Reputation (stylized in all lowercase) is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on November 10, 2017, through Big Machine Records. Swift conceived the album amidst media scrutiny on her personal life that blemished her once-wholesome "America's Sweetheart" image.

Swift employed an autobiographical songwriting approach on Reputation, which references her romantic relationships and celebrity disputes. Its songs form a linear narrative of a narrator seeking vengeance against wrongdoers but ultimately finding solace in a blossoming love. Swift produced the album with Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, and Shellback, to create an electropop record with elements of EDM, hip-hop, R&B, and trap. Its maximalist, electronic arrangements are characterized by abrupt dynamic shifts, insistent programmed drum machines, pulsating synthesizers and bass, and manipulated vocals.

Before Reputation's release, Swift cleared out her website and social media accounts, which generated widespread media attention. The lead single "Look What You Made Me Do" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the single "Delicate" topped multiple US airplay charts, and the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) marked Swift's first all-stadium concert tour. 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 seven-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It topped charts and received platinum certifications in Australia, Austria, Belgium, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

A divisive album upon release, Reputation was praised by critics for its intimate songwriting about love but criticized for its production and references to fame and celebrity, which were viewed as harsh and derivative. Some media publications deemed the album disappointing in the context of Swift's celebrity, the entertainment industry, and the political landscape of the time. Retrospective reviews have opined that the initial reception was affected by the negative press and reevaluated Reputation as a work of Swift's artistic experimentation and evolution. Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, and it was listed on Slant Magazine's list of the best albums of the 2010s decade.

Taylor Swift marketеd 1989, her fifth studio album, as her first "official pop album" that abandoned the country music stylings she had been known for. Released on October 27, 2014, the album has a synth-pop production characterized by dense synthesizers, programmed drum machines, and electronically manipulated vocals. 1989's huge commercial success turned Swift into a pop icon; it spent 11 weeks at number one and a full year in the top 10 on the Billboard 200, and three of its singles reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

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". 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. Her romantic relationships with the Scottish DJ Calvin Harris and the English actor Tom Hiddleston were publicized in tabloid media, as was her feud with the rapper Kanye West and the media personality Kim Kardashian over West's song "Famous", in which he claims he made Swift a success ("I made that bitch famous"). Although Swift said she never consented to the lyric, Kardashian released a phone recording in which Swift consented to another portion of the song. The phone call was revealed to have been purposely edited after the transcript leaked in 2020.

The incidents, especially West–Kardashian controversy, turned Swift's media image into that of a fake and calculating woman, as opposed to an authentic and down-to-earth "America's Sweetheart" image that she had carefully created. Swift became a subject of an "IsOverParty" hashtag on Twitter, where her detractors denounced her as a "snake", influenced by Kardashian. Her publicity was so negative that her victory in a sexual assault trial had minimal impact in improving her image, despite it being part of a wider, ongoing public debate about sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry. Swift withdrew from social media and press interviews despite a large following and went into a hiatus because she felt "people might need a break from [her]".

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. 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. In a 2023 Time interview, she described the album's creation as "a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure". Although the media gossip was a major inspiration, recurring romantic themes of love and friendship that had been dominant in Swift's songwriting remained intact. 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.