“I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.”

From the moment Taylor Swift released her single “Look What You Made Me Do,” critics dreaded when that song would come to fruition with an album and bring upon the assumed downfall of pop’s favorite blonde beauty. In spite of those assumptions, Taylor Swift’s new album Reputation is as amazing as they thought it would be terrible.

After the Kim Kardashian-Kanye West scandal that Swift endured in the summer of 2016, it was clear that we wouldn’t be hearing much from the “Shake it Off” chart-topper for a while. The Twittersphere was alight with snake emojis pointed at Swift. So, in August of this year, she brought that imagery to a new era of sugary, dissolve-on-your-tongue pop.

Reputation leaves no stone unturned. With songs like “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Swift addresses her sudden downfall. Lyrics such as “friends don’t try to trick you, get you on the phone and mind-twist you,” directly reference the Kimye phone scandal of 2016. But the album isn’t all doom and gloom. On the same track, Swift makes sure to thank her “real friends, they don’t care about he said she said,” her “baby, he ain’t readina�� what they call me lately,” as well as her “mama, had to listen to all this drama.”

Songs such as “Don’t Blame Me,” take some evident inspiration from pop music of the recent years with the added twist of Swift’s known lyrical abilities. Other tracks such as “End Game,” which features Ed Sheeran and Future, shocked me. For someone who doesn’t usually listen to rap music, I wasn’t very excited for that track; however, I ended up bumping to it in the car on repeat. Sure, the album is an array of radio-worthy jams, but they still retain Swift’s signature sound, leading the listener to believe that the “old Taylor” is still alive and well.

Album highlights include “Getaway Car,” which could easily find a place on Swift’s past release 1989, “Dress,” which has already proven to be a crowd favorite from looking at several Twitter users’ published thoughts, “Call It What You Want,” which was the last single released before the album dropped, and “New Year’s Day,” which calmly closes out the album with a familiar Swift sound. The album’s strange unification proves Swift’s ability to capture the attention of even those most opposed to pop music, like myself.

This album brings a new unity to Swift’s music, with every song being an amalgamation of her past work and other radio-worthy hits. Every song has a place, and every track speaks to her past experiences with the scathing remarks of the press. Overall, Taylor Swift proves victorious yet again with Reputation. The “old Taylor” may not be as dead as she claims, but it’s certain that Taylor Swift knows how to address public downfall with grace and creativity.