Revisiting reputation (I'm a reputation Apologist)
This tale begins, like most good tales, in Las Vegas, NV a few months ago.
I was hungover, unable to sleep due to the pounding in my head, and desperate for any kind of distraction to take my mind away from my physical state.
At around this time, Karlie Kloss was a trending topic on Twitter because she got roasted on Project Runway for being a secret Kushner. It was here that I stumbled upon a delightful and revelatory conspiracy theory tucked deep into the twitterverse.
Reader, brace yourself. This delightful and revelatory conspiracy theory is that Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss are covertly, but also kinda high key, madly in love.
I know what you're thinking: Taylor Swift who is as famous for dating strings of high profile men as she is for her music? Taylor Swift who writes most of her music about all of the famous men she is romantically linked to? Taylor Swift who is honestly kind of extra about whichever famous dude she's with at the time? Nahhhhhhh.
Buuuuuuut...the conspiracy theory actually kinda fits. The exact ways in which it fits are better left for a different blog post, but suffice it to say, I became as much of a believer as a jaded millennial can be in this day and age. Mulder had his X-Files and I had my Kaylor theory.
Taylor Swift is famous for writing songs about her actual life and romantic adventures. So the theory goes that many Taylor Swift songs are actually about Karlie Kloss. There's debate about which specific ones, but the Kaylor conspiracy theorists focus on specific songs from the 1989, reputation, and Lover albums.
When the Lover album came out in 2019, I blasted it in its entirety over and over on repeat. My Mom bought me the record on vinyl for Christmas (Thanks Mom!). I had discussions with other millennial women about 1) the album's quality (answer: sublime), and 2) how it compared to her previous work. Convention millennial wisdom holds that while 1989 is a classic (and perhaps Swift's magnum opus), reputation was a disappointment, and Lover was a return to form.
Taylor Swift addressed this in the Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. It's like the only album she's put out that wasn't a super mega success, I also think the only one that was never nominated for any serious awards.
reputation was released in 2017, a time when Taylor Swift was over exposed and facing a lot of public backlash. She was doing goofy shit like dating Tom Hiddleston, and they would go to the beach and he would wear goofy cringey shirts that men his age should not be wearing. She was publicly beefing with her ex, Calvin Harris, for some reason I can't really remember. Kanye West released a song that had some gross lines about her, and then released a music video that featured a realistic naked Taylor Swift. And then when Swift tried to say it was wack, Kim Kardashian released an excerpt of a surreptitiously recorded phone call that mis-characterized a conversation Swift and West had. She was doing further goofy shit like having a "squad" with other famous and glamorous women. The public was anti-Taylor. She acknowledges all of these things in Miss Americana (and has been vindicated by the recent release of the full recording of the phone call she had with West). And this is the context in which she wrote reputation.
reputation sounded different from most things she had done- the lead single was Look What You Made Me Do. She hyped it with CGI snakes in the marketing and generally kinda leaned into being a villain. It was a bitter album. Again, it did not sound like anything she had really done before. I did not like it when it first came out and was concerned that Taylor was losing her magical ability to make absolute bops.
So prior to investigating the Taylor Swift Karlie Kloss in love theory, I had not listened to reputation in its entirety or even revisited the singles I had heard. The songs that Kaylor believers focus on are usually deep cuts, so I revisited 1989 and reputation in their entireties. It led me to two conclusions:
1) Some songs on both albums (as well as Lover), are absolutely...probably...ok, maybe potentially about Karlie Kloss. And...
2) reputation slaps
reputation slaps. There are obvious choices of songs someone would like. Gorgeous is catchy (and maybe about Kloss). Delicate is fun to sing in your car. But even the deep cuts are sick. I Did Something Bad is has some pretty fun lyrics with a strong bassline that lends itself to dancing and/or cardio exercise. Don't Blame Me is a solid bop. Dress is straight up sexy. Dancing With Our Hands Tied is my personal favorite. I tear up during New Year's Day when I think of all of the people in my life who have become strangers whose laugh I could recognize anywhere. It's one of the rare times I feel cool for learning piano instead of guitar.
I revisited reputation solely to investigate Kaylor theories, and now it's an album I just put on because I enjoy every song on it. It's the Swift album I have up most on my rotation now. Maybe I'm drawn to it on a deeply subconscious level because the album was misunderstood and complex and different. Or maybe I'm drawn to it because it just objectively slaps. Either way, I'm glad I was hungover in Vegas, looking for solace in a twitter rabbit hole.
