NOW HEAR THIS: Taylor Swift: reputation
NOW HEAR THIS: Taylor Swift: reputation
This 2017 release solidifies what should’ve already been fact.
Music
This 2017 release solidifies what should’ve already been fact.
As a celebrity, Taylor Swift is a polarizing figure.
As a musician, she shouldn’t be …and yet, she is.
After her 2014 album, 1989 sold over 10 million albums worldwide. Its record-breaking stadium tour had secured her place on the musicians A-List … it also sent her celebrity status into the stratosphere.
By 2017, her fans were ravenous for something new from their beloved “Tay Tay,” the hoi polloi crossed their arms and said, “yea, let’s see what she does now,” and Swift’s critics were … well, they were critics.
As for Taylor Swift? She did what she does, and she dropped the appropriately named reputation in November 2017.
reputation sold 1.2 million copies in its first week in the US alone and would become a number-one album in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US.
The album opens with the driving, thumping bass of “… Ready For It?” — a pop-song bukkake mixing EDM, industrial, dubstep, and tropical house reminiscent of Rihanna or the best/worst of that genre — depends on your perspective, I suppose.
If anyone was expecting any return to Americana on reputation, this introduction is the shot across the bow and fair warning that ain’t happening.
With “End Game,” Swift collaborates with Ed Sheeran and Future while putting the best of pop-rap, hip-hop, and a dash of R&B thrown in for good measure for a song about being together. As our narrator, presumably Swift, offers up her brand of some love and self-reflection as she rips through the song’s 4:05:
End Game
I wanna be your endgame
I wanna be your first string
I wanna be your A-Team
I wanna be your endgame, endgame
Big reputation, big reputation
Ooh you and me we got big reputations, ah
And you heard about me, ooh
I got some big enemies
Big reputation, big reputation
Ooh you and me would be a big conversation, ah
And I heard about you, ooh
You like the bad ones too
I don’t wanna touch you (I don’t wanna be)
Just anther ex-love (You don’t wanna see)
I don’t wanna miss you (I don’t wanna miss you)
Like the other girls do
I don’t wanna hurt you (I just wanna be)
Drinkin’ on a beach with (You all over me)
I know what they all say (I know what they all say)
But I ain’t tryna play
Knew her when I was young
Reconnected when we were little bit older
Both sprung, I got issues and chips on both of my shoulders
Reputation precedes me, in rumors I’m knee-deep
The truth is it’s easier to ignore it, believe me
Even when we’d argue, we don’t do it for long
And you understand the good and bad, end up in the song
For all your beautiful traits, and the way you do it with ease
For all my flaws, paranoia, and insecurities
I’ve made mistakes and made some choices that’s hard to deny
After the storm, something was born on the fourth of July
I’ve passed days without fun, this endgame is the one
With four words on the tip of my tongue, I’ll never say
I wanna be your endgame
I wanna be your first string
I wanna be your A-Team
I wanna be your endgame, endgame
I hit you like bang
We tried to forget it, but we just couldn’t
And I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put ‘em
Reputation precedes me, they told you I’m crazy
I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me
And I can’t let you go, your hand print’s on my soul
It’s like your eyes are liquor, it’s like your body is gold
You’ve been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks
So here’s the truth from my red lips
The line that keeps me confused is With four words on the tip of my tongue, I’ll never say — four words? What are they? “I love you” … that’s three. “I fuckin’ love you”? I need some clarity on this, please.
Taylor Swift’s talent is in her songwriting. Arguably, her songs are about her, as she all but admits in “End Game” with the line:
“And you understand the good and bad, end up in the song”
That’s the conundrum of dating someone creative …you never know where you may end up in their work. Or worse, not end up there at all.
“I Did Something Bad” is a sonic hot mess of female braggadocio that still somehow manages to work:
I Did Something Bad
I never trust a narcissist
But they love me
So I play ’em like a violin
And I make it look oh so easy
’Cause for every lie I tell them
They tell me three
This is how the world works
Now all he thinks about is me
CHORUS
I can feel the flames on my skin
Crimson red paint on my lips
If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing
I don’t regret it one bit, ’cause he had it coming
They say I did something bad
Then why’s it feel so good?
They say I did something bad
But why’s it feel so good?
Most fun I ever had
And I’d do it over and over and over again if I could
It just felt so good, good
I never trust a playboy
But they love me
So I fly him all around the world
And I let them think they saved me
They never see it comin’
What I do next
This is how the world works
You gotta leave before you get left
CHORUS
They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one
They got their pitchforks and proof
Their receipts and reasons
They’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one
So light me up (light me up), light me up (light me up)
Light me up, go ahead and light me up (light me up)
Light me up (light me up), light me up (light me up)
Light me up (light me up), light me up (light me up)
CHORUS
The thing that’s interesting about Taylor Swift is that she plays the romance/dating game using the same rules as men. Why can’t a woman use a man? Swift is telling girls and women that it’s OK NOT to wait around to get hurt — This is how the world works, You gotta leave before you get left.
