Taylor Swift’s Reputation, her new album that will sell by the truck load, is a new dawn in the singer’s career and she’s cleaning up all of the extracurricular and very public drama she took part in (or orchestrated) for the last few years. When you listen to Swift’s music, you generally need a fine comb to work your way through all of the references but when she went into overload with album precursor Look What You Made Me Do in August, it felt like a bad omen in a year where almost everything is a bad omen.
For the last 18 months or so, Taylor went into hiding. She retreated to recover from the media backlash she suffered and on Reputation, she’s showing us the scars.
She’s lost friends and she’s not afraid to tell you that some of them are now enemies but when she boats about that on This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and End Game, it feels unintentionally sad.
End Game, Don’t Blame Me, Gorgeous, Dancing with our Hands Tied and Dress are all a bit so-so – but once you get to Delicate, Getaway Car and New Year’s Day, she returns to clever and insightful songwriting, finding tenderness and beauty in tiny details.
Taylor’s career is built on heartbreak and while her older songs held a starry-eyed optimism that love will save day, she’s knows a little bit better now but instead of examining the wounds, she holds a grudge and doubles up on her ammunition.
New Year’s Day, the final song on the album, is the finest. It’s simple in its delivery and after 14 songs of sex, petty revenge and toying with an R&B sound, it feels like she’s got something out of her system.
