be an album review. I\u2019d originally wanted it to be about how Taylor Swift, a cis straight white American woman who\u2019s incredibly rich and famous, could write songs that I could relate to, as a nonbinary Chinese-American lesbian with no desire to be famous and not nearly enough wealth for me to do much more than order take-out every once in a while. When I was planning this article in my head, I thought about all the Taylor Swift songs and moments I could relate to, or twist to relate to, and make a side-by-side-ish timeline with my own life. The heartache of <\/span>Fearless<\/span><\/i>, the undiscovered gems of <\/span>Speak Now<\/span><\/i>, the complexity of <\/span>Red<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> as an album stuck out to me. Not because I can\u2019t relate to it. In fact, as of the past year, I can relate to it extremely well.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was never a dedicated Swiftie, but I\u2019ve been aware of Taylor Swift through the majority of career, since her debut album. I suppose this makes me a \u201cSwiftie\u201d on some level, in that I know the general timeline of her career and I enjoy her music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(What makes a Swiftie, anyway? If someone asked me if I liked Taylor Swift, I\u2019d say yes. If someone asked me if I was a Swiftie, I\u2019d say no. But I digress.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew about her career, but ended up unwittingly following it through my friends for the first three albums. I liked \u201cTeardrops on my Guitar\u201d the first time I heard it on the radio in 2007; then later at some point later in my young age I decided that I didn\u2019t like her voice. My friends at church were enthusiastic about her, so maybe I had personally endured some overexposure to her because of that. I knew about the Kanye West interruption at the VMAs; I remember in school the next day, my English teacher briefly talked about how she felt so bad for the young girl, Taylor Swift. And I loved my English teacher, so needless to say I felt the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was too young and not attuned to her career at the time to really understand that she had taken the country music scene by storm, that she wrote in such a beautifully prosaic way that I wouldn\u2019t appreciate until years later, that she wrote the entirety of <\/span>Speak Now<\/span><\/i> by herself because some idiot music critic thought it was a good idea to insinuate that she had no talent. So, hilariously, by the time \u201cWe Are Never Ever Getting Back Together\u201d came out\u200a\u2014\u200aone of the most annoying and catchy songs that has ever been played on the radio and anywhere\u200a\u2014\u200aI loved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had a passing interest in <\/span>Red<\/span><\/i> as an album, as a whole. \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d and \u201c22\u201d were classic pop bangers that I had put on my on-repeat playlist, and friends had recommended me \u201cStay Stay Stay,\u201d \u201cState of Grace,\u201d and \u201cHoly Ground,\u201d all of which are also excellent. But I think beyond that, at the time, if you had asked me for other songs off of <\/span>Red<\/span><\/i>, I\u2019d probably say\u200a\u2014\u200awell, \u201cRed,\u201d and maybe \u201cAll Too Well,\u201d since I had heard of the mild but not insignificant frenzy it had drummed up among fans. I didn\u2019t realize how much of a pivot from Taylor\u2019s typical sound the album was, and how mixed between country and pop it was. Almost all of my friends who like her music adored it, so I\u2019d always regarded it as a solid album, one of Taylor\u2019s best. Even if it didn\u2019t win that Grammy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there was <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not an album review for <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>, but I do want to contextualize that upon its release, I was going through an extremely rough heartbreak, one of friendship that I didn\u2019t realize could hurt so much. It changed me as a person; and even though Taylor likes to say that <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i> isn\u2019t about a boy, it is, at the end of the day, very much a breakup album. It\u2019s a pop classic, a phenomenon, a fucking <\/span>moment<\/span><\/i> that will never be replicated, because Taylor had pivoted completely into pop, picked up on the successes of the singles from <\/span>Red<\/span><\/i>, and reached new heights of stardom with an album that deserved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

