Karma is an Album
In defense of evidence of Taylor Swiftâs lost albumÂ
Alright, Swifties. It is time for a master post. There is too much evidence to support the theory of the lost album Karma, and it is time to put it all together in one place. I have done everything in my power to include any small indication of the existence of Karma, but please feel free to dm / comment with evidence not included in this post, and I will update as needed. I am going to create this document in as close to a chronological timeline as humanly possible. Strap in.Â
If you can watch the Miss Americana documentary, I highly recommend that you do so and listen very carefully to Taylor Swift when she addresses the timeline surrounding this possible experience. I also will reference and recommend that you watch the long pond studio sessions. Understanding the timeline from Taylorâs perspective and hearing the way she addresses the timeline really helps put you into her shoes and understand what she could have been experiencing and what she may have gone through that may have caused her to scratch an entire album. What is Karma? For many years, Taylor Swift fans have speculated that Karma is the name (or even code name of - consider that she revealed she uses code names like with the woodvale chaos) the album that Taylor Swift was set to release in 2016. Fans theorize that Karma was shelved following the Kanye drama and Taylor Swift disappeared from the public eye for nearly a year in November of 2016 instead of releasing her sixth studio album. Taylor ârose up from the deadâ in August of 2017 to release the lead single from her album, âLook What You Made Me Do.â As much as it pains me to detail this drama, letâs recap 2016, as this is truly where the foundation of where our story begins. First, letâs talk about the Kimye drama. Unfortunately this is critical to how the Karma story plays out, so letâs take a quick review. During the VMA awards in 2009, a 19 year old Taylor Swift was accepting her moon man for Best Video of the Year. 32-year old Kanye West infamously got up on stage, took the microphone from Taylor, and said âI am really happy for you and Iâm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.â They are seen together in 2015 at the Grammys, but we wonât go too deep into the Kanye/Taylor timeline. Letâs flash-forward to February of 2016, where Taylor Swift and Kanye have seemingly mended fences to a certain extent. Kanye debuts his song âFamous,â which has the lyric âI still feel like me and Taylor might have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous (goddamn).â Facing backlash from twitter,Kanye reveals that he got permission from Taylor. (we later learn in a statement that Taylorâs publicist Tree Paine put out that they spoke in January of 2016.) Although Taylor herself does not explicitly address the lyric, her friends come to her defense. Her younger brother Auston posts his âspring cleaningâ video, trashing Kanye merch. Taylor makes history as the first woman to win AOTY twice at the grammys for 1989, and seemingly addresses how she feels about the Kanye drama in her speech. She says â"[A]s the first woman to win album of the year at the Grammys twice," Swift said, "I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame." She continued, "If you just focus on the work, and you don't let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you're going, you'll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world. Thank you for this moment." Although we do not see much public drama, we can assume there was some going on behind closed doors over the next few months. Things get messy again publicly in June/July 2016. Kim Kardashin interviews with GQ and supportâs Kanye's claim that he called and got Taylorâs approval for the song. Tree Paine releases a statement denying the claims, and Kanye drops the music video in late June and Kanye also appears on SNL and is recorded backstage calling Taylor âfake.â Controversy was re-ignited by the audio clips from the 2009 VMA incident included on the video as well as most memorably, the nude wax figure of Taylor Swift Kanye is seen in bed with. Kim discusses the making of the video and the ongoing controversy in the July 17 episode of KUWTK, which is the date we reach the absolute peak of this drama. Kim also releases footage of the Taylor/Kanye phone call to her snapchat account in whatâs known as âsnapchatgate.â This footage is clipped, and paints Taylor out to be a liar. Kim throws more fuel on the fire with her famous ânational snake dayâ tweet the following day, and followers flood Taylor swift with snake emojis. Taylor finally publicly explicitly address the Kanye drama with her instagram post that concludes â"I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009â #KimExposedTaylorParty begins to trend on twitter, followed by #TaylorSwiftisoverparty. Kanye denies that he was trying to âtake down taylorâ in his 2016 VMAs speech.Â
So what is Taylor up to during this time?Â
