On...Taylor Swift's Reputation

It's Monday, November 10 -- and, aside from my birthday, it's also:

1. Reputation's birthday and

2. the day Duke freshmen registered for Spring semester classes.

Wierd thing to pair together, I know but hear me out: in my other professional life, I teach a Taylor Swift focused writing course, which I'll be offering in the Spring ( VERY much looking forward to teaching this new album). So as we're wrapping up all things Disney in the Fall, I've got half an eye on the Spring and Taylor on the brain.

AND because it's my birthday, as I was out getting my birthday coffee, I may or may not have been blasting Reputation in the car. It's my birthday, it's Rep's birthday, Rep is my favorite album -- it just made sense. It also makes perfect sense that Rep and I share a birthday because Rep is absolutely, 100% a Scorpio.

Sidebar -- some things about me:

• I fully believe in science. All the way. Full stop.

• I also kinda believe in astrology and the zodiac. Not so much the "daily horoscope is always accurate so absolutely use to guide all of your life decisions" kind of way, but more the "some things about celestial alignment ARE eerily accurate."

• I also very much believe that we don't know everything about the connection between this world and ourselves. It's really not that long ago that we didn't know what "bacteria" and "germs" were, or that the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system -- so who am I to say that the full moon doesn't have an effect on our behavior or that Mercury being in retrograde doesn't make technology go wonky?

2nd Sidebar: I wasn't always a Swiftie.

• Pre-2022: I knew her radio hits, liked most of 1989, was busy with a newborn in the NICU during Rep, liked a few of the songs on Lover, wrinkled my nose up at folkmore (I KNOW.)

• My internalized misogyny and I bought into the media narrative about her "serial dating" and the way she "blew through men."

• Then, I discovered Midnights, fell madly in love with her songwriting, and now I teach a course on her music.

The point is: since working my way through her entire discography -- as one must do when one is eating one's own words -- Reputation has always been my favorite album and I remain flummoxed -- flummoxed I tell you! -- that it was ever widely disparaged.

Because I've seen Miss Americana -- I know it wasn't nominated for any Grammys and Taylor took that disappointment and internalized it so strongly that she produced an album the exact antithesis of Rep in every way.

Logically, I understand that the Kimye drama and #TaylorSwiftIsOver shitshow colored people's perceptions of it.

I even get that the album may have been judged by its initial singles and not the deeper cuts, which are genuinely the strongest tracks.

Look, this is an absolute NO SKIPS album for me -- the only one of Taylor's albums that's No Skips for me.

And "LWYMMD," "End Game" and "Ready For It" are all great tracks in their own right.

But the storytelling in "Getaway Car"? Perfection.

The 3-song-sequence of "King of My Heart" + "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" + "Dress"? LOVE IT.

The cackle right before the "I can't even say it with a straight face" in "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things"? Deliciously petty.

The quiet anxieties of "Delicate" and "New Year's Day"? Heartachingly vulnerable.

The softly spoken "At least I did one thing right"s of "Call It What You Want" that seem like Taylor trying to convince herself? Painfully familiar.

It has never surprised me that Rep is a Scorpio album (it's honestly more surprising to me that Fearless is -- it's my least favorite album of Taylor's). While fans will quickly point to Red and evermore has Taylor's quintessential Autumn Albums, they usually classify Rep as a winter album, which...No. (But actually kind of tracks because Scorpios are one of the most misunderstood signs. We're water signs for instance, not fire signs.)

After all, Scorpios are most often described as passionate, loyal, determined, intuitive, mysterious, resourceful -- and also stubborn, jealous, and vindictive. Is that not Rep in a nutshell?!

For me, a Scorpio is an (insecure) softy, wrapped in a tough, armored outer shell.

It makes sense that songs like "Look What You Made Me Do" and "End Game" were the lead singles: they help underscore that "tough" outer shell, the first impression of the album. You get lines like "all I think about is karma" and "maybe I got mine but you'll all get yours" and "I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put 'em" that absolutely speak to Scoprio's vindictive & petty nature -- as well as our loyalty to holding grudges.

But you also get lines like these:

• KoMH's "I'm perfectly fine, I live on my own / I made up my mind I'm better off being alone" --> the independence Scorpios fiercely cling to (and also evokes those moments on Life of a Showgirl where Taylor writes about how she put up the facade of being happy single and unmarried)

• KoMH's "Your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep / Change my priorities" --> still a little bit of that "playing it close to her chest" vibes, but definitely hinting at the romance

• All of "Gorgeous" is basically determined Scorpio going after what she wants

• "Dress" -- passionate Scorpio. 'Nuff said.

• NYD's "I can tell that it's gonna be a long road / I'll be there if you're the toast of the town babe / Or if you strike out and you're crawling home" --> Loyal Scorpio

• CIWYW's "All the liars are calling me one / Nobody's heard from me for months / I'm doing better than I ever was" --> Mysteriously, secretive Scorpio

I could go on -- I think both "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" and "Call It What You Want" are some of the most achingly beautiful (and relatable, IMO) songs Taylor has ever written that are also just so Scorpio coded. The part of DWOHT when she sings "I loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us" and "I'm a mess but I'm the mess that you wanted"? Or my favorite bridge on the album, where Taylor literally invokes "late November" when "slowly I said, You don't need to save me / But would you run away with me?"

This is, hands down, her most romantic album, and I will die on that hill. And I love it for that -- and because it's not the fairy-tale romance of Fearless but a very real, raw, complex romance of someone "whose flowers grew back as thorns."

Also -- coming into the Swiftie fandom when I did, I never fully understood the accusations that she "can't sing." Is she Ariana Grande? No. And I genuinely believe that "vibrato" isn't the defining feature of a great musical artist.

(Truly, y'all. My other favorite musician is Billy Joel.)

Because have you heard "Don't Blame Me"?!?

Take us to church, Taylor.

Anyway, Happy Scorpio Birthday to Me, and to Reputation.

They could never make me hate you.

And I will keep clowning for my Rep Vault Tracks until they hatch.