East Karma real? It’s a question Swifties investigators have been trying to answer for years now.
Through numerous blackout videos and Twitter threads, Easter egg-loving Taylor Swift fans have pieced together the mystery of a “lost” album in Swift’s discography. Various clues suggest that the album could have been titled Karma and that it was meant to follow its synth-pop pivot 1989. Of course, what really happened after 1989 is also what could have led to Karma be scrapped (if it even existed): In 2016, Swift endured a very public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian that kept her radio silent for nearly a year until she stepped out in 2017 Reputation. This period also sparked controversy over his lack of a clear political affiliation during the 2016 election and alleged falling out with numerous girlfriends attached to his infamous “team”.
Discussion of Karma began to heat up following the release of Red (Taylor’s version). Swift had dug deep into her vault of unreleased material while re-recording her old music, a process she began after her former label Big Machine sold her original masters to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. She released new versions of “This Love” and “Wildest Dreams”, which seemed to hint that 1989 (Taylor’s version) could be on the way – and the most detective Swifties began to wonder if Karma could possibly come too.
Here’s everything we know about the ‘lost’ album and all the clues that made fans believe Karma is right.
People think it was recorded in 2016 – a rough year for Swift.
To understand why fans are adamant that Swift has a “lost” album, here’s a refresher on the year it was supposed to be released. In 2016, Swift had just earned one of her biggest album rollouts yet. 1989, his full tilt in the world of being a mega pop star, was released in 2014, and she spent most of 2015 on the road, visiting stadiums to support him. However, the following year was difficult for her: She had made amends with Kanye West after he interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, and they were publicly friendly until February 2016, when he released the song “Famous”. ”, which features the lines “I feel like Taylor and I could still have sex / Why? / I made this female dog famous.
Swift spoke out against the song and it led to a back-and-forth discussion over whether or not she approved of its controversial lines. The feud culminated in July, when West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, posted videos on her Snapchat in which Swift appeared to approve of the song over the phone. Swift then quit social media and stopped making public appearances for the rest of 2016. Until then, she had always released an album every two years. But now she had an unusually long gap in her discography, suggesting she may have something planned before stepping away from the spotlight.
Swift had sported a new look at the time.
In 2016, Swift debuted a new look and seemed to hint that a new era was coming. That spring, she did something very different from Taylor Swift: she cut her long, curly blonde hair and bleached it, a more edgy aesthetic than usual for her. She appeared on the cover of vogue, at Coachella and at the Met Gala with the new look. Pop Rollout 101 taught us that a new hairstyle and completely revamped style doesn’t come out of nowhere, and like other stars, Swift has frequently used a major hair change to signal a new era. (She straightened her curls before Redthen boasted a crispy bob for 1989). Her style also changed and she opted for a more glamorous aesthetic than before.
She started talking about “karma”.
The title wasn’t something concocted solely in the collective Swiftie imagination. Swift was talking a lot about “karma” then. For the same vogue cover where she debuted a new look, Swift also did a “73 Questions” interview, posted on the magazine’s YouTube channel. In it, she was asked what her biggest life lesson had been, and she made it a point to say, “Karma is real.”
Of course, it’s a common phrase and it could have been a simple reference to her public feuds with West and Kardashian. But the word came back a few years later, in the music video for Lover single “The Man”. In the video, which was Swift’s feature film debut, she dons male drag and illustrates all the male privilege that men can enjoy. At one point, her male alter ego urinates in front of a wall tagged with the names of albums that Swift has finally started re-recording. There, in the middle, it says “karma”. The word appears next to a sign that reads ‘MISSING: IF FOUND, RETURN TO TAYLOR SWIFT’.
She started wearing orange.
After the color orange started popping up in Swift’s work, fans started associating it with the mystery album and looking for it everywhere. In the “Look What You Made Me Do” video, for example, she wore an orange outfit while swinging in a giant birdcage, which many saw as a metaphor for the album’s status trapped in vault purgatory. -strong. (Famous, the song also features the lyrics, “All I think about is karma.”)
The Swifties, like Swift herself, love to analyze the smallest details, so there are countless other “orange” moments that have been chosen to death on social media: an orange flower on her 2021 Grammys dress, her BFF Blake Lively posing in front of an orange wall on Instagram. Earlier this year, fans got excited again when a few images showed Swift leaving a studio while wearing bits of orange, leading some to wonder if she might be ending Karma (even if it seems that she was only recording the announcement announced since Midnightsdue out October 21).
She has revisited her old material in recent years.
Swift had been one of our most productive pop stars in recent years, having released two original albums in 2020 and then the first two LPs of her re-recorded run – not to mention a number of previously unreleased vault tracks. . and music videos for both. Following the release of Red (Taylor’s version) last fall, Swift took a little hiatus and people started wondering what material she was up to next. Given that she published some elements of 1989it would make sense for her to revisit other pieces from this period, and Karma fits into the timeline as its own version or as vault tracks (if it’s real, of course.) Plus, it seems 1989 (Taylor’s version) might be stalled at the moment, likely due to an ongoing court battle over the lyrics to “Shake It Off,” so Swift might be looking for other documents she has archived.
Even though there is no Karma, Swifties was right to have their ears pricked up for the sequel. At the VMAs in late August, Swift announced her new album Midnights. Some are now wondering if “Karma” is the name of a song on the album, maybe even the first single.
So… is Karma real?
Of all the fan theories floating around online, the existence of Karma is extremely plausible. Swift doesn’t do anything publicly aimlessly, and everything from the bleached hair to the graffiti in the music video suggests she might have had Something in the works for 2016. It might also explain why she repeatedly talked about how rough and upsetting this year was in her songs.