It is important to note that up until the 2016 drama with Kimye, Taylor Swift released new albums every 2 years like clockwork: Debut- Oct 24, 2006 (last thursday in october)Â
Fearless- Nov 11, 2008 (second tuesday in november)Â
Speak Now -Oct 25, 2010Â (last monday in october)Â
Red - Oct 22, 2012(last monday in october)Â
1989 - Oct 27, 2014 (last monday in october) It is kind of interesting that with the exception of Fearless, they are all even released during the last week of October - numerically within 5 days of one another. Her last three albums were released EXACTLY two years apart if you consider that all three albums were released on the last monday of october. I also want to point out that although Friday releases are standard, Taylor Swift has released many singles on this date, she did not adhere to this âstandardâ when releasing her albums.Â
Taylor likes to debut a change in hair / look and this had come to signify the start of a new era in Taylorâs career. For example, she let vogue cut her bangs for the first time going into the red era and she had her hair cut at the end of red tour to signify going into 1989.Â
The 1989 tour ended 12 December 2015, the day before Taylorâs 26th birthday. The Grammyâs was a couple of months later, and spring of 2016 became known as the âBleachellaâ era - Taylor went to coachella for the first time with her extremely bleach blonde hair - Vogue wanted to debut her as a âRock ân Roll Chickâ for the May issue (6 months pre-expected karma drop date). This is also the same cover that she does the 73 questions interview where she says âKarma is real.âÂ
During this time, Taylor also wrote âThis Is What You Came Forâ under pseudonym for then-bf Calvin Harris (we will discuss this later in rep era).Â
Taylor performs only once this year and it is known as âTheâ 2016 concert for this reason. She performs a âgreatest hitsâ concert for Formula 1.Â
Taylor also was a co-chair for the 2016 Met Gala where she met Joe Alwyn this year. We can discuss Tom Hiddleston as well, but letâs just thank him for inspiring Getaway Car and move on with the timeline. Thanks, Tom. And of course after meeting earlier in the year, Taylor and Joe began to date while Taylor was in hiding. Following her timeline from the Lover Diaries, she writes that they had been dating for three months as of Jan 3, 2017. It is interesting to note that other than this entry and the entry that she made in 2016 stating that âthis summer is the apocalypse,â the lover diaries are devoid of any entries after 2015. She makes no mention on the process or lyrics of reputation or lover in the way she gave us insight into other eras of her life. It could have been âtoo close.â at the time, but since we are going to be thorough, I felt that it was worth noting when I searched for clues in the diaries I found nothing notable other than the lack of any content from this time period. Consider the dichotomy of the experiences that Taylor was undergoing in 2016. She was simultaneously on top the world for this incredible achievement for not only a second AOTY grammy win, but in another genre. But if you listen to her describe this time in the Miss Americana Doc, you realize how incredibly alone she feels at the time. We also know that Taylor basically spent the entire year constantly biting her tongue while kimye continued to take public shots over and over again throughout the year.Â
Taylor has always written songs - she may have taken a short break but this could have been more of an issue with her record label not letting her release the kind of music that she wanted to. This was going to be the last album that she recorded with this record label and she had to be extremely **âcalculatedâ** in her decisions surrounding TS6.Taylor was much older and wiser than when she first signed the BMR, and you cannot convince me she didnât know what could happen to her masters. Taylor took surprise songs and RAN with them on the rep tour, and no one can ever convince me otherwise: Taylor knew that could be a sort of âbye for now,â because she had no idea what was at the end of her contract with BMR. Taylor left easter eggs about stolen masters in LWYMMD because that did not happen overnight. It may have been a wildest nightmare for Taylor, but she is smarter than to have been completely utterly shocked at how that situation played out. But letâs go back to 2016.Â
Fans theorize that Karma is more of a punk / rock album and possibly was a little more aggressive and possibly angry than her previous work. She was in the business of reinvention. (Also if you havenât seen the live ârockâ version of Bad Blood,â please go do yourself a favor and watch that and then come back. We will wait.)Â But with her reputation plummeting, it seemed increasingly obvious as the year progressed that it would have been a bad idea to put out an album with that kind of negative vibe at that time. This could have been her labelâs decision, her decision, or a little of both.
