{"id":101,"date":"2017-11-15T22:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T22:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/?p=101"},"modified":"2023-04-05T19:49:48","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T19:49:48","slug":"students-react-to-taylor-swifts-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/students-react-to-taylor-swifts-reputation","title":{"rendered":"Students react to Taylor Swift\u2019s \u2018Reputation\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We talked to some Ryerson students to see what they think of Taylor Swift<\/a>\u2019s new album. RUTV News reporter Sarah Chew has the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you were \u201cReady For It\u201d or not, Taylor Swift\u2019s sixth studio album, \u2018Reputation,\u2019 dropped on Friday. \u2018Reputation\u2019 features the hit single \u201cLook What You Made Me Do\u201d along with 14 other new tracks. The songs build on Swift\u2019s new sound from her last album, \u20181989\u2019 \u2014 poppy, electronic tracks that seem to suggest the guitar-strumming, country crooning Swift is long gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you listen a little closer, you can hear notes of country Swift coming through. The attention to detail in the lyrics is one example in this. In \u201cEnd Game\u201d Swift sings, \u201cI wanna be your A-team,\u201d \u2014 a clever nod to a popular song from Ed Sheeran, who is featured on the song. It\u2019s not subtle, but it\u2019s a classic Easter egg that makes Swift\u2019s songwriting stand out (she\u2019s featured as a writer on every one of the album\u2019s 15 songs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overwhelming theme of the album comes across in lyrics about being happy in love and not caring what anyone else has to say about it. \u201cHe built a fire just to keep me warm\/All the drama queens taking swings\/All the jokers dressing up as kings\/ They fade to nothing when I look at him,\u201d Swift sings in \u201cCall It What You Want.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans have speculated that the songs go through Swift\u2019s journey of meeting now-boyfriend Joe Alwyn while dating Tom Hiddleston (who may have been a rebound from Calvin Harris. Keeping track of all of this?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another theme featured heavily in the album is revenge \u2014 not only towards ex-boyfriends, but also towards celebrities. \u201cThis Is Why We Can\u2019t Have Nice Things\u201d seems to be a thinly veiled jab at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, with whom Swift fought publicly. After singing about a mind-twisting phone call (recall Kardashian released a recording of Swift on the phone), for a short moment, it seems Swift has decided to forgo her anger in favour of forgiveness. \u201cHere\u2019s to you\/\u2018Cause forgiveness is a nice thing to do,\u201d she sings, drawing out the last syllable before laughing and saying, \u201cI can\u2019t even say it with a straight face.\u201d Forgiveness? Maybe not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last song on the album, \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day,\u201d concludes the story of Swift\u2019s romance in a melodic and beautiful way. She sings about staying to clean up bottles on New Year\u2019s Day: \u201cDon\u2019t read the last page\/But I stay when it\u2019s hard, or it\u2019s wrong\/Or we\u2019re making mistakes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the fast, electronic songs that precede it, this track is almost haunting in its vulnerability. Swift is laying herself out on the line with the kind of blinding hope and optimism for love that her older songs are full of. \u201cPlease don\u2019t ever become a stranger\/Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere,\u201d she sings. The lyric repeats, and soft piano chords fade out into silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although that song would have fit right in during the \u20181989\u2019 era of the \u201cYou Are In Love\u201d ballad, it stands out starkly compared to the rest of the album. It is clear from the first 14 tracks that Swift meant it when, in the first single released, she sung, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, the old Taylor can\u2019t come to the phone right now. Oh why? \u2018Cause she\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if the \u201cold Taylor\u201d is dead, then \u2018Reputation\u2019 is Swift clawing her way back up to the top by laughing in love and getting the last word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students react to Taylor Swift’s new album, Reputation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}