1989<\/span><\/i> came out at the perfect time for me. I\u2019d embraced my love of pop, but was going through something that made me want to belt out \u201cAll You Had To Do Was Stay\u201d and \u201cI Wish You Would\u201d and \u201cClean\u201d at the top of my lungs. The upbeat optimism made sure I didn\u2019t wallow for too long, but the painful songs about longing made me feel seen and heard as well. The 80s synths mixed with Taylor\u2019s modern writing and a desire for sonic cohesion on a solely pop album made me put <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i> on repeat that winter\u200a\u2014\u200aand then some.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I think that\u2019s what made the switch into <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i>\u200a\u2014\u200aand all the events leading up to it\u200a\u2014\u200aso confusing and conflicting for me. Both in terms of sound, and, well, Taylor\u2019s reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to bother rehashing the whole phone call situation in detail, and though I don\u2019t think it needs to be said anymore, for the sake of this article I will say that I am fully on Taylor\u2019s \u201cside.\u201d But at the time, since I was not (and am still not) a dedicated Swiftie, I did not take that information as a fan of Taylor Swift. I took that information as the general public, which, unfortunately, was exactly what Kim Kardashian wanted. I was a fan of 1989 as an album, but due to Taylor\u2019s publicity and overexposure, not to mention the online trend of calling everyone and everything \u201cproblematic\u201d at the time, I could not, in good faith, call myself a fan of Taylor Swift, for who she is, and as an artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: it worked, and it worked on me. It\u2019s crazy to admit it now, because I don\u2019t give a fuck about Kim Kardashian. I barely know who she is, and considering all the mess she and Kanye West had been through since then, it\u2019s insane that I, among the vast majority of people, considered her a reputable source of information on America\u2019s sweetheart. But the thing about Taylor was that, because she was so overexposed, it had become cool to hate her, and to force her into accountability for things people said she did, even if it turned out that, in the end, she never did them at all. On top of that, she was a white woman\u200a\u2014\u200aand trendy American liberalism was starting to openly talk about critical race theory at the time, so it was incredibly easy to write thinkpieces about how Taylor Swift was using her white womanhood to portray herself as the victim to a black man, because white women did that all the time. Never mind that Kanye West was still the one who made a music video where he was sleeping with a naked doll made in Taylor Swift\u2019s likeness, that he\u200a\u2014\u200ahowever jokingly\u200a\u2014\u200awrote a lyric about having sex with Taylor Swift (while he was <\/span>married!<\/span><\/i>), that he elected to have a line in his song about how he made Taylor Swift\u200a\u2014\u200asuccessful by her own caliber\u200a\u2014\u200afamous, whether she approved of the line or not. Never mind that after the shitshow of the VMA interruption, Taylor wrote a song called \u201cInnocent\u201d about him, choosing to forgive him for it and saying \u201cit\u2019s okay, life is a tough crowd \/ 32 and still growing up now \/ who you are is not what you did \/ you\u2019re still an innocent.\u201d If we look at the way Taylor and Kanye have respectively chosen to treat each other, I think that says a lot more about their dynamic than racial politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, at the time, while I knew nearly all of these things (except for \u201cInnocent\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aI didn\u2019t realize that was about Kanye until much later, and honestly I think it could have made a difference on my opinion) I was also caught up in trendy American liberalism, so Taylor\u2019s reputation had become tarnished in my mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I will say that despite it all, and despite my retroactive sympathy for Taylor now in these incredibly trying times, she is still, ultimately, a cis straight white woman, and that is something I don\u2019t think she or I would ever deny. But those aspects of her identity shouldn\u2019t make her less than a person, at least not any less than Kanye West or Kim Kardashian. And while racial dynamics are always at play, so are gender dynamics, which Taylor has <\/span>always<\/span><\/i> been aware of, and has always been publicly on the receiving end of since she was barely 19 years old. Even if she may lack awareness towards the way her whiteness operates in her dynamics with people (and I\u2019m not saying if she does or doesn\u2019t), she is very, <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> aware with the way her being a woman has impacted her relationship with the media and the public and, now, with celebrities. And this may be a hard pill for some to swallow, but we don\u2019t live in a post-misogyny world. White womanhood is more often a source of criticism when women neglect the aspect of them that makes them oppressed\u200a\u2014\u200abeing a woman\u200a\u2014\u200ain favor of reaping the benefits of their whiteness. And for what it\u2019s worth, Taylor Swift has not done that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not to say that I think Taylor\u2019s publicity about her politics shouldn\u2019t be criticized. She had a significant country music fanbase, many of which consisted of conservative Americans. The earliest we get about her opinion on LGBT people is \u201cWelcome to New York\u201d (off <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>), except it\u2019s breadcrumbs\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cboys and boys and girls and girls,\u201d while iconic, says nothing. And I recall what Taylor said when she became friends with Todrick Hall\u2014 that he didn\u2019t know if she knew he was gay, and he didn\u2019t know how to broach the topic, so he had just said something like \u201cif you had a kid who was gay, what would you do?