A Reputation Retrospective: What Worked, What Didn’t, & How Taylor Swift Stayed On Top

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The new Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.

I’ll always remember the first time I listened to Taylor Swift’s polarizing 2017 comeback, “Look What You Made Me Do”. I remember what I said to my sister, perhaps the biggest Swiftie in my life, when I finished – “It’s good, but I can’t believe that’s a Taylor Swift song.” I remember my uneasy feeling about the song and its implications for the album to come. I convinced myself the song was good (I admit now it’s lacking the bite it desires), but I found her claiming her old self dead disturbing. What would the album cycle to come hold?

15 months later, on November 21, 2018, the reputation Stadium Tour played its final date in Tokyo and brought the era to a close. By the era’s end, reputation collected 4.5 million album sales (down from 1989‘s 10 million, but an unmatchable feat in today’s sales climate regardless), 1.8 billion YouTube views, and the highest grossing US tour… ever. How did the songstress transform her downfall into her greatest strength?

A shot from the “Look” video, courtesy of Rolling Stone.

Well, as someone who listens to a new Taylor Swift song whenever it comes out, I think the pre-release songs were released in the perfect order. Barring swapping “Look What You Made Me Do” with “I Did Something Bad” (an album track) which may have been a more bombastic choice that served the same purpose, the order of the four songs released before the album was genius. First, “Look” unsettled the audience. Swifties everywhere were supportive, but confused. The quick follow-up, “…Ready For It?”, told audiences that the first single was not a fluke— this “New Taylor” is here to stay.

Then, Swift again subverted expectations with “Gorgeous”, a bubblegum pop song about being in love. I was unsettled once more: regardless of how much I enjoyed the song, how did this fit into the image Swift was building? What did this have to do with Swift’s reputation, and how did it remotely fit the album? And then, like an angel appearing from above came “Call It What You Want”, which flawlessly tied together the themes of the album: “All the drama queens taking swings/All the jokers dressing up as kings/They fade to nothing when I look at him”. And suddenly, it was like everything made sense. Reputation is not an album expressly about Swift’s reputation; it is an album about reacting to and healing from public crucifixion, and in one starlet’s particular case, how true love played a role in that process.

The Reputation album cover, courtesy of Billboard.

That being said, the general public did not have the same viewpoint as those who followed the album release did. They only knew the new, bad girl image that Swift was pushing, and the radios spamming “Look”, “Ready”, and third single “End Game” (featuring Future, no less) did nothing to help this. The fact is, the public didn’t like or want this from her. While those with the greatest investment in the singer’s life and drama may have been “snatched” by this kind of response to her public misfortunes, most of America would simply prefer the relatable, vulnerable pop star they signed up for.

Enter “Delicate”. Considered by many to be the song that saved the era, the single was a fan-favorite from the moment the album dropped due to its subtle groove, clever use of vocoder, and emotional honesty. More importantly, the song and video marked a huge shift in image, and a return to the quirky, approachable Swift of the past. “Delicate” may not have been a giant smash hit, but it spent 35 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, showing refreshing longevity after how quickly the first three singles dropped from the chart.

Swift having fun in the rain in the “Delicate” video, courtesy of larkcreative.tv

And then there’s the tour. Despite backlash at first (starting to see a theme?) with Swift Tix and the competitive pricing strategy she employed, the Reputation tour sold out every US and Asia date (possibly Europe and Oceania too, but the official numbers aren’t out). Plus, I’ll say it again, the tour became the highest grossing US tour of all time. Not to mention, this achievement was made with about half the dates of #2 on the list, The Rolling Stones’ 2007 A Bigger Bang Tour.

All this being said, many people would still call the Reputation era an underperformance by Swift’s standards, due to the lack of smash singles and relative negative response from the public towards her image change. I’d like to take a different perspective: the Reputation era is what a successful album cycle looks like in 2018. The truth is, artists do not make money from streaming. Yes, the megastars might make a pretty check from it, but this is nothing compared to pure sales in the past. Money in the 2018 music industry exists in touring. And the Reputation tour wasn’t just successful – it’s number one.

Just one of the sold-out crowds Swift played to on tour, courtesy of Eonline.

Singles used to exist to sell albums. Then albums became platforms to include a couple hit singles with room for artistic exploration, or just plain filler. Nowadays, albums exist to be bloated just for the purposes of building streaming numbers, or simply to promote tours themselves. With this perspective, Reputation very literally couldn’t have done a better job.

With all this in mind, the Reputation era is not completely done yet. Grammys nominations are upon us, after all, and Swift has always been a critic’s darling. I would not be surprised to see this era finishing with a win, marking a final crowning moment on an era that may as well have redefined what success means for the modern music industry.

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