The answer is, I think, the pandemic and the folklore / evermore duo of lyrical complexity that Taylor Swift innovated. It seemed this was the peak of her career. But really it was the beginning of the end. Let me explain.
reputation was made in notoriety. Taylor had been embarrassed by her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. This isolation pushed her to make the best music of her career.
folklore and Midnights are made in the shadow of reputation. folklore does have the benefit of being made in a form of isolation induced by the pandemic. But the rich felt that pandemic quite differently from the rest of us. Isolation may be the wrong word.
Midnights is also influenced by Drake, while reputation is influenced by Kanye. folklore / evermore are the tipping point.
reputation is a very human album. It is not forced. It just works. Midnights is what people said reputation was: forced, contrived, artificial. Maybe the pandemic woke some of us up from a certain dogmatic slumber. But it also put us into a sceptical daze — a Lavender Haze. I look forward to the reawakening. … Ready For It?
Disclaimer: Any similarity between names mentioned and actual individuals is purely accidental and largely theoretical. These are fun ideas to entertain but, as always, I may be mistaken. After all, what do I know?
Edmund Wilson 