the thing about Taylor Swift\u2019s Reputation is that it makes perfect sense as a graceful recovery from 1989\u2032s effort at bare-ribbed taste-making
like back to \u201coh better take all of contemporary America into me and re-present it back thematically united through me\u201d which worked when she came up, when we had different subcultures, that had different thematics
It\u2019s the most lyrical album of hers, I think, and I\u2019m not really sure who it\u2019s for
It\u2019s the first time her songs pose her as getting drunk
…Ready For It? announces the theme of the album - a bit of producer beats and rhythmic lyrics and being so past white boys, a bit of revived vulnerability, and that little throat-clearing at the start makes it all quotative anyway
End Game (feat Ed Sheeran & Future) - feat Ed Sheeran AND Future. I wonder if she\u2019s got a separate UK market strategy
I Did Something Bad - is it an \u201cowning being a manipulative relationship user\u201d song or an \u201cowning being an unapologetic social media troll\u201d song? It really leans the first early on with only the \u201cflames\u201d bit suggestive at all, but then the \u201cpitchforks and proof, their reciepts and reasons, they\u2019re burning all the witches even if you aren\u2019t one\u201d into the \u201clight me up\u201d breakdown..?
Don\u2019t Blame Me - yeah you know what Taylor Swift could make a good trip-hop song, sure
Delicate - it\u2019s not my thing but she carries more of this song on her voice than most but that might be because her tuning\u2019s entirely electronic tbh, this might be a CRJ dig
Gorgeous is a classic Tayswift crush song, like pre-Red, with that papery hi-hat
Getaway Car is like ½ classic Tayswift and 1/6 Outrun signifiers and 1/3 actual “oh shit, Vangelis\u201d \u201880s
King of My Heart might be a sorority girl-daddy song, or a first interracial relationship, or a Michael Jackson tribute, honestly, while being perfectly serviceable generically
there\u2019s that semantic overloading
Dancing With Our Hands Tied - acceptably laser-gridded song, you can read the initial \u201c25 years old, how were you to know\u201d towards either partner with thematics intact
Dress \u2013 she always does\u00a0\u201cI can do my rivals better\u201d songs and this is Carly Rae Jepsen - breathy, a little desperate friendzoned from the girl side - which is to say like her old high school wheelhouse but also her recent BPD Queen personas, throwing in just enough anchors to read your own story into - flashbacks/mistakes/rebounds/earthquakes
This is Why We Can\u2019t Have Nice Things - these days you need to try a lot harder to keep your feuds in the news to earn a feud song. the \u201cbouncy, childish\u201d affectations just sound childish. the return of the Bill Hader-ass \u201claughing out of the script\u201d is cute
Call It What You Want \u2013 \u201cyeah I lost that last callout war and went dark on social media, but I\u2019m getting the best dick\u201d, that\u2019s one of Taylor Swift\u2019s biannual Songs For Our Time
New Year\u2019s Day - this is totally the \u201csorority girl reassuring herself about the relationship to her fraternity guy\u201d - the \u201cplease, don\u2019t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere\u201d echoes the \u201cbut if god forbid, fate should step in\u201d verse from Long Live but you know they\u2019ll have a location wedding with a mason jar reception themed after that interwar party from Starlight