Photo By Allison Arterburn
If you are judging Taylor Swift’s new album, “Reputation,” based on the lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” do you even know Taylor Swift? Let me reintroduce you, or rather, the reputation you can choose to see.
Swift is not going to put out anything less than genius. I do not think that is how she is wired. “Reputation” is her side of the story. While everybody seems to be throwing a “Taylor Swift is over” party, she is basking in love and writing her most unapologetic record yet.
An album I needed in a world of over-expectations, friends there for me but never really there, underestimations and fears. An unapologetic ode to not giving a dang about what anybody else thinks of you. An album I did not know I needed until I was dancing around my room alone that Thursday night freaking out to the new tracks I have been pining for the last three years. Let’s dive into a few of my favorites and notable mentions.
Ed Sheeran and Swift together again is a collaboration my little seventeen year heart would of died to see again! Thankfully, just turning 22 gave me back the “Red” vibes I have needed since 2012. “End Game” is so different than “Everything Has Changed,” but for the right reasons: the hooks are catchy, the bridge is the strongest and the chorus brings the entire song together.
“I Did Something Bad” and “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” are her most unapologetic songs on this record that have sent me in a spiral of angst. While on the softer side “Call it What You Want” leaves you as breathless and smiling all the way through after the millionth time on repeat.
“Getaway Car” reminds me of an 80’s synth pop, “I’m sorry this didn’t work out” song, that I love so much each time it blasts through my speakers. Why do sad songs make me so happy? The world may never know, but at least I feel like it is equivalent to “I Wish You Would” off of 1989.
Another notable mention that I cannot seem to get out of my head because the bridge knocks out any bridge I have obsessed with ever is “King of My Heart.” It has stolen my heart like my middle school crush.
Usually the last track is a track of new beginnings. A track that leads into the next era so beautifully. A little tidbit I find comforting in every Swift album.
“New Years Day” is the only ballad on “Reputation” for great reason. A song that does not signify new beginnings and first kisses, but rather the person that is there the next day, sweeping confetti off the floor and picking up the champagne bottles with you. “Don’t read the last page, but I stay” is my favorite lyric off the entire record. The little hopeless romantic in me’s heart skips a few beats each time this is sung.
So here is to an era of being unapologetic, falling in love and realizing all the outside noise does not matter. Here is to not caring what reputation others try to see you as, what matters is you. Be unapologetic, slam the undermines, speak your voice, laugh at the ones who try to knock you down and defend the things that mean the world to you.