reputation Taylor Swift

"…ready for it?" i am. the big machine drives me forward like it did charlize theron in mad max: fury road. i would give it all up: the acclaim, the adoration, the artistic and financial success - everything for true love. i thought tom would be the "king of my heart" but he went all loki on me. the fake feuds, billboard no. 1s, fame, millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars; meaningless and overrated really. even if i did give it all up, i'd still have my "gorgeous" reputation. i am so tired of the tabloids and the media scrutiny. i say it but honestly, i don't mean it. i adore the publicity, especially when it's free. my "end game" is i don't have one. i am just feeling so "delicate" and vulnerable right now like "i did something bad." truth is, i want to be a bad girl that wears a "dress" that's fifty shades of grey. i want to rob a bank and speed off in a stolen "getaway car" like angelina jolie in the movie gone in sixty-seconds only younger and without the double mastectomy of course. "call it what you want." superficial? sure. in bad taste? absolutely. unapologetic? maybe. blame the entertainment industry. blame hollywood, but "don't blame me." calvin always used to say "look what you made me do." i would assure him that it happens to a lot of men, and he need not feel embarrassed. sigh. i would joke with him and say, i guess i'm too sexy. "so it goes..." i remember when we'd go "dancing with our hands tied." personally, i prefer doing the stanky legg or the wah watusi. by the way, kanye can't dance. i mean not at all. i recall watching a video on youtube on "new year's day" of him and kim. i can tell you now he was no tony manero on the dance floor. no wonder jesus wept, or is it yeezus? note to self: write a sequel to "this is why we can't have nice things" but dedicate the song to jay z. i remain taylor. i remain fierce.

Where has our country star wandered off to? This is getting uglier by the release but thankfully there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Reputation is not as bad as some folks would have you think it.
It arrived at a time when Swifts public stocks were at an all time low, fueled by a media burned out by the constant publicity and drama overload that 1989 generated and the familiar bind of an artist finding themselves dammed if they embraced change and damned if they did not. Listing seven producers (some songs sound like all 7 are at work on it at once), This is the record where she lost any vestiges of her hard won pop past, she lost her teeny pop fanbase and, refreshingly, lost her mind.

The album makes no attempt to play to her strengths of big hooks and emerging songcraft. It seems to exist entirely as a vehicle to promote her own repositioned brand. It’s an accoutrement of fandom, not an artistic statement. In it’s way, it’s very similar to her first album, but unlike the colour by numbers debut, “reputation” is a willfully unpredictable beast. There are some songs that harken to former glories – the poorly mixed “Delicate’’ , “Getaway Car”, “So It Goes” , “...Ready for it?” with it’s catchy chorus, is one of the few reminders of 1989, “Call it what you want to” somehow manages to dodge the Max Miller clank and clutter as does “New year’s Day” which sounds like it was recorded on a cassette player and sounds better for it.

Which are negated, somewhat, by some disastrously wrong headed songs - “End Game” is pure trash, featuring some C lister rapper and the unctuous and pointless Ed Sheerin. “I did something bad” which is like a Kung-Fu movie, so bad it’s almost good and has the most hilariously Swiftian lyric she has ever given us – “They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one/ So light me up”. Her self-pity and perpetually assumed victimhood, all trademarks of The Swifties, remain as strong and as pathetic as they did on her first album. “Don’t Blame Me’, which may well be two songs stitched together is ridiculous and makes a mockery of any claims she may have to being a feminist.

“Look what you made me do” is a headache to wade through and “this is why we can’t have nice things” is one of the most eloquent statements on how a little rich girl feels when her privilege is violated – and the rest of the album is forgettable 5 minutes after it’s done.

a terrible embarrassment of an album that doesn't work not only as a swift album but as a album by any artist. my first problem: all the songs are either annoying, obnoxious and try to use outdated club music beats. the other songs on the album that aren't annoying manage to be dull uninteresting and hook-less. its a complete mess of an album on all levels.

Reputation is Taylor’s blackout-curtain album, the one that storms in with bass and side-eye, then smuggles a tender love story under the leather jacket. It is part victory lap, part villain theatre, and just vulnerable enough to make the posture feel earned. The synths are thick, the drums punch like push notifications you are trying to ignore, and the writing flips between claws-out and late-night confession in a way that still feels very millennial we-are-fine-no-we-are-not.

