The 12-time Grammy-winning pop titan, Taylor Swift is currently out on her Eras Tour, which is probably aiming to be the highest-grossing tour of all time. She recently closed out the 2023 leg of her tour in November and will be resuming her shows again from February 7th, 2024 in Tokyo, Japan. In 2023, Swift announced the release of two of her re-recorded albums, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), in two different Eras Tour shows. However, fans, or as they are more famously called ‘Swifties’ were convinced that they would also receive the release date for her most highly anticipated re-recorded album, Reputation (Taylor’s Version) before her final show in 2023. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, but leading up to her last concert in 2023, Taylor did not forget to drop some major hints and clues on the fact that Reputation, may just be her next release.
Even though Taylor is good at hiding her easter eggs, her fans or ‘swifties’ have been quick enough to catch up to all the clues. One of the initial hints was found when the pop star dropped her music video for her song ‘Karma’ featuring Ice Spice. In one scene of the video, Swift held a coffee cup, where two of her thumbs were prominently visible, one was painted blue for her album 1989 and the other was painted black for Reputation. The coffee had a clock designed on top, and her black nail was pointed towards the ‘2’, which might mean that Reputation (TV) might come out in February (the second month) of 2024. In another scene of the music video, we find Taylor’s hair, makeup, and even her costume styled as per the theme of the Reputation era.
The next hint came up when fans started receiving the vinyl editions of 1989 (Taylor’s Version). As they unpacked the vinyl, fans spotted a black confetti star amongst the blue confetti stars. ‘Swifties’ took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share their findings, misinterpreting this easter egg initially as a manufacturing error. However, they quickly realized the packaging is just another clue that Reputation (Taylor’s Version) is indeed coming soon!
Speculation among fans increased more when Swift amazed them by sneaking songs from Reputation (Taylor’s Version) into the two seasons of the Prime Video series The Summer I Turned Pretty and in a trailer for another Prime Video series Wilderness. The first song from the album that aired was ‘Delicate (Taylor’s Version)’ in one of the episodes of the former series. The latter series had the song ‘Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)’ as the show’s soundtrack.
Major hints and rumors arose when fans theorized that Taylor was apparently “counting down” to the announcement of the album in question, with the order of surprise songs she performed at two shows leading up to November 26, 2023. The show that took place on 24th November 2023 featured the surprise songs from the albums 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and following the very next day the 25th November 2023 show had surprise songs from the albums Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version). This series of events assured Swifties that Taylor was probably going in a backward direction from the most recent re-recording (1989) to the first re-recording (Fearless) and hence, they predicted Swift would probably play a surprise song from Reputation on November 26th show, most presumably “I Did Something Bad”, as that was the only song that was left to be played from the album, as it hadn’t been played till then on the Eras Tour. Unfortunately, she didn’t perform it, instead, she presented the fans with two other surprise songs, ‘Safe and Sound’ and ‘Untouchable’.
Another major Reputation (Taylor’s Version) hint would be the cover art for ‘1989’ re-release, where the lettering in ‘Taylor’s Version’ appeared a bit suspicious as the ‘S’ in ‘Version’ looks like a snake, which is one of the main symbols of the ‘Reputation’ album. As of 31st August 2023, Ed Sheeran confirmed that he was yet to re-record “End Game”, a song from the album in speculation.
Swifties are expecting a handful of “from the vault” tracks, something which she had been including in all her re-recorded albums. The “From the Vault” tracks consist of songs that were originally written for the albums but didn’t make the final cut. In a recent interview with TIME magazine, where she was honored with the 2023 Person of the Year title, Taylor promised that the vault tracks from the Reputation (TV) will be “fire”. Swift also said that the “Reputation” era was “a goth-punk moment of female rage” with themes of black and a lot of snakes.
With her growing empire in music and currently being a musical artist worth $1 billion, which she has earned solely through her music, her radiant reputation is purely thriving. She has become the main character of the world and her fame and stardom can truly be felt in the air. Her fans are patiently waiting with extremely high expectations for the re-recording of ‘Reputation’, but we all can be rest assured that Swift will not only match up to it but might also end up hitting a point way higher than our imagination.
Edited by: Anna Duffell