Produced largely by Swift, Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, and Shellback, Reputation is an electropop and R&B album with elements of urban styles such as hip-hop, trap, and EDM.

Its maximalist, electronic arrangements are characterized by abrupt dynamic shifts, insistent programmed drum machines, pulsating synthesizers and bass, and manipulated vocals.

In the United States, Reputation was Swift's fourth consecutive album to sell one million first-week copies, spent four weeks atop the Billboard 200, and was certified triple platinum.

[5][6]Swift's heightened fame was accompanied by increasing media scrutiny; British GQ wrote that she became "a lightning rod for accelerating cultural anxieties about race, gender and privilege".

[7] During promotion of 1989, Swift proclaimed her feminist identity and appeared in public with a "squad" of female celebrity friends including fashion models, actresses, and singers, which critics took issues with as an elitist group that diminished her relatability.

[18] During seclusion from public appearances, Swift wrote Reputation as a "defense mechanism" against the rampant media scrutiny targeting her and a means to revamp her state of mind.

[19][20] She said in a 2019 Rolling Stone interview that she followed the songwriting for her 2014 single "Blank Space", which satirizes the criticism targeting her for dating "too many people" in her twenties, and wrote Reputation from the perspective of a character that others believed her to be.

[23] She recalled that amidst the "battle raging on" outside, she found solace in quiet moments with her loved ones and began creating a newfound private life on her own terms "for the first time" since starting her career.

[30] As Swift wanted to record the album in secrecy, Antonoff kept his studio computer offline to prevent a possible internet leak and deleted the trials once the mixing and mastering finalized.

[38][39] Pitchfork's Jamieson Cox described the instrumentation as "hair-raising bass drops, vacuum-cleaner synths [...], stuttering trap percussion, cyborg backing choirs".

[33] Critics found Reputation sonically heavier, louder, and darker than its predecessor 1989's bright synth-pop,[34][40] with Neil McCormick from The Daily Telegraph deeming it "a big, brash, all-guns-blazing blast of weaponised pop".

[30] Influences of many urban genres,[62] most prominently hip-hop, trap, R&B,[48][53] and progressive R&B,[36] and other subgenres including grime, tropical house, and Miami bass, coalesce on Reputation.

[34] Other urban influences are on such tracks as "Delicate", which incorporate a Caribbean-inflected sound and tropical house beats;[43][62] "Gorgeous", which features hip-hop-trademark 808 drums and rhythms;[68] and "Dress", an R&B slow jam.

[56] On tracks such as "Delicate", "Getaway Car", "King of My Heart", her vocals are processed with a vocoder,[51] which NPR's Ann Powers attributed to the influence of rappers and R&B artists.

[24][69] Inspired by the fantasy series Game of Thrones, she split the album into two sides; one contains songs about vengeance and drama, and the other about finding love, friendship, and "something sacred throughout all the battle cries".

[45][72][73] Swift structured the song such that each of the sections (verse, pre-chorus, chorus) depicts a separate phase of a relationship, and they altogether form a complete love story.

[24] In "Call It What You Want", the narrator accepts that her reputation might be unredeemable ("They took the crown but it's alright")[35] and meditates on the transformative power of her relationship ("My baby's fly like a jetstream, high above the whole scene").

[112] She instead held exclusive secret album-listening sessions within one month in advance for fans selected from social media by herself, hosting them at her homes in Rhode Island, Los Angeles, London, and Nashville.

[160][161] Reviews by Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani,[64] McCormick,[39] and Sheffield appreciated Reputation for exploring vulnerable sentiments beneath the surface of fame and celebrity.

Club, Clayton Purdom appreciated how, despite Swift's embrace of modern styles, her lyrical narrative retains its distinctive romantic nature since her 2008 single, "Love Story".

[162] Some reviewers agreed that Reputation's black-music influences were controversial and a probable case of cultural appropriation,[h] but Caramanica welcomed them as a sign of Swift embracing modern pop-music trends.

[42] Cinquemani called it a good pop album but found it blemished at times by "tired, repetitive EDM tricks",[64] and Pitchfork's Jamieson Cox lamented how Swift's lyrical craftsmanship was overshadowed by what he deemed a conventional and unoriginal production.

[190] According to Hyden, the album was released amidst a "moral apocalypse" in the entertainment industry, when sexual assault against females was being "re-contextualized in the popular consciousness as expressions of dominance and humiliation".

[36] Nonetheless, her inclusion as one of the "Silence Breakers"—a group of six women who publicly spoke out against sexual misconduct—for the cover of Time 2017's People of the Year was criticized by some who disdained her "spineless feminism and political passivity".

[193] Commenting on the album's rollout cycle, the music scholar Jadey O'Regan remarked how Swift used "the art of pop in the best way" for utilizing "the way she's been stereotyped in popular culture".

[188][196][197] Billboard's Andrew Unterberger in August 2019 wrote: "With a couple years' clarity, removed from all the backlash against Swift for her perceived insincerity (and political neutrality), we can now look back on Reputation for what it actually was: a very good pop album that was very successful.

"[191] Mary Siroky of Consequence observed how time proved it to be an authentic record, contrary to some initial reviews claiming otherwise[198] and, as part of a 2022 piece titled "What Were We Thinking?

[199] Joe Lynch of Billboard attributed the initial criticism to the general preconception disregarding lyrics in synthesizer-based arrangements; "Which is a shame, because on Reputation, Swift's words deliver vivid Polaroid shots directly to your brain.

[10] For some critics, though Reputation is not as accomplished as Swift's other albums, its hip-hop experimentation and detail-heavy songwriting led to her refined craftsmanship on subsequent records, namely Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), and Midnights (2022).

He contended that the album showcased Swift's "real growth" on a narrative level by owning up her character flaws and expressing vulnerability, even embracing the frailties of fame and celebrity.