What I love is the pulse. When the songs click, they move like city traffic right after the light turns green. The hooks are steel-trap tight, the bridges do their little disclosure dance, and the romantic throughline sneaks up until you realise this whole era of bite marks and blackout poetry is also about finding steady ground.

The concept sometimes wears the outfit, rather than the other way around. But the highs are undeniable. Reputation nails the strange comfort of rebuilding in public, of being loud about your boundaries and quiet about your relief.

This is about as far as I'm going to go with this artist. She's just tossing nonsense out and seeing what will stick now. It's the Beyonce effect and well her catalog is pathetic and probably the worst pop music of this decade. Swift hasn't figured out what growth is she's definitely figured out how to be a diva and caddy bitch though. It's time for her to stop with this drivel because her "Me So Horny" rip off "Look What You Made Me Do" is scraping the bottom of the creative barrel.

absolutely ugly cover ed sheeran +max martin dont add to the reputation of that sexsymbol useless + boring "singer take reba mac intire or lee ann rimes instead

At first I thought the title was "Regurgitation" and was glad that the world of Max Martin slop was finally going to be honest with the world.

Taylor Swift's sixth album "reputation" is a bit polarizing. The choice to have "Look What You Made Me Do" and "...Ready For It?" as the lead singles I think mislead the album's supposed direction.. which is why admittedly, upon first listens, the album sounds more disappointing than impressive. The lack of having more dark and angry-esque songs, like it's lead singles, was the most notable let down, as all the rest of the songs are more brighter, and obviously talk about someone she's dating in this moment. There's some extra moments of anger, such as "I Did Something Bad", which sounds sort of like a Melanie Martinez outtake, and "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things", which, while being a cute, catchy tune and having the right lyrical frame of mind, it's overall impression can feel a shade too immature for Taylor's taste. As far as the rest of the album, let's face it. It fails to stand tall when you put it next to her previous work, especially "Red". It definitely takes some listens for the album's "true" direction to sink it, but once it does, it's not really that bad at all. Reviewing it on it's own, her songwriting is still excellent. No denying that, with the exception of some cliche licks here and there, but it can be overlooked. Other standout tracks include the surprising Future and Ed Sheeran collaboration "End Game", the preach-y ballad "Don't Blame Me", the light, dancehall-influenced ballad "Delicate", cute "Gorgeous", and sexy 80's throwback-esque ballad "Dress". Also, best for last... "New Year's Day", an absolutely beautiful, potentially tear-jerking, piano ballad that is quick to remind us the "old Taylor" may not be dead. On an overall though, I think the only problem boils down to alot of the album's big budget pop production. Alot of it can feel like rehashes of already-tried formulas, which cause the album's overall sound to sometimes seem even more cliched and commercialized than her previous first pop attempt, "1989". At the same time though, "reputation" is far more interesting than "1989" once you learn the album. The arrangements feel stronger, more catchy, and there's an overall unique dark undertone that rests across the album that isn't present in the latter album. The most polarizing part about "reputation" would be just not knowing how to feel about it. It leaves you feeling like it's, both, a good album, but also with the slight impression that the production and direction of this album is a bit too simple, generic and exaggerated to stand tall to the talent we've seen, loved, and know as Taylor Swift.

RATING- 6 / 10
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Track Picks:

...Ready For It?
End Game
I Did Something Bad
Don't Blame Me
Delicate
Look What You Made Me Do
Gorgeous
Dress
New Year's Day
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Her parents were: stinking rich, her partner is a: football star, her image is: always perfect, or photoshopped.

There's a tendency to want to be a kind of begrudging apologist for Swift since her particularly showy and disposable version of Midwestern dumb is "real" after all? No, it's not.

Swift seems unlikely to have appreciated "Barbie" as a film; this album is mostly basic romantic couplets, autotune and stock chord progressions with a LOT of compression, EQ, synth window dressing and soulless, programmed percussion blips and bleeps. The main asset on sale is: Taylor Swift, and the main message is: nothing in particular, thanks.

In terms of collaborators and producers, the record is "neat" sounding, to a fault. I'm yet to find a CHR disc co-credited to Jack Antonoff that has great hooks, emotion, innovation. If Jennifer Rush or Madonna's collaborators were the "Miles Davis group" of their day, he's a kind of bland, mechanized Kenny G by comparison.

People need legitimate musical icons, including tweens and bored young adults that "don't really care about music, just wanted to see a few hit songs played live". Hint: they also need a music market with renumeration so entitled cookie-cutter phonies don't dominate popular culture.