“I Did Something Bad” is one of Swift’s songs that contains explicit lyrics. She claims the song was motivated by the events that closed out season 7 of HBO’s Game of Thrones. In particular, the events impacting the four central female characters: Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, and Cersei Lannister.
An alternate interpretation is that it’s aimed at her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris. Only she knows for sure … and she ain’t talking.
While Swift isn’t the first to turn the gender table around, she is the first to do so this successfully and on such a massive scale … which may account for the grumbling of some of the Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers.
As empowering as she is, it’s unfortunate that she still relies on so many men to shape her sound. While her commercial value and stock increase, her reliance on these men make her art suffer.
THE PRODUCERS
The problem with having only a handful of people (men) behind the boards is that the people they’re producing can lose their artistry. The very thing that got them there.
The producers of reputation: Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Ali Payami, Oscar Görres, Oscar Holter sound like they approach their craft with a “paint by number” template. Either by laziness, lack of desire, or just safety, it sounds as though the goal is to score a “hit” … and less about helping the artist express themselves sonically.
These producers seem to be marrying the sound with the song and not the song with the sound—a subtle distinction, to be sure, but a distinction nonetheless.
While many of these guys have collaborated and with Swift before reputation, they have collectively produced some of the biggest names in music:
Lorde (Antonoff)
Dixie Chicks (Antonoff)
Katy Perry (Martin)
Ariana Grande (Martin)
Brittney Spears (Shellback)
Pink (Shellback)
Demi Lovato (Ali Payami)
Tove Lo (Ali Payami) — apparently “Sweden’s darkest pop export” … besides Lisabeth Salander
Maroon 5 (Oscar Görres)
Hillary Duff (Oscar Görres)
Hailee Steinfeld (Oscar Holter)
Christina Aguilera (Oscar Holter)
The sound on reputation or on many of their other productions could be an unfortunate by-product of ProTools, Auto-Tune, and the digital age.
Of course, as a capitalist, it could be argued that the production approach is as varied as it is to reach a larger worldwide audience. I get it. I’m afraid I have to disagree with it, but I get it.
The Gen X’er in me says that these guys would do well to go back and listen to producers like Phil Ramone or Tom Dowd. They built their careers working with artists as varied as Billy Joel, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, and Dusty Springfield; no one would ever say any of those artists shared a similar sonic aesthetic.
Can we say the same about any of those producer/artists listed above? They’re all different, yes, but …
That said, I’m not a Rick Rubin fan, and Linda Perry always strikes me as somewhat nutty, but a Rubin or Perry-produced Taylor Swift album might be interesting.
Now, Taylor Swift doesn’t get a pass here either … they’re her songs, her voice, and she is listed as one of the seven producers.
But it’s the songs stupid. Right? The lyrical content, right?
Yes, it is. And reputation is loaded with good, well-written songs.
It’s not until the album’s closer, “New Years Day” where some of the noise drops from reputation, and you can hear the vulnerability in both the artist and the production.
Written and produced by both Swift and Antonoff, its sweet, sparse, and singular sound pays homage to the vibe of a 3 a.m. New Years Day trip home … and they keep the sound modern without forcing every genre on the planet into it. It would be an approach to her sound they would re-visit with Folklore and Evermore.
New Years Day
There’s glitter on the floor after the party
Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby
Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor
You and me from the night before but
Don’t read the last page
But I stay when you’re lost and I’m scared and you’re turning away
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day
You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi
I can tell that it’s going to be a long road
I’ll be there if you’re the toast of the town babe
Or if you strike out and you’re crawling home
Don’t read the last page
But I stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or you’re making mistakes
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day
By and large, critics applauded reputation:
Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone said the album “shows the darker, deeper side of the pop mastermind,” remarking that “As one of the all-time great pop masterminds, she’s trying something new, as she always does.”
Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph wrote: “reputation is a big, brash, all-guns-blazing blast of weaponized pop that grapples with the vulnerability of the human heart as it is pummelled by 21st-century fame.”
Geoff Nelson of Consequence of Sound was less kind, giving reputation a D+ rating saying: “Swift’s sixth studio album is a bloated, moving disaster.”
Taylor Swift is still a polarizing figure. Polarization isn’t always a bad thing. It can serve as “an invaluable filter — distancing you from people you wouldn’t get along with anyway, and bringing you closer to those who make you happy.” And I think that captures the essence of Swift’s career.
Those that don’t like her never will.
Those that do like her always will.
To the world writ large, reputation proves what everybody should know (or at least accept) by now … that Taylor Swift is a great songwriter.
Be sure to check out some of my favorite writers here on Medium:
Rob Janicke, Terry Barr, Christopher Robin, Paul Combs, Reuben Salsa, Noah Levy, If Ever You’re Listening, Kevin Alexander, Alexander Briseño, Nicole Brown, Jessica Lee McMillan, Bonnie Barton, and all the fine writers at Medium publications The Riff Magazine and Pop Off.