Three years separate the release of Taylor Swift’s 2014 album 1989 and her 2017 smash hit Reputation, and in that time, it seems like something has happened to Swift, something that has changed her music. As a musician, she’s always trying to evolve and push her sound to a new level, yeah, but lyrically, Reputation featured something that didn’t really find its way onto her previous albums: Alcohol.
That’s apparently what a fan named Joe Hovde noticed while listening to the record, so he decided to crunch the numbers, and what resulted is a chart (which he shared on Reddit) confirming that Swift sings more about alcohol on the album than she does on her previous releases combined. While her first five albums included four total references to alcohol, Reputation features thirteen (which, coincidentally, is famously Swift’s favorite number) total mentions of the words “bar,” “beer,” “champagne,” “drink,” “drunk,” “liquor,” “whiskey,” and “wine.”
Taylor Swift is going through the phase where you brag about drinking alcohol rather late in life. Insp. from @MsAllyMackenzie @RebeccaaFarley @chrisrosa92 pic.twitter.com/JVsuUfzt5a
— Joe Hovde (@Jhovde2121) April 3, 2018
“I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album and couldn’t help but notice how excited she seems about drinking alcohol in it,” Hovde wrote about the chart in a comment on Reddit. “I decided to examine her lyrics and visualize the references to alcohol in each album.”
What’s the reason for this? Does she enjoy a drink to unwind more now that she’s endured years of pop star pressure? Maybe she’s trying to relate to her longtime fans who were likely teenagers at the start of her career, but are now growing older right alongside her? Whatever the case may be, the data doesn’t lie, and this means yet another Easter egg for the number thirteen is locked away in her album. Who knows how many more there are?
Check out the chart above, and revisit our review of Reputation here.