I was hungover, unable to sleep due to the pounding in my head, and desperate for any kind of distraction to take my mind away from my physical state.
At around this time, Karlie Kloss was a trending topic on Twitter because she got roasted on Project Runway for being a secret Kushner. It was here that I stumbled upon a delightful and revelatory conspiracy theory tucked deep into the twitterverse.
Reader, brace yourself. This delightful and revelatory conspiracy theory is that Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss are covertly, but also kinda high key, madly in love.
I know what you're thinking: Taylor Swift who is as famous for dating strings of high profile men as she is for her music? Taylor Swift who writes most of her music about all of the famous men she is romantically linked to? Taylor Swift who is honestly kind of extra about whichever famous dude she's with at the time? Nahhhhhhh.
Buuuuuuut...the conspiracy theory actually kinda fits. The exact ways in which it fits are better left for a different blog post, but suffice it to say, I became as much of a believer as a jaded millennial can be in this day and age. Mulder had his X-Files and I had my Kaylor theory.
Taylor Swift is famous for writing songs about her actual life and romantic adventures. So the theory goes that many Taylor Swift songs are actually about Karlie Kloss. There's debate about which specific ones, but the Kaylor conspiracy theorists focus on specific songs from the 1989, reputation, and Lover albums.
When the Lover album came out in 2019, I blasted it in its entirety over and over on repeat. My Mom bought me the record on vinyl for Christmas (Thanks Mom!). I had discussions with other millennial women about 1) the album's quality (answer: sublime), and 2) how it compared to her previous work. Convention millennial wisdom holds that while 1989 is a classic (and perhaps Swift's magnum opus), reputation was a disappointment, and Lover was a return to form.
Taylor Swift addressed this in the Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. It's like the only album she's put out that wasn't a super mega success, I also think the only one that was never nominated for any serious awards.
reputation was released in 2017, a time when Taylor Swift was over exposed and facing a lot of public backlash. She was doing goofy shit like dating Tom Hiddleston, and they would go to the beach and he would wear goofy cringey shirts that men his age should not be wearing. She was publicly beefing with her ex, Calvin Harris, for some reason I can't really remember. Kanye West released a song that had some gross lines about her, and then released a music video that featured a realistic naked Taylor Swift. And then when Swift tried to say it was wack, Kim Kardashian released an excerpt of a surreptitiously recorded phone call that mis-characterized a conversation Swift and West had. She was doing further goofy shit like having a "squad" with other famous and glamorous women. The public was anti-Taylor. She acknowledges all of these things in Miss Americana (and has been vindicated by the recent release of the full recording of the phone call she had with West). And this is the context in which she wrote reputation.
reputation sounded different from most things she had done- the lead single was Look What You Made Me Do. She hyped it with CGI snakes in the marketing and generally kinda leaned into being a villain. It was a bitter album. Again, it did not sound like anything she had really done before. I did not like it when it first came out and was concerned that Taylor was losing her magical ability to make absolute bops.
So prior to investigating the Taylor Swift Karlie Kloss in love theory, I had not listened to reputation in its entirety or even revisited the singles I had heard. The songs that Kaylor believers focus on are usually deep cuts, so I revisited 1989 and reputation in their entireties. It led me to two conclusions:
1) Some songs on both albums (as well as Lover), are absolutely...probably...ok, maybe potentially about Karlie Kloss. And...
2) reputation slaps
reputation slaps. There are obvious choices of songs someone would like. Gorgeous is catchy (and maybe about Kloss). Delicate is fun to sing in your car. But even the deep cuts are sick. I Did Something Bad is has some pretty fun lyrics with a strong bassline that lends itself to dancing and/or cardio exercise. Don't Blame Me is a solid bop. Dress is straight up sexy. Dancing With Our Hands Tied is my personal favorite. I tear up during New Year's Day when I think of all of the people in my life who have become strangers whose laugh I could recognize anywhere. It's one of the rare times I feel cool for learning piano instead of guitar.
I revisited reputation solely to investigate Kaylor theories, and now it's an album I just put on because I enjoy every song on it. It's the Swift album I have up most on my rotation now. Maybe I'm drawn to it on a deeply subconscious level because the album was misunderstood and complex and different. Or maybe I'm drawn to it because it just objectively slaps. Either way, I'm glad I was hungover in Vegas, looking for solace in a twitter rabbit hole.
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