Taylor Swift Jumps Into the Hip-Hop/R&B Universe with “Reputation”

Taylor Swift returns with her sixth album, Reputation.

Nasirah Calloway, Staff Writer

One of the world’s biggest-selling artists has released her sixth studio album in the past few weeks and after selling over 40 million records in her previous releases, Taylor Swift has reinvented herself again with a move to the  Hip-Hop/R&B genre. 

This recreation of herself has caused a lot of buzz surrounding the new album Reputation . And, although there are lots of amazing songs on this new album, there are also lots of disappointments. And, this can be proven true with almost every album. Not everyone is going to like every song on an album. However, there is always a reason why these certain songs are considered bad. And from listening to Reputation, the reason why most of these songs are bad is because it’s not the genre of music that Taylor Swift usually puts out. There’s a new beat, new lyrics(No, not all about one of her ex-boyfriends), and overall, a new theme.

To this point in her career, Taylor has lived the dream of any music superstar.  She left for Nashville, TN at the age of 14 and within three years, she had signed a record contract and had hits that were appearing on the Billboard top 200 music charts.  According to wikipedia, she has made over $280 million dollars in her career and “is also the recipient of 10 Grammy Awards, five Guinness World Records, one Emmy Award, 21 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Country Music Association Awards, eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and one Brit Award.”

With all of that success, one might find it strange to have her completely reinvent herself, but this is the path that she has continually set for herself in her career.  For example, the first album Taylor Swift put out which is called Taylor Swift, was really Country and mostly about herself and a little about her ex boyfriend. And the second album Fearless is more Pop. Now, in 2017 her album Reputation is more of Hip Hop and R&B mixed with Pop. Some even say a specific scenes in Taylor Swift’s music video Look What You Made Me Do copies off of Beyonce’s music video Formation. The scene seems almost identical in any of the videos that one might be able to watch off of youtube.

Now, from listening to the whole album, it’s not terrible. Actually, my favorite song is “Gorgeous.” The song is about Taylor’s Swift’s crush on her boyfriend and how she finds him really gorgeous. This song’s beat is more like her past songs that she put out. This may be one of the reasons why I like it and probably many others.

My least favorite song is Look What You Made Me Do. Not only is there a lot of unnecessary shade thrown in the video, but the combination of Pop and Hip-Hop/R&B is absolutely horrifying. They are just two genre’s of music that aren’t supposed to be together. The way she jumps from Hip Hop to Pop; it sounds forced. Other than that the album is okay with plenty of songs that you will enjoy. In my opinion, no songs will hit the top of the charts because they are unfamiliar to Taylor Swift’s audience. It will take some adjusting.

However, I’m sure everyone will soon begin to like Taylor Swift’s new music, because she has been very successful in everything she has done to this point in her career.