\u201d She had realized then that he didn\u2019t know she was cool with gay people even though she thought he should have; and if he didn\u2019t, then what about her LGBT fans? (Hence, of course, \u201cYou Need To Calm Down.\u201d) So I think though Taylor\u2019s aware of her public image as a woman and as a celebrity to her fans, and to the generalized, seemingly apolitical public, she definitely lacks certain self-awareness in more socially nuanced and political dynamics wherein she has privilege.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I will say that I don\u2019t think this makes her a bad person, nor do I expect her to improve to ultimately become the ideal white woman celebrity. She has other things to think about, and while this makes her unaware of things like the feelings of her LGBT fans until it smacks her in the face, it doesn\u2019t make her a criminal. And there are so many things people want to make her a criminal for, and they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so we go to <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In my recent Taylor Swift and Swiftie-content binge, I\u2019ve seen\u200a\u2014\u200aand now adapted to\u200a\u2014\u200athe fact that <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i>, if not someone\u2019s favorite Taylor album, is at the very least a grower. It is in retrospect a banger, but that was not its initial intention. Its initial intention was to drum up publicity, in a way that Taylor could control again.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first impression of <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> was mixed, like many critics at the time, and casual not-fans. It was a different sound, something more intense than Taylor had ever done before, and I was skeptical of her ability to pull it off. It was this skepticism that convinced me that she couldn\u2019t pull it off, though the slower and more toned back songs on the album, like \u201cDelicate,\u201d \u201cDress,\u201d and \u201cCall It What You Want\u201d were definite highlights at the time. \u201cEnd Game\u201d was grating until I got to the hook, \u201c\u2026Ready For It?\u201d felt so corny at the time that it took a week after having it on repeat for me to admit that I liked it, and LWYMMD was\u2026well, LWYMMD. I listened to the full album, but it was so different from <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>\u200a\u2014\u200aan album that I loved with my whole heart, listened to on repeat, and knew the words to every song\u200a\u2014\u200athat I kind of shelved it as a, well, Taylor\u2019s having her moment kind of album.<\/span><\/p>\n

When <\/span>Lover<\/span><\/i> came out, I adored it, even though I can recognize the aspects that make it a weaker album to many\u200a\u2014\u200abut it was back in a mostly consistent pop sound, so I considered it an improvement off <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i>. Then, of course, it was lockdown, the full 20 minute phone call video was released, <\/span>folklore<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>evermore<\/span><\/i> happened, and just like that, Taylor\u2019s reputation was repaired and forgiven in my mind. And it\u2019s not like she needs my forgiveness\u200a\u2014\u200abut if there\u2019s a good female pop artist whose works I can appreciate, I want to. Taylor Swift has enough fans that she doesn\u2019t need to know I exist. But I want to enjoy her artistry for myself, especially since I did already, with <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

reputation<\/span><\/i> is an aftermath and a response; and underneath that, it\u2019s a message to her fans saying that she\u2019s okay, in fact she\u2019s in love, and it makes her so happy that it\u2019s all she cares about. It\u2019s an immensely different narrative from her previous albums, on top of being such a different sound. It shows a different side of her: not the one that\u2019s calculating and manipulative as people like to villainize her, but one that\u2019s adaptable, petty, sarcastic, and, I\u2019ll admit, a girlboss. There are definitely still sprinkles of her old self in there, but it gets overshadowed by the deliberate impact of the new sound, and of LWYMMD. And the reason it was not initially received well\u200a\u2014\u200aand I don\u2019t think