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SWIFT: Sweetheart or Serpent?

James reviews 2017s top-selling album, 'Reputation' in an essay on Taylor Swift's alleged 'transformation'.

By James WilliamsPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Within a mere four days of its release, 'Reputation' had claimed the chart's crown like a cunning king cobra and left Ed Sheeran with nothing but a snake bite as it stole the title of '2017s best selling album' from 'Divide'. After a lengthy hiatus of avoiding the spotlight Taylor Swift's follow-up album was perhaps pre-destined to become a small victory for both the artist and "Swifties" everywhere; a triumphant comeback on which, as suggested by the confrontational cover, Swift sheds her skin, takes aim at her critics and returns all guns blazing. But has the pop princess successfully grown into her new-found fangs and truly forged an identity overhaul?

From even the initial seconds of your first listen to 'rep', it becomes apparent that this is brand new sonic territory for Swift. One of the most noticeable - and arguably controversial - aspects which separates this album from the singer's former endeavours like 'Fearless', her breakout country collection which spawned her first major hits ('Love Story', 'You Belong With Me') is the production. The opening song, '...Ready For It' is a hard-hitting and confident introduction, injected with Max Martin's gritty, almost industrial sounding production as heard in the audio feedback and scratches which punctuate the chorus. Add to this Swift's somewhat aggressive verses and it soon seems as if this venture is far, far away from the country ballads made of pure glass; so far 'Reputation' has a composition of nothing but reinforced concrete.

Swift continues to project a sturdy image on both 'End Game' (which comes as another surprise: a rap song appearing on her record when four of Swift's six albums are classified as Country) and 'I Did Something Bad', both promoting T.S. as a fearless warrior. In fact, the first three offerings are a hat-trick of hefty, cocky beats that seem to suggest the singer has truly turned a new leaf and ditched her pretense of total innocence.

Incorrect. Just as we thought we had discovered 'the new Taylor' - one who has finally embraced the chance to enjoy playing the villain - we hear track four. 'Don't Blame Me'. It has become almost impossible to listen to many high profile artists' songs without considering their tabloid contexts, especially Swift - largely due to the mainstream media's obsession with documenting her rotation of romantic partners. It's open to debate whether the singer actually fuels this by including anonymous lovers in her lyrics - we have to assume she's singing about Styles, Hiddleston, etc. However, this widely learned practice of conflating Swift's lyrics to her current standing in the media and the surrounding context has, this time, perhaps come back to bite her like a snake in the grass.

Similar to 'Don't Blame Me', 'Look What You Made Me Do' linguistically shifts the blame from Taylor, allowing her to revel (again) in acting as her innocent, 'victimised girl' marketing persona before the songs have even begun. Now, this echoes back to when the tabloid world erupted in 2016 after Kim Kardashian exposed a video of Swift permitting Kanye West to use the lyric "me and Taylor may still have sex" - permission which Swift denied giving. It is therefore tiring that Swift plays up her tabloid drama once again in the lead single for an album which is supposed to symbolise a regeneration, a rebirth of "the old Taylor". While 'Look What You Made Me Do' does feature Antonoff's signature stellar production of unapologetically crunchy sounds to the record, the singer/songwriter sings lyrics sure to be not-so-subtle digs at celebrity foes. Pettiness galore, "I don't like you" paints the singer as a spoilt child throwing her toys out the pram. It is at this point that I question this "nightmarish aesthetic" that Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone suggested Swift was now promoting herself with. It feels contrived and engineered - much like the songwriting for the single: we are left mourning for those sentimental and well-crafted lyrics that laced together the Fearless, Speak Now and Red days.

'Gorgeous', 'Getaway Car' and even 'King of My Heart' - which would have been an expertly made and lusciously produced record if it weren't for the jarring rap bridge - are refreshing. Reminiscent of '1989' in their sound, they serve to lighten the mood in an album that frankly seems to thus far be another self-interested PR stint to get the last laugh in previous news stories.

Following another two elegant and sparkling songs that seem to carry no celebrity vendetta, we wince to be reunited with the same old Taylor. In what could very easily be a sly remark directed at Katy Perry or, even more easily, Kanye West, Swift sings on 'This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things': I was giving you a second chance / But then you stabbed me in the back. Perhaps it is to be expected that an album named Reputation which shows newspaper headlines for a cover to be purely narcissistic self-promotion and personal commentary, yet I am sure the world is tired of Taylor Swift assuming the position of blameless victim. The 'drama queen taking swings' she mentions on 'Call It What You Want' is (however ironically) exactly the conceptual embodiment of this album.

Despite Taylor's media context that curses many of the songs into being viewed as egotistical, an unconvincing attempt to gloss over her history, 'reputation' does have its hidden gems. 'New Year's Day' is deeply emotional and sounds genuinely heartfelt. Therefore, when compared to the first half of the album, it deserves better than the 'last slot' that some listeners may not reach on first sample. The song, while sadly incongruous is a welcome throwback to the foetal days of Taylor Swift, the emotionally-charged acoustic songstress who wished to capture hearts, not headlines.

It seems then, that as suggested in the '...Ready For It' video, 'Reputation' is in many ways a tale of a two-fold Taylor. The album's track listing flitters between headstrong statement pieces and wildly back to prettier, bubbly pop moments. Half is concerned with referencing previous controversies Swift has faced in the press and the other half mirrors elements of her previous award-winning album in its glitter-filled pop sound. Unconvinced by the announcement of "the old Taylor"'s death, one senses her image is confused between two marketed identities: sweetheart and serpent. Therefore once the album concludes, the question of whether the performer has managed to reinvent herself as a shiny new presence is not so certain. A rebirth as she references in album's lead single is nowhere to be seen and songs become almost entirely defined by their conflation with tabloid pettiness. Thus, some of the lyrics are transparently commercial, which perhaps mirrors Taylor's venture into radio-engineered pop. We are left awaiting a 'New Year's Day' for T.S's identity, one in which her music can once more stand alone from her public persona. If '1989' was her 'first official pop album' as the romanticising iTunes header suggests, 'Reputation' is the difficult sophomore, tangled in a web Swift's own tabloid identity crisis.

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James Williams

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