We do know that she was very likely writing songs while she was on tour, as we know touring and being with her fans inspires her. Whether she made an entire album yet, we couldnât say of course. But we know that Taylor never stops writing songs. It is one of her greatest outlets. To those who argue that Taylor told us âI donât know whatâs nextâ - are you really telling me that she was going through some of the most difficult parts of her life and not writing songs? Please. She was writing songs. Youâll note that Reputation did not have any deluxe tracks, and it is a very carefully selected, sonically cohesive 15 songs. No further explanation. Taylor created other music in this time, and no one would ever be able to convince me otherwise.Â
Following the peak of the kimye drama, Taylor Swift disappears from the public eye entirely for nearly a year. She is also said to have begun recording reputation at this time as well (September 2016). Although we have considered that her Earth, Wind, and Fire cover may have referred to an anniversary with Joe, the â28th night of September,â could really represent any one of many âtransition momentsâ happening in her life simultaneously. - possibly the moment she decided to shelve karma and create a concept album for reputation. Â
Fast forward through the dark Taylor-less ages because as we know, the world moves on another day, another drama, drama.Â
Taylor Swiftâs social media accounts are all famously wiped clean and she starts the reputation era with a literal blank slate. She teases and releases the lead single, Look What You Made Me Do. Let's take this point to go over the (known) easter eggs for Karma in this video, followed by âŚReady For It? And Delicate. There are so many easter eggs in reputation - she didnât give public interviews during this era. In her first interview for the lover era, she stated that she wanted to communicate with fans and she left SO MANY easter eggs in the reputation era. Particularly she notes that she likes to leave easter eggs on clothes.Â
LWYMMD released 24 August 2017 (monday)Â
-Digging up different iterations of herself - âdigging up the grave another time.âÂ
-dead taylor dug herself out of her grave and then buried her other self.Â
-Nils SjĂśberg is pictured in the cemetery as well (anagram of ringless job?) -last video we saw was herein OOTW video - same dressÂ
-âthe world moves on another day, another drama, drama. But not for me, not for me, all I think about is Karma.â -bird cage Taylor dress all in orange -> and sings âthey once belonged to meâÂ
-Taylor is physically in the vault and then seen stepping out of it - a representation of her vault tracks being set loose with her re-recorded albums.Â
-5 cats in the vault including taylor - blue, pink, red, yellow. We do not see them take their masks off, but they follow Taylor out of the vault unmasked. - the person in the Orange shirt last in lineÂ
-vault within the vault in the background
-unchained handcuffs in scene where taylor hits pile of money with a baseball bat -no speak now Taylor in the towerÂ
-TS6 with a new Taylor - grounds the plane and it becomes âreputationâ instead.Â
-different Taylors at the end Â
Delicate - Taylor isn't being seen
Orange columns in subway station graffiti with âTrack 5â
Ready for itÂ
Spider boy - âI see how this is gonâ goâ - Scooter is the spider boyÂ
âNakedâ taylor in glass closet resists change - chaining her at first but then empowers herÂ
-same imagery we see on the eras tour during the LWYMMD set -Â with different Taylorâs in glass closets. When they break free to come after her, she is already rising above them allÂ
The Orange Vault Taylor becomes sort of the first âsymbolâ of orange as the color representing Karma. She releases two magazines, one of which is orange. Taylor also released an orange limited pressing of reputation on vinyl. Some fans theorize this is an easter egg and some think that it could have been âleftoverâ from the karma plans and something taylor âused up.â Since we spent all of that time talking about Kanye, I want to point out something I did not realize until I started the research for this post. I am not myself a Kanye fan, so when I saw the album cover for âLife of Pablo,â I audibly gasped. Not only does the print remind me of half of the reputation cover, the color is strikingly âkarmaâorange.Â
Now that Taylor is back and in full force, letâs enter the lover era. Taylor makes her directorial debut with âThe Man,â and we are first introduced to âThe Man Wall.â in 13th street station.Â