she expected anything less\u200a\u2014\u200awas because in response to her being spammed with snake emojis and becoming American\u2019s most wanted, she then presented herself as a different Taylor Swift, much different and darker than the world had ever seen. We were used to America\u2019s whitest sweetheart parading around with her gang of girls or hot famous boyfriend that she would inevitably write banger songs about one day. I don\u2019t think we ever expected or hoped for this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though 1989 was a pivot sonically, her persona in the public image did not change color\u2014 it was enhanced to a brighter, louder shade. But <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> not only gave us a new sound, it gave us a new Taylor\u200a\u2014\u200aone that didn\u2019t have to be happy and free and confused and lonely at the same time. But one who said that, okay, if you call me a snake, then I\u2019ll bite back. And we, as the world, were not ready for it at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I discussed earlier that I had my own <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i> era. In the past year, I\u2019ve had my own <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> era.<\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go into details, but it really does color the entire experience of <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i> very differently for me now. It\u2019s not something that I ever thought I could relate to, and while it doesn\u2019t drastically change my opinions of some songs, it does change the way I look at the album. The negative feelings I had towards <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i> before were largely because of the context with which it was released. Now when I listen to it, I think of the things that Taylor must have been feeling at the time\u200a\u2014\u200aand how I now know exactly what that\u2019s like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because when people are insistent on telling the world about things you never did, or talking about things you did in a way that makes you look bad, what can you do? When you\u2019re painted as someone with privilege, even if you try to tell the truth, you know people will say that you\u2019re lying anyway. When someone puts themselves in a position that they can manipulate the situation to look like they\u2019re a victim to you, a guileless bully, you\u2019re stuck in a corner. <\/span>You<\/span><\/i> know the things you\u2019ve said, the things you\u2019ve done, your own intentions that you always thought were good, or at the very least not deliberately harmful. But now you\u2019re being told that you\u2019re a liar and a snake, and people who don\u2019t know the first thing about you are believing those iterations of you, and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Am I going to have my own real <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> era? God, I hope not. This persona (the one I\u2019m writing this article under) is mostly about writing fanfiction and posting it on the internet, with a few of my other hobbies sprinkled in here and there. In the vast scope of things, my internet reputation has very little impact, even though it still affected me on an individual basis; it is not nearly on the same level of Instagram needing to implement the option of turning comments off because Taylor Swift was getting spammed by Kim Kardashian fans (which, again: <\/span>why do these people exist and why were you even listening to Kim Kardashian of all people in the first place??<\/span><\/i>) This article, which is mostly about Taylor Swift, is probably the most I\u2019m ever going to publicly acknowledge that this happened to me, even though I\u2019m very aware of it. I know that it will and has mostly blown over, because people don\u2019t care, and people don\u2019t know me, and I\u2019m grateful for that. Despite the personal impact it has had on my mental health and wellbeing, on a wider scale, people trying to tear down me, a fanfiction writer, is a waste of their time, because I\u2019m nobody. And I\u2019m certainly not Taylor Swift.<\/span><\/p>\n

But still, it sucks to feel like everyone suddenly hates you and it\u2019s out of your control. You don\u2019t know what people have heard, and if they have, what they think of it, of you. You don\u2019t know who you can trust, if you can trust anyone at all. And yet you don\u2019t want to carry this cynicism and self-doubt with you for the rest of your life. This distorted self-image, this crisis of identity because someone who despises you decides that they can tell people that they know you better than you know yourself. You still want to find people you love, who love you. You want to find happiness again on this earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> is about. From beginning to end, Taylor Swift crafts the story of how the world\u2019s fighting her\u200a\u2014\u200aso she\u2019s going to fight back. But she wants more than self-defense, more than retaliation. She\u2019s Taylor Swift; she still wants love. And I can\u2019t say I\u2019m any different.