What a glorious promotional campaign it was! Removing everything from YouTube, mysterious teasers, mischievous video for Look What You Made Me Do that showed too much of everything, hidden messages, and then the list of all the people Taylor Swift ever had a war with. All of this so that we can get - Reputation. Back in the day, pop singers would talk about their meltdowns, breakups and rehabs before album release, and now, in 2017, we are talking about Taylor Swift's fights.
Taylor and her creative military did not disappoint. We have expected revolution, and we got revolution in nail polish bottle. Long story short, Reputation and its predecessor are way more similar than what we thought when we heard bombastic Look What You Made Me Do. Taylor continues with dance-pop seldomly wrapped up in country and pop-balladry. Sometimes, it gives fabulous results, such as in Don't Blame Me, a song that could easily be part of Elton John's catalogue. Plentiful of electronic elements keep this song in the domain of pop music reserved for pop princes and pop princesses who have enough money to sample the sound of bird milk squirting.
Reputation is a type of album where more is less. Too much information prevents you from enjoying it fully. It would be much easier to listen to this set as a series of typical love songs, than to know who was she arguing with or who wanted to hook up with her. Swift's mastermind producers Max Martin and Shellback have made sure that the album has a spine with catchy pop vertebras. Taylor knows how to prevent pop from turning into poop on her own, but with the help of Max Martin, she adds up a bit more dollars on her bank account. In my humble opinion, If Taylor wants to become a prima donna of pop music, she will have to find a way to make her music less saturated with modern ornaments, desperate to infect younger audiences. New Year's Day is a solid example that she doesn't need fancy producers and synths to sound good.
To conclude, the form is partially changed, while the content remained the same. Promotional claims that old Taylor is dead were only stunts. Mediocre property of Reputation proves yet again that owning a throne has its price.
