Yell At The Clouds : Reputation, and How Taylor Swift Fears An Honest Reckoning

I.

Taylor Swift doesn't improvise well.

A lot of her public image is this precise, detailed, mass-marketable girl-next-door pop star whose existence is a testament to the juggling act of her and her PR team. And her success, from her days as a teenager singing wholesome truths to America's teens and too-old-to-be-teens, up to her sell-out to pop music and becoming a provocateur of the iconography of pop music in general, has been this tightly controlled ship that gave her success in spite of the music and the authenticity of the product that she was selling.

And with all of this, Taylor Swift became a powerful figure, one who can wage war with companies like Spotify over petty things like money; one who could be deaf for most issues of feminism except for the ones that affected her (the case she made famous where she destroyed a DJ's career for a dollar is a satisfying, but ultimately petty, show of power that works regardless of what movement she was in); and one who could demand the public's attention any time, any week. Ever since the VMAs in 2009, Taylor Swift has become this unstoppable force, and it seemed like she would just grow more powerful, and more unstoppable until she either died young or transitioned into a Jay Z-like elder stateswoman status.

Until, that is, when Kanye West reminded everyone who made that bitch famous.

It's not worth getting into the stupid gossip that predates some of the album, but what is worth mentioning is that Taylor Swift's reaction to Kanye West's trolling, in-your-face lyrical line is immediate playing-of-victim instead of, you know, telling the truth that Kanye vetted the line with her first. And so now, Taylor Swift suddenly has the world against her because of the Kanye West thing, and her reaction--the improvised moment we said she decided upon--was to play up her evil side without changing much of her actual persona to match it.

II.

Well, that's not entirely true. She decided while pursuing this snake-like persona to explore deeper the emotional core of her relationships and why they seem to have been tabloid fodder for such a long time. And the results of this introspective journey pepper the album and creates an interesting look into the mind of someone who is only just realizing that they are the problem in all their relationships, and the reckoning that they might get not just in public, but with every partner after each relationship. It's compelling stuff, and one the album explores adequately, if skewing a bit too close to current trends. Unfortunately, it's buried within so much filler and bad songs that it's hard to find the compelling within the banal and irritating.

The basic theme that this album is aiming for seems to be perception and privacy, i.e., the relationship of true feelings to perceived slights and hurts. The first level, the one easiest to parse through, is Taylor Swift the persona's rough relationship with this perceived new boy who's "younger than my exes," "Handsome/[You're] a mansion with a view," and one of her best friends. She's basically pessimistic that this relationship will end in anything other than a trainwreck like her past relationships ("Please don't ever become a stranger/Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere"; "If I get burned, at least we were electrified"), but still trying because, well, she's addicted to the drama, regardless of what she says about not being addicted to the drama (overblown literary references to describe her love life; "My drug is my baby/ I'll be usin' for the rest of my life").

It's interesting to listen to the songs aimed at that first level because it seems to set her up as a melancholic seer, someone who yearns for something different but who can see that beyond the words of her lips, that it's unlikely her system will change for her at all. She's trapped to the point where the only way she can get out of a relationship is by cheating, as "Getaway Car" implies. By the time "New Year's Day" comes along, this melancholy pierces through into hungover begging to stay, as if the fear of being alone has taken over her life completely in that one moment. It's uncomfortably honest songwriting on-par with "Pinkerton," making us feel every second of sadness and desperation that Taylor is feeling in looking for her OTP.

In any other album, this self-reflective songwriting would earn her accolades, but then you hear the second level of the album and you remember that Taylor Swift doesn't know how to improvise.

The second level, in true Lady Gaga fashion, is a meta-critique on her reputation with the public and the media. It leans into her victim complex (the entirety of "I Did Something Bad" and "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things") and paints herself as unfairly persecuted ("They're burning all the witches/even if you aren't one") even if she contradicts her non-"witch-hood" in the exact next line ("They got their pitchforks and proof/Their receipts and reasons"). What's frustrating is that, theoretically, casting your lover in your songs as a stand-in for the media is a justifiably good metaphor/idea, considering what bad, abusive shit happens in both relationships.

It just doesn't work in songs like "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" or "Look What You Made Me Do" because it's just so. fucking. petty.

[Warning: Long Rant Upcoming]

For example, in "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," it's basically a diss track against Kanye West for the "Famous" lyric and the subsequent controversy over the fact that she lied about approving the original lyric in "Famous". Now, obviously, the author has a tilt towards Kanye West, but even without the fandom, a person who knows enough about Kanye knows he's mentally unstable surrounded by yes men, and being a petty little bitch about the fact that he refused to play into your victim complex and rules just makes you look bad and the media justified in vilifying and destroying her reputation. Screw you and your sanctimonious standards, Taylor Swift.

The reason why the second level doesn't work is because of the pettiness of her complaints. Her change into New Taylor because of how the media killed the reputation of the Old Taylor rings hollow because it's not really much of a change from Old Taylor AND because the changes that did come was worse music reminiscent of Fall Out Boy at their most obnoxious, and some super-insecure hip-hop posturing that clashes intently with the melancholic tone of the songs. Even Drake knows better than to brag in his sad songs, and the clash of tone is why "reputation" never really coalesces into a faithful whole.

III.

Can we make a leaner, more-focused album from the mess that "reputation" ended up being? Yes, yes, we can. In fact, you can easily+ chuck away five songs from the album without affecting the album in a negative way, and still come out with a stronger and more cohesive whole than the 15-track album ended up being.

Here's my proposed tracklist:

"Sad Reputation"

1. Don't Blame Me

2. Getaway Car

3. Gorgeous

4. Dancing With Our Hands Tied

5. Dress

6. Delicate

7. End Game

8. Call It What You Want

9. New Year's Day

It highlights the sad melancholic songs of the album and tries to create a narrative drive in her desperate attempt to getting and keeping this man of perfection that she seems to be courting cautiously. There's no saying if highlighting all the good songs makes it better, but it's a more sincere effort to make the themes more cohesive than the actual album did.

Overall, the album is a messy endeavor, but Taylor Swift's talented ear for writing relatable lyrics does not fail her for the most part.