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The music of 2017 has a unique marker in my brain; there\u2019s a blend of pop and rap and R&B and trap that made a significant dent on the radio, all with a heavy emphasis on production. It was diverse, but with a strong focus on blending, layering, and production, even cross-genre\u200a\u2014\u200afrom \u201cShape of You\u201d by Ed Sheeran to \u201cBodak Yellow\u201d by Cardi B to \u201cStay\u201d by Zedd and Alessia Cara. The simplicity of hearing Sara Bereilles and Colbie Callait on your pop radio station in 2007? There\u2019s none of that anymore; instead, have \u201c24K Magic\u201d by Bruno Mars.<\/span><\/p>\n

reputation<\/span><\/i> is not exempt from this, though of course it has its own unique Taylor Swift flavor. Before the album came out, I remember seeing a quote that it was going to be experimental with elements of hip-hop and rap, at which I winced. As it turns out, while there are certainly <\/span>elements<\/span><\/i> of both genres, Taylor has not pivoted that much\u200a\u2014\u200ait is truly just experimental.<\/span><\/p>\n

The album as a whole paints a narrative from beginning to end, starting with the bold and brash \u201c\u2026Ready For It?\u201d and ending on the sweet, painfully sentimental \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day.\u201d It is a mix of sound, but it is not inconsistent. The sound itself tells a story\u200a\u2014\u200afrom the hard beginning production sounds of \u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me\u201d and \u201cEnd Game\u201d and \u201cI Did Something Bad,\u201d to the eventual more stripped down styles of \u201cDress\u201d and \u201cCall It What You Want,\u201d with, of course, still the emphasis on the production elements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s strength has always been her song and melody writing\u200a\u2014\u200aeven if you don\u2019t like her music, you can\u2019t deny that she composes a tune that gets stuck in your head. This is what happened to me with \u201c\u2026Ready For It?\u201d and \u201cEnd Game\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aI didn\u2019t want to like either of these songs, but the chorus on \u201c\u2026Ready For It?\u201d hit me like a truck that it quickly became one of my album favorites, and while \u201cEnd Game\u201d will never be one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, I could a) hum it to you and b) tell you that the third verse, <\/span>her <\/span><\/i>verse, ultimately slaps. I can definitely see the high production value being a turn-off to many. But for me, someone who\u2019s generally pretty easy to please when it comes to music, it just makes it more fun for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same vein of edgy, high-production songs, \u201cI Did Something Bad\u201d, \u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me,\u201d and \u201cLook What You Made Me Do\u201d have a similar effect; and recontextualizing her feelings during the era make the impact of these songs even stronger. They all have extremely memorable hooks, from \u201cI Did Something Bad\u2019s\u201d tagline of \u201c<\/span>but it felt so good,<\/span><\/i>\u201d the sizzling chorus of \u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me\u201d like we can feel the weight and intoxication of Taylor\u2019s experience of love; and, of course, the iconic \u201cLook What You Made Me Do.\u201d I didn\u2019t think initially that Taylor\u2019s voice was necessarily suited for these types of songs that she could pull them off; but it doesn\u2019t matter because she wanted to, and they\u2019re her songs for her to sing. The only opinion I will still stand by today is that sonically, LWYMMD would\u2018ve been better as a rock-screamo song instead, and<\/span> she sees ghosts\u2019 cover of it<\/span><\/a> satisfies that need for me already.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me\u201d can seem a little out of place between \u201cI Did Something Bad\u201d and LWYMMD, especially if \u201cDelicate\u201d wasn\u2019t there to even things out. But while \u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me\u201d is definitely on the more romantic side of things, it has the same heavy and electronic sound as the songs about her reputation; and I feel that it\u2019s more of a commentary on her reputation and herself than necessarily being a love song, anyway. It\u2019s the Taylor Swift thesis, especially about her public image\u200a\u2014\u200ashe\u2019s seen as a crazy, love-obsessed heartbreaker, and she\u2019s saying, don\u2019t blame her for it, that\u2019s what love does to her. It says a lot more about her relationship with love and how it affects her, more than it does about any relationship with a man, even the men she was seeing at the time. It\u2019s a little bit \u201cBlank Space,\u201d but also very honest. I didn\u2019t look into her dating life much before recently and paring things together, but it\u2019s evident to me now that she really does put so much of her heart into all of her relationships\u200a\u2014\u200ashe\u2019s addicted to it, it\u2019s like a drug. And she\u2019s going to use it for the rest of her life, but not just because she\u2019s so in love with some guy, or the idea of being in love; but also because that love fuels her to write, to be creative, whether it\u2019s out of happiness at being together, or all the complicated feelings when you break up. She feels so strongly in her relationships and they fuel her to write and that\u2019s what makes her money, her fame\u200a\u2014\u200aof course she\u2019s going to use it for the rest of her life.