‘Reputation (Taylor's Version)': Clues, Theories and More About Taylor Swift's Rerecord Release

Yahoo

2 days ago

Taylor Swift is continuing to drop clues about the upcoming release of Reputation (Taylor's Version). The hints started coming in 2023 and continued into 2025, including Easter eggs dropped in music videos and during live performances.
After Taylor announced the release dates of Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and 1989 (Taylor's Version) at two different Eras tour shows, fans were convinced that news about Reputation (TV) was coming before her final show in 2023. However, she did not make any announcement about the album while finishing the tour in Brazil on November 26, 2023.
Leading up to her final 2023 concert, Taylor seemed to be dropping hints that a Reputation (TV) announcement was coming. Fans theorized that she was 'counting down' to the announcement with the order of surprise songs she played at the two shows leading up to November 26. The November 24 show featured surprise songs from 1989 (TV) and Speak Now (TV), while the November 25 show had surprise songs from Red (TV) and Fearless (TV). Swifties were certain that Taylor was going backwards from the most recent rerecord release (1989) to the first rerecord release (Fearless) and wondered if she would use the November 26 show to play 'I Did Something Bad,' the only song left from Reputation that hadn't been played yet on the Eras tour, before announcing the Taylor's Version release date.
Then, while she was performing in Milan in July 2024 during the European stretch of the Eras tour, fans were convinced that a stage malfunction was all an act.
Taylor's piano seemingly broke during night two at the San Siro stadium and she later fixed it on stage. However, Swifties quickly shared theories on why they thought it was planned online.
A fan reshared a photo via X that read, "The piano 'breaking' was not accidental. It was on purpose. The piano was broken and Taylor claimed it was 'haunted.' Then Speak Now was announced shortly after."
"Did you guys hear the hiss too????" the person wrote in response.
Of course, all of this theorizing ended up being for nothing, as Taylor made it through her show without any special announcement.
Taylor closed out the European leg of the Eras tour with five shows at Wembley Stadium in August 2024, and fans once again started guessing that a Reputation announcement would be coming. At the August 17 show, Taylor finally performed 'I Did Something Bad,' but it did not coincide with the announcement of Reputation like many originally theorized.
However, she continued to hint at Reputation's upcoming release while leaving the stage of the same concert. As she was lowered to the ground, she noticeably made a snake-like motion with her body, slithering from side to side. Snake imagery has represented Reputation since Taylor first announced the original album's release in 2017.
Taylor seemingly gave one of her biggest hints yet that Reputation (TV) was on the way when after 131 shows of her Eras tour, the singer finally changed up her costume for the Reputation set while opening up her final leg in Miami, Florida, on October 18, 2024.
When the "Don't Blame Me" songstress hit the stage, Taylor appeared in a black Roberto Cavalli bodysuit with gold snakes in place of the red ones from her previous look. The reptiles also appeared at different angles, with one featuring an opening mouth, looking as if it was about to strike.
Fans went wild over the new Reputation costume, with many believing it was a major Easter egg that Taylor's re-recorded version of the album was on the way. The Reputation "era" costume was the only one that remained the same throughout Taylor's world tour until her final North American stops.
The clues continued when a snippet of 'Look What You Made Me Do' was featured in the May 20, 2025, episode of The Handmaid's Tale. While Taylor hasn't publicly commented about the show using the new version of the song, fans quickly noticed that her voice sounded more mature on the show.
Meanwhile, star and director Elisabeth Moss confirmed that the show used 'Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor's Version)' for the episode. 'I said to my editor, Wendy [Hallam Martin], 'I really want to find a place for a Taylor track in the last two episodes of the show,' and we wanted to find a music queue for the opening of [episode] 9, and all the credit goes to Wendy for picking this track for this moment!' she told Billboard after the episode premiered.
Although Taylor has not confirmed a release date for Reputation (TV) yet, she has dropped many hints leading fans to believe that it is her next rerecorded album to come out.
In May 2023, the pop star released her music video for 'Karma.' At the time, she had already announced Speak Now (TV) and was starting to hint that 1989 (TV) would be coming out after that. The video featured several 1989 Easter eggs, as well as some nods to Reputation. Fans immediately realized this was Taylor's way of telling us that Reputation (TV) was coming after 1989 (TV).
