The world of generic, electronic, synth-pop music was once again rocked on November 10 with the release of Taylor Swift’s sixth and, god willingly, last studio album, Reputation.
The first single Swift released, “Look What You Made Me Do,” perfectly encompasses the tone and style of the entire album.
The song’s beat, directly lifted from Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy,” is boring and generic. The lyrics highlight everything wrong with Swift’s entitled, self-victimized attitude. The song’s refrain puts direct blame on the world around her, taking no responsibility for her own actions. “Look what the world made Taylor do,” because nothing is ever her fault. And finally, the music video, which many theorists suspect includes direct allusions to Beyoncé’s “Formation” and imagery indicative of the recent robbery and attack of Kim Kardashian, wife of Swift’s known rival Kanye West, is unimaginative and visually unappealing.
The song is nothing but a weak attempt to shock an unshockable audience, to cause controversy and gossip as the world slowly forgets her name.
Similar to the actions of fellow pop stars Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus, a key element of Swift’s Reputation is the adoption of certain elements of black culture. She employs the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and produces what the internet has assumed to be a terrible attempt at rapping in her song “Ready For It”.
Reputation has also been deemed by critics as the ‘sexiest’ Taylor Swift album to date. In the risk of veering too far off the topic of the quality of Swift’s music, I must point out that it is no coincidence that when Swift, Perry and Cyrus want to experiment with their sexuality, they choose to do so by adopting clothes and language associated with black culture. What these women see as a publicity stunt is also a subtle reinforcement of our society’s hyper sexualization of black women.
I have no doubt that, similar to Cyrus, Swift will soon get bored of her newly acquired “blackness” and drop it with the same speed she picked it up. If Swift’s reputation survives to see a seventh album, I predict now it will be about her journey to rediscover her country roots, hideously reminiscent of Cyrus’s Younger Now.
But until then, there is no way to get around the fact that Swift’s new album is simply not good. The lyrics are unimaginative, the beats are generic and the style of music Swift has chosen does nothing to help her clear lack of rhythm and vocal skill.
Reputation was expected to be the emergence of a new Taylor Swift, but what fans got instead was another rendition of the same entitled, cookie-cutter pop star.