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to believe that \u201cThis Is Why We Can\u2019t Have Nice Things\u201d and \u201cDelicate\u201d on the tracklist were originally swapped (currently, the former is track 13, and the latter is track 5) but were presented as they are because Taylor\u2019s track 5 has always famously been her very personal, very honest song. And even though <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> presents itself as an album about her responding to her reputation, it\u2019s ultimately a love story about her and her boyfriend at the time, who loved her in spite of her reputation, which is what \u201cDelicate\u201d is all about. It\u2019s out of place in terms of the tracklist narrative, but it\u2019s a perfect Taylor Swift track 5.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And, well, 13 is her favorite number. I don\u2019t think that makes \u201cNice Things\u201d necessarily remarkable (it\u2019s always a skip for me), but I do think that if she\u2019s going to make a song directly shading Kim and Kanye, she might as well put it as her favorite number, for her own satisfaction, you know? She\u2019s saying her feelings on the situation loud and clear\u200a\u2014\u200aand on her album, on the track number of her favorite number, that\u2019s her place to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the lead single: \u201cLook What You Made Me Do\u201d is a song about impact and self-reflection; it is not a song we\u2019re supposed to turn our heads at and go, oh, she became a genius overnight so we can forget about Snakegate. She knew that would never happen, though I think a lot of critics and the general public who wanted to hear what she would say, and who wanted to be on her side (including myself), wished she would do. But despite her political silence, ignoring the awful things the media and the public has said about her as a person is not something found in Taylor\u2019s track record. LWYMMD is not a song that is supposed to dazzle us. It is a song that\u2019s supposed to make us talk, whether we loved it or hated it. And it worked.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the first half of the album is about revenge and reputation and being a girlboss, the second half of the album turns more lovelorn and emotional and honest, and where I think the album shines, as much as I love a girlboss. \u201cSo It Goes\u2026\u201d is a great transition from the first half to the second\u2014 an electronic song about a hidden, budding sexual relationship that quickly turns romantic. It embraces the sounds of the first half of the album while introducing the themes of the second half, and eases us straight into \u201cGorgeous,\u201d which, while definitely not light on the production, takes a more upbeat and light-hearted tone, both in music and lyrics.<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe \u201cGorgeous\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aand \u201cGetaway Car,\u201d which follows\u200a\u2014\u200aare about Tom Hiddleston and their brief summer romance. So iconic of them to date when it spawned two excellent songs, which are both fun to listen to and to sing to. They\u2019re about shallow and fast attractions that don\u2019t last long but evoke strong feelings anyway, and the sound and musical patterns in both songs emulate that extraordinarily. Compared to \u201cDelicate,\u201d a very tender and stripped back song, you can tell that there\u2019s something that Taylor wants to last longer, something that\u2019s more serious and stronger there, while \u201cGorgeous\u201d feels like an emotional rush-in and \u201cGetaway Car\u201d is a traitorous rush-out. \u201cGetaway Car\u201d has very vivid verb-usage that definitely makes it feel like this love isn\u2019t going to last very long, but it\u2019s fun and loud and that\u2019s the whole point.<\/span><\/p>\n