In the Lover music video, we were shown different rooms in different colors meant to represent different eras in Taylorâs career. The yellow Fearless room is upside down, much like Fearless is written backwards here. Although fans did not know what it meant at the time, many people concluded that this is how Taylor would signify where she would begin her re-recordings. She emphasized that âitâs a clock,â and at the time of this writing, the rerecords have been announced in this order: Fearless, Red, Speak Now. If the announcements continue to follow the clock, Taylor would announce reputation, Taylor Swift (possibly?) and end with 1989. Youâll notice the other word written on the wall is the word âKarma,â once in blue and once in orange. Fans speculate that the blue Karma represents the single and the Orange at the midnight position represents the Album. Following the clock, the release schedule would go 199 -> Karma, as Taylor always intended. Note that the word âMISSINGâ appears atop the poster on the karma wall. Hereâs where it gets even more interesting. karmaonthewall.com redirects to Taylor Swiftâs website. You are greeted with a page that says âOOPS... LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING'S MISSING!â and the www. Becomes âhttps://www.taylorswift.com/aftermidnightsitstartsâ  âŚ. after midnights, it starts. Of course we know that she has an album called midnights. Track 11 of midnights is Karma - a sleepless night, or many sleepless nights. Some fans speculate that each thing she âlistsâ in the songâ could correlate to a song on her lost album of the same name. Thereâs yet another theory that says these lists refer to other artists under scooterâs control. It is interesting to point out that Karma is Track 11 and if she released Karma after Midnights, it would be the 11th album. When Taylor announced the track for Karma in MMWM, she broke her âusual release cycleâ of videos - much like she broke her usual release cycle of the album in the first place. The âLarger Than Lifeâ Taylor that appears in the antihero music video and in the eras tour is wearing the same outfit she wore in the MMWM announcement video for karma. This could represent many things, but I think it could nod to something âbiggerâ than just a song called karma. This is also a truly vintage 70âs shirt that she is wearing, not a modern iteration of an older fashion. The spotify canvas for the song Karma is arguably orange. Blake Lively made an instagram post that mirrors âThe Man Wallâ with an orange background. Letâs talk about the Eras tour a little. I donât know exactly how to describe how it felt to watch the moments leading up to the opening, but I felt a wave of immeasurable emotion at her song choices in the leading moments. When I first heard Lady Gagaâs Applause I was immediately a little sad. I thought about how Taylor was pop culture so much that pop culture became her and of course âI live for the applause,â brought up echoes of Taylor in Miss Americana talking about how all she lived for was approval. I am not gonna lie, I almost cried, and not because Taylor was coming soon. And then the countdown clock started and You Donât Own Me came on and I felt yet another crashing wave of emotion at this choice as well. I should stop here and note that people have had many different reports on when the countdown clock starts. I have caught very few live streams in time, but I have seen 02:23 a few times and this could mean a lot of things - even representing the year she is doing this tour. I saw a fan online theorize that 02:29 could represent the leap year upcoming in 2024, but I havenât seen a 02:29 countdown. I donât know what it means, but I did think it was worth mentioning. Taylor would do something as completely unhinged as plan to release a skipped album on a leap day, so do not put it past her. Although, I donât think thatâs a clown car I ride in, donât forget the âit still feels like March '' written on an orange sticky note from her spotify advertisement during the pandemic - could that be a clue? The extra day in February could refer to something that âfeels like March.â Back to eras tour. Itâs important to note that Taylor concludes the tour with the song Karma and walks through an orange door at the very end of the show. Much in the way that Taylor dives into her midnights era on the tour, she also walks into her karma area just after the midnights era ends.Â
Letâs talk about the green folklore outfit. Itâs a custom Alprerta Ferelti - the original is orange. She debuted this as well as her orange 1989 outfit at her first show on the 13th. She also performed Speak Now this night, which would soon be announced as her next