--- title: Taylor Swift Addresses Critics in Reputation Album Zine Essay description: The 'Reputation' singer already has a response for gossip blogs and critics of her new album searching for the inspiration in her lyrics. canonical: https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-10T17:46:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:48:41.972Z og:title: Taylor Swift Knows What We're Saying About Her New Album og:description: "When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men" og:url: https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Taylor Swift Knows What We're Saying About Her New Album twitter:description: "When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Taylor Swift Already Knows What We're Going to Say About Her New Album > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 10, 2017 5:46 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Nov 10, 2017 5:46 PM UTC Today is T-Day. That’s [Taylor Swift album release day](http://time.com/5017724/taylor-swift-reputation-explained/), for anyone not following the hype around the star’s new album _Reputation_. And — given the [obsession](http://time.com/5018729/taylor-swift-dress-reputation-internet-reactions/) with all things Swift — the savvy singer wants to pre-empt all of the hot takes and endless scrutiny that will inevitably go into every lyric on her 15-track album. To go along with the album release — which currently is [only available](http://time.com/money/5018579/listen-taylor-swifts-new-album-reputation-for-free/) to listen to as a physical purchase, digital download or interspersed on an iHeartRadio stream — Swift also is selling two magazines she compiled, featuring some of her own poetry, watercolor paintings and lots of behind-the-scenes photographs of the singer filming the music videos, hanging out at home with her cats and posing for fashion photo shoots. But in the introductory letter in the ‘zine, Swift also makes it a point to address controversy before it begins. “When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test,” she writes. “There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory, because it’s 2017 and if you didn’t see a picture of it, it couldn’t have happened right?” In other words, although the internet might be busy applying detective skills and taking a microscope to the stories and [references in her songs](http://time.com/5002775/taylor-swift-ready-for-it-music-video-references/), she wants us to take those lyrics with a grain of salt. That’s fair; songwriters — any artist, really — should have the liberty to create whatever kind of story they want. Although we may want to assign a specific name as the subject of each of her songs, she seems to be suggesting she’s taken creative liberties to change up some stories. And, of course, a few lyrics could never tell the whole story anyway; there’s only so much that can be drawn from a single oblique reference. Then again, Swift does have a confirmed history of mining her own experiences [for subject matter](http://time.com/5018625/taylor-swift-confirms-ryan-reynolds-blake-lively-baby-voice-on-gorgeous/). She tends to play the smart game with a wink. Even a confessional letter is, in its own way, a piece of the narrative she masterminds. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/"},"headline":"Taylor Swift Already Knows What We're Going to Say About Her New Album","datePublished":"2017-11-10T17:46:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:48:41.972Z","description":"The 'Reputation' singer already has a response for gossip blogs and critics of her new album searching for the inspiration in her lyrics.","url":"https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Music","Taylor Swift"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5018807/taylor-swift-reputation-zine/","name":"Taylor Swift Already Knows What We're Going to Say About Her New Album"}}]}] ```