Taylor Swift Rises from the Dead

Copyright: taylorswift.com 2017

As social media is a big part of world now, it can be used for the good and the bad. It is good as we can find out information and use it for entertainment. But it can also start rumors and drama with others. Social Media has done a pretty good job at setting Taylor Swift’s reputation as serial dater. Because she writes songs about love and gets in relationships? Taylor recently found her perfect match and is now happily dating Joe Alwyn. She started to really not care what people think of her and wrote a whole album about her and her boyfriend, calling it reputation.

She disappeared during 2017 as she was writing reputation. Her fans, including me, were going crazy wondering where she was and what she was up to. As Taylor almost always announces something about an album in August, we fans had high hopes that we would being getting something new and Taylor would be coming out from hiding. As luck would have it, Taylor did just that, but in a different way. In the days leading up to August 21st, Taylor blacked out all of her social media pages. Then, out of nowhere, on August 21st Taylor posted a video of a snake tail. As the days went on we got more videos of the body and then the face of the snake. Then she dropped the news that she will be releasing a new album on November 10th and a new single would be coming out the next day. In Taylor’s words, “There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation.”, and that is exactly what happened.

“Look What You Made Me Do”

The first song Taylor dropped from reputation. As I am a very big fan of Taylor, I was very excited to hear her first song after being gone for nearly two years. Let me tell you, it was everything I hoped it would be. The bridge “I don’t trust no body and nobody trusts me:” truly amazing. The lyric that really got me and everyone was “I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead”. That was definitely Taylor’s way of saying she is done with all these “Taylor is dead” and the “Taylor is a snake” jokes. Because if they are going to paint her reputation for her she is going to write a song about all the jokes the media has made and shove it right in their face. She then released and a music video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” but that is a whole other conversation that I could talk about for hours, so we won’t get into it. All I am going to say is, if you have not watched it yet, give it a watch.

“...Ready For It?”

The second song Taylor dropped from reputation. This song was also very expected as she posted on her Instagram story that there was something coming during a football game. Right before the football game, which was between Alabama and Florida state if you were wondering, a commercial came on the TV promoting the game and before you knew it there was a new song playing in the background that was Taylor. The next morning she released her second song of reputation, “...Ready For It?”.

Now I really want to tell you about some of my favorite songs that really do deserve more attention on reputation.

“New Year’s Day”

As I absolutely love all the songs on this album New Year’s Day has to be in my top five favorite. For the most part, all the songs on reputation are fast beat and sounds, but “New Year’s Day” is just Taylor and her piano, with some guitar added in. It is a very slow song but is very happy song. It is good for anytime of day and for any mood. There is a lyric in the song “Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you” which gave me chills when I heard it for the first time-- it’s amazing. “New Year’s Day” is one of Taylor's few ballads she has written and released since her transition from country into pop. If I were you, I would definitely take a listen.

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”

As we all know, Taylor likes to voice her opinion on things in song form, and she usually has a “diss track” on each album. On 1989, her last album, it was her hit “Bad Blood.” Her Album before that, Red, it was “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” On reputation, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” is the diss track. Taylor has beef with many people (I could go on about how dumb people are, but I won’t) and one person she really is not getting along with is Mr. Kanye West. It started in 2009, when he took the mic away from her while she was making a speech for winning Video of The Year at the VMA’s. Ever since then they have made up but then something else goes wrong. This song is all about why they can’t have nice things because they always get ruined. This song is personally one of my favorite shady songs Taylor has written. If you are in a really salty mood, listen to this on repeat.

“Dress”

If I am being honest, I love it when Taylor writes songs that are a little bit on the scandalous side, and "Dress" is definitely showing us the side of Taylor we never see. If you would have told me a few years ago that Taylor Swift would write a lyric like “Only bought this dress so you could take it off,” I would have laughed. I am definitely a fan of this side of Taylor.

There is this quote Taylor said “I think it is important that you know that I will never change. But I will never stay the same either.” and I think that quote represents reputation.