In one scene, she held a coffee cup with two of her fingers visible. One nail was painted blue for 1989 and the other was painted black for Reputation. The coffee had a clock design on top, with the black nail pointing toward the 2. It was originally theorized that this means Reputation (TV) would come out in the second month (February) of 2024, which did not end up being the case. She also appeared to style her hair in a Reputation era 'do at one point in the video.
In August 2023, Ed Sheeran revealed that he had not yet rerecorded his verse for 'End Game,' the song he's featured on from Reputation. However, that same month, a trailer for Prime Video's show Wilderness featured the Taylor's Version of 'Look What You Made Me Do' from Reputation, proving that at least one of the tracks had already been rerecorded. Part of 'Delicate (Taylor's Version)' also appeared in season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Before 1989 (TV) came out, Taylor dropped snippets of the songs 'Wildest Dreams,' 'Bad Blood' and 'This Love' in movie and television trailers.
Reputation also features a song called "New Year's Day," which sparked theories that the Taylor's Version of the album could be released (or at least announced) on December 31.
While that didn't happen, Taylor gave new hope for a Reputation (TV) announcement on the morning of February 4, 2024, which also happened to be the day of the Grammys. Fans noticed that the 'Bejeweled' songstress changed her social media profile pictures to be black and white, just like the original Reputation album cover.
Theories flooded in claiming that this could mean Taylor would announce the release date for Reputation (TV) while attending the Grammys. It wouldn't be the first time that she used an award show to announce a new album. In August 2022, she revealed that her album Midnights would be coming out in October of that year. In the end, Taylor actually announced a brand new album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the Grammys instead. It came out in April 2024.
All of Taylor's rerecorded albums feature new versions of all the songs from the original album. In this case, there are 15 songs from the 2017 version of Reputation that Taylor will rerecord.
Every rerecord also has a handful of tracks 'from the vault,' which were written at the time of the original album's release but didn't make the final cut. Taylor has not confirmed how many vault songs will be on Reputation (Taylor's Version) or what the titles are.
Many fans are certain that 'I Don't Wanna Live Forever,' Taylor's 2016 duet with Zayn Malik from the movie Fifty Shades Darker, will appear as a vault track. There's also speculation that she could release her own version of 'This Is What You Came For,' the 2016 song she wrote for Calvin Harris and Rihanna, as part of the Reputation (TV) release.
In a December 2023 interview, Taylor confirmed that the vault tracks from Reputation (TV) are 'fire' while discussing the album. 'It's a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,' she explained.
Taylor is rerecording her first six albums to earn the rights back to her masters of the songs. She started the process in 2020 after leaving her original record label, Big Machine.
Before Taylor left Big Machine, she tried to buy the rights to her masters from owner Scott Borchetta. However, she was given a stipulation that she had to record one new album under Big Machine for every album she wanted to earn back (six in total). Taylor voluntarily left the label in 2018 and signed with Republic Records, as she did not want to be tied down to that deal.
In 2019, it was revealed that Scott had sold Big Machine – along with the rights to Taylor's work – to Scooter Braun, who was funded by private investors, for more than $300 million. Because Taylor had a troubled history with Scooter – mostly due to his relationship with Kanye West – she was upset about the sale. Taylor pointed out that she had never been given the chance to buy back her masters for the same price that Scooter was able to purchase them for without a stipulation. She later revealed that she also tried to buy the masters from Scooter himself, but claimed she was told she'd need to sign an 'ironclad NDA stating [she] would never say another word about Scooter unless it was positive.' She rejected this deal.
When Scooter sold the masters to Shamrock Holdings in 2020, Taylor once again tried to negotiate a deal to earn her work back. However, when she found out that Scooter would continue to profit off of her work under Shamrock, she said it was a 'non-starter' and began to rerecord her music once she was legally able to in November 2020.
Taylor released Fearless (TV) in April 2021, followed by Red (TV) in November 2021. Speak Now (TV) came in July 2023 and 1989 (TV) dropped that October. In addition to Reputation, Taylor also still has to rerelease her debut self-titled album.
Taylor further discussed her decision to rerecord her albums when she was honored as Time's Person of the Year in December 2023.
'I'd run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, 'Just redo it,'' she recalled. 'My dad kept saying it to me too. I'd look at them and go, 'How can I possibly do that?' Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.'
The 'Delicate' singer added that it's all about 'how you deal with loss,' adding, 'I respond to extreme pain with defiance.'