It’s August 2017, and Taylor Swift deletes her entire Instagram feed to announce her forthcoming album, reputation, with a video of a hissing snake. Then the album art drops. This is a new Taylor Swift. She is poised and expressionless against a background of newspaper clippings that print her name over and over again. Six days later she shares the first single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” The message is clear: Swift wants you to know she isn’t going to put up with how the media treats her anymore. She doesn’t like how she lost control of her own narrative, how the Kanye drama spiraled and came to a head after “Famous” in 2016, and she’s angry. Only, it’s 2017. We’re nearly one year post-election and in the midst of an unprecedented distrust in the media inspired by the constant all-caps whining of President Donald Trump. The timing couldn’t be worse; the optics are bad. This Taylor Swift album appears to be aligning itself with the Trumpian narrative, and, in turn, reputation is perceived by some as a political statement. Online, she’s opined to be petty, exhausting, and playing the victim. Hence, reputation didn’t really sell. (It’s her second lowest selling record, if you want to get all capitalist about it.) And yet, its critical reviews were glowing across the board. The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica called it “bombastic, unexpected, sneakily potent.” Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield called it “her most intimate album,” and Variety cal… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
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Three Years After reputation It’s Time to Accept It As Taylor Swift’s Best Album
