"This was actually the first time I've ever wrote an album based on a title first - I'd never come up with a title before. So, the whole time that I was writing an album based on all the facets of a reputation and how it affects you, what it actually means to you, I was surrounded by friends and family and loved ones who never loved me less based on the fluctuations of public opinion, and those people all know who they are.
I always look at albums as chapters in my life. To the fans - I'm so happy that you like this one. I'm so happy that this means that you liked this one. But I have to be… I have to be really honest with you about something: I'm even more excited about the next chapter."
October 9, 2018: Taylor accepts an award for 'Favorite Album' at the AMAs. (source)
(FLASHING LIGHTS) so so so feral about the lighting for this entire tour but in particular the animation with the light bracelets is SO COOL. eras tour 2023-05-20 gillette night 2
What's awful is that while I was always so sure that Reputation would be the album she'd have the most fun rerecording because it was just pure love and retaking control of the narrative.......now it might end up being the most painful
Making friendship posters for all the albums, Starting with my favourite album folklore. (no idea why Tumblr demolished my quality rip). Which album should I do next ?
realised yesterday just how often hozier actually used to sing about being not quite alive, not feeling like a person, about loving someone in a way that defies death and made him more alive, about suffering death for love. it's like he was constantly being buried underground and unearthed by love, over and over, which, while romantic in a way, is also incredibly sad. but i think it's interesting how his latest album (literally called 'unreal unearth') takes this idea and makes it its central theme. that's what this album is, one man's descent into the underworld. except, crucially, he makes it to the other side, and ends the album saying the darkness will come again, but this time he is "never going back [to hell] again." it feels like such a full-circle moment considering the rest of his discography and i'm so very excited to see what comes after this
Here's something I've learned about people.
We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us. We know our friend in a certain light, but we don't know them the way their lover does. Just the way their lover will never know them the same way that you do as their friend. Their mother knows them differently than their roommate, who knows them differently than their colleague. Their secret admirer looks at them and sees an elaborate sunset of brilliant color and dimension and spirit and pricelessness. And yet, a stranger will pass that person and see a faceless member of the crowd, nothing more. We may hear rumors about a person and believe those things to be true. We may one day meet that person and feel foolish for believing baseless gossip.
This is the first generation that will be able to look back on their entire life story documented in pictures on the internet, and together we will all discover the after-effects of that. Ultimately, we post photos online to curate what strangers think of us. But then we wake up, look in the mirror at our faces and see the cracks and scars and blemishes, and cringe. We hope someday we'll meet someone who will see that same morning face and instead see their future, their partner, their forever. Someone who will still choose us even when they see all of the sides of the story, all the angles of the kaleidoscope that is you.
The point being, despite our need to simplify and generalize absolutely everyone and everything in this life, humans are intrinsically impossible to simplify. We are never just good or just bad. We are mosaics of our worst selves and our best selves, our deepest secrets and our favorite stories to tell at a dinner party, existing somewhere between our well-lit profile photo and our drivers license shot. We are all a mixture of our selfishness and generosity, loyalty and self-preservation, pragmatism and impulsiveness. I've been in the public eye since I was 15 years old. On the beautiful, lovely side of that, I've been so lucky to make music for living and look out into crowds of loving, vibrant people. On the other side of the coin, my mistakes have been used against me, my heartbreaks have been used as entertainment, and my songwriting has been trivialized as 'oversharing'.
When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory, because it's 2017 and if you didn't see a picture of it, it couldn't have happened right?
Let me say it again, louder for those in the back…
We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them that they have chosen to show us.
There will be no further explanation
There will be just reputation.
November 10, 2017: Taylor releases Reputation, offering a simple prologue as the only 'explanation' for the controversial record, even implying that theories regarding the identity of her muse will be 'incorrect'. (source)