The back half of the album is so obviously romantic that it really is remarkable how much it got overshadowed by the edgy first half. \u201cKing of My Heart\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200amy favorite off this album after the first time I heard it\u200a\u2014\u200aboasts a confidence in the self, but also a shaky excitement at falling in love all over again. The production is fun in that it fills out the song, and the bridge goes hard\u200a\u2014\u200awhich I suppose is redundant to say since it\u2019s a Taylor Swift song. \u201cDancing With Our Hands Tied\u201d is similar in centering this life-changing romance, though in the thrill and dread of their secrecy; it also has classic Taylor lyrical storytelling songwriting, which makes the verses captivating to listen to. I think if people had heard \u201cDancing With Our Hands Tied\u201d before LWYMMD, it would\u2019ve made people realize that she\u2019s still an excellent artist even when she goes experimentally mainstream and changes her persona. But I know LWYMMD had its own specific purpose, so \u201cDancing\u201d will only be a standout in her discography for those who bother to look.<\/span><\/p>\n

We then come to \u201cDress\u201d, \u201cCall It What You Want\u201d, and \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day\u201d (I\u2019m skipping \u201cNice Things\u201d since I talked about it earlier, and I don\u2019t have much else to say about it or the situation it\u2019s about)\u200a\u2014\u200athree of the most stripped down and romantic songs on the album, and at the end here with good reason. \u201cDress\u201d starts off as a sultry song about a loving sexual relationship, which is new for Taylor as she\u2019s barely touched on the sexual aspect of her previous relationships\u2014but this song <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> sex, literally telling us that Taylor fucks, both through the lyrics and the musical journey of the song, particularly the climactic end of the bridge. \u201cCall It What You Want\u201d phases us into the genuine sentiment of the romance, and about how it doesn\u2019t matter what their relationship is or what people think of them; what matters is her feelings on the relationship, and that she has it. She\u2019s bragging and happy here and she doesn\u2019t care what people think, which makes for a narratively gorgeous near-end of the album, which started off so responsive to what people thought of her. And then \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day\u201d looks towards the future of this secret relationship, of everything\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s a song about time, which every relationship is subject to. NYD and \u201cCall It What You Want\u201d are, production-wise, bare bones compared to the rest of the album, but that\u2019s what makes them the most honest tracks\u200a\u2014\u200awith all of the production and presentation stripped aside, these are the core feelings we leave the album with.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that Taylor said that <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> has a lot of lyrical influence from <\/span>Game of Thrones<\/span><\/i> despite the obvious parallels to her own life. But I don\u2019t think she\u2019s lying; I think it can be both. There\u2019s a lot drawing from her personal experiences that she may have projected onto the storylines from characters of <\/span>Game of Thrones<\/span><\/i>, which can make her lyrics feel less personal and may be what she needed at the time when going through such a rough and raw time. That\u2019s what I\u2019m getting off the songs on <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i>: a way to filter out her own emotions and experiences, through fictional characters and writing; and upon release, through her listeners and her fans. It\u2019s obvious that she finds sharing and performing the songs she\u2019s written cathartic, so while some people may not have liked that she was upfront and confrontational about such a controversial moment in her life, it\u2019s more than likely she needed it for herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think we needed it too. It\u2019s sonically relevant to the time it was in, the same way the subject matter of the lyrics is as well. It\u2019s not the Taylor Swift we knew before, but how could anyone expect it to be? She had gone through a very public and traumatizing dragging by another celebrity; of course she was going to come back with something dark and edgy, something that she didn\u2019t expect people to understand or like, if they only pay attention to who she is\u200a\u2014\u200awho the media says she is\u200a\u2014\u200asurface-level. My main concern about it at the time was the vocal performance, but honestly, all things considered? She kind of killed it.<\/span><\/p>\n

And while it\u2019s not the same Taylor Swift we knew before, it\u2019s still diaristic writing\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s just that before all of this, the most significant emotional struggles that she chose to write about were about heartache and heartbreak. It\u2019s so easy to write off <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> as an album about Taylor facing public backlash and being melodramatic about reinventing her public image; it\u2019s more interesting to interpret <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> as a commentary on her public image, but despite it all she can still love and be loved and make objectively excellent tracks about it, even with a new sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

