Album Review: Reputation by Taylor Swift

I like Taylor Swift. I like the fact that she has built a career on her lyrics more than anything else. Though I didn't review her last album 1989, the strength of that album was her lyrics. The pop soundtrack behind it was fairly generic but her lyrics were still very Taylor Swift.

Reputation feels like she has gone off track. It's like she woke up one day and said, I want to make a dance album. Something that can get played in the clubs. Since this is going to be a club album I'll have to write songs that are much more mature. It just doesn't really come together all that well. First it sounds like someone plugged lyrics into a dance party 2017 machine rather than being put together by people who were trying to construct club beats around Swift and her lyrics. Second, the songs are weak lyrically. It's as though Swift said, well it's a dance album so lyrically the songs don't have to be that thoughtful, and since I'm trying to be more mature they'll be darker and more cynical. These two things don't combine to make a very good album.

Lyrically Swift sounds sophomoric and too self centric. Musically it just isn't very interesting. I had to break out Robyn's Body Talk to clean my pallet.  Other artists like Swift have made dance albums transitioning from a more singer songwriter background.  The one that comes to mind for me of course is Everything But the Girl.



Following the Rhapsody rating method I give the album 1 out of 5 stars for Just OK.