Unsurprisingly, on Reputation she is dramatically behind the curve. The gothic aesthetic is boiled down Yeezus, ironically, minus the Arca and Hudson Mohawke; the production, which is often for some reason still dubsteppy, feels like leftovers from Max Martin; and Taylor made not one but two magazines after Frank Ocean made not one but two, fifteen months before. In an insightful, largely positive review on NPR, Ann Powers cites a 2012 Taylor quote about how much she loves rap music: “Maybe I'll just start rapping or DJing." Five years later, Taylor has created an approximation of that idea by pulling from references that feel five years old. Like Powers says: “It’s no Bangerz.”

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Some commentators have described Taylor’s appropriation of cadences, drum sequencing, and other markers of hip-hop as safer from criticism than, say, Miley Cyrus’s, or Taylor’s bizarre rap parody as “T-Swizzle” from 2009. That’s partially because Taylor’s version of hip-hop is itself safe, and probably partially, it bears mentioning, because unlike Miley she worked with pretty much no black people on the album. Even if she claims the old Taylor is dead, the Taylor she is singing about is instantly recognizable: reserved yet vengeful, she is fond of domestic comforts, obsessed with notions “good” and “bad”, and always seeking a fairytale man.

By and large, the lyrics on Yung Lean’s Stranger are familiar, with a few achingly personal touches. Given his own history with addiction, as detailed in his 2016 FADER feature, one hopes the multiple references to taking hard drugs are merely fictional, but either way, it’s the sort of glorification that initially brought controversy to the 21-year-old rapper. As is often the case with Lean, it is the production, or, more accurately, the symbiosis between Lean’s delivery and his team of beatmakers’ sounds, that make his music important, and consistently ahead of the curve.

While Reputation contents itself with a rudimentary version of hip-hop — kicks, hats, and snares; more talking than singing; a general sense of aggression — Stranger understands the genre’s essentials, then takes significant steps to rework them. The songs employ an uncommon minimalism, reminiscent of pop music’s actual best song of the year, Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar,” with its Talking Heads-sampling bass line. In fact, the art-pop icons’ “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” is a great reference point for Lean’s new aesthetic, where identical riffs course through multiple instruments at once and great attention is paid to blank space. Though artfully done, Lean’s use of Auto-Tune isn’t prophetic on Stranger, but other subtle vocal manipulations are, like the increasingly tinny effect on “Metallic Intuition.”