Experiencing Taylor Swift\u2019s music isn\u2019t just about the music, I think. Maybe in the <\/span>Fearless<\/span><\/i> days when the only boyfriend the public cared about was Joe Jonas (who she seems to be on decent terms with now), but now it does feel like there is an element of lore to be able to experience Taylor Swift\u2019s music the way she wants listeners\u200a\u2014\u200aparticularly her fans\u200a\u2014\u200ato experience it. I think that\u2019s part of why she\u2019s never really tried to hide her relationships even with celebrities, not because she wants to shame them, but because she wants everyone to understand what she was feeling, what she was going through at the time. <\/span>Red<\/span><\/i> was an inconsistent (but fun) mish-mash of narratives and sounds, while <\/span>1989<\/span><\/i>, albeit the best breakup album of all time, had that pop pivot that the lyrics were generally more vague (excluding the vault tracks, of course) and any specific easter eggs were known by people keeping up with the Haylor relationship, but not the general public. <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i> is unique in that the whole world saw her get torn down and she was helpless to stop it\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cThis summer is the apocalypse,\u201d was the only thing she had written in her singular summer 2016 diary entry. Yet she still wrote songs about it, still sang about it, this thing we all knew happened to her. That was never going to be out of the question.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

No matter how different it is compared to her other albums, Taylor Swift still does what she does best on <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i>: storytelling. Every song is sonically powerful in its own way, but was never meant to be consistent\u200a\u2014\u200ait was always meant to tell that story. It wasn\u2019t just heartbreak and heartache anymore, not just falling in love and breaking up. <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> is about who she is in public and in private\u200a\u2014\u200aand that\u2019s what a reputation is all about, isn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2022 I was a year older than Taylor was in 2016, and while the scale of my reputation era was not nearly as significant as hers, now I think of the amount of stress I had been under, and how unimaginable it is to me on a global scale, to be hated by the world for something you never did. I hadn\u2019t thought twice of <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> since then, as a non-dedicated non-Swiftie, but the look back now makes it obvious that even I, someone who not only enjoyed a few of Taylor\u2019s songs but an entire album of hers, could still be swayed by the misogynistic media opinion of her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And the legacy of <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> speaks directly to that. It\u2019s an experimental album for sure, but still sonically interesting, vocally compelling, and even if the honesty of some lyrics can make us uncomfortable, we should not have expected anything less from Taylor Swift, who has always been honest with her music. Sure, the enjoyment of this electronic, vocoded, production-focused sound becomes subjective at some point. But the real experiment of <\/span>rep<\/span><\/i> was music critics\u2019 and the general public\u2019s willingness to sympathize with her, after something we all knew happened to her. And I can say that at the time, it was a failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite that, the album stood the test of time. LWYMMD has its own cultural impact, but with genuinely great tracks like \u201cDress,\u201d \u201cDelicate\u201d (which admittedly was regarded as an excellent single), \u201cDancing With Our Hands Tied,\u201d \u201cGetaway Car,\u201d and my favorite, \u201cKing of My Heart,\u201d it\u2019s hard to say that <\/span>reputation<\/span><\/i> is musically a flop by any means, even if it took me going through my own reputation era to fully appreciate it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the album does\u200a\u2014\u200ait tests our inclination to judge people based on our preconceived notions of them, when they want to be seen and treated as who they are, not who we think they are. Because underneath that reputation could be something not that bad\u200a\u2014\u200aand in the case of this album, could be something truly enjoyable. It\u2019s only a matter of discovering that yourself without any of the outside noise.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

an album review and a retrospective analysis on my relationship with taylor swift’s work Even though this is an album review, I\u2019ll be writing this like a personal blog post recipe. So buckle up, folks: let me tell you a little bit about my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","category-reviews","tag-taylor-swift","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}