Jon Caramanica in the New York Times, following up on her announcement last week re purchasing her masters.
Declining to revisit “Reputation” underscores both the limits of technology to recreate a work of tactile art, and also honors its divisive-at-the-time rawness. “Reputation” was an argument that artists should take attacks personally, and then use them as fuel. It almost sounds like the product of a dare — take Swift, one of the most careful songwriters of her era, and expose her to some of the most scabrous production in pop, so defiant that it forces her to adjust her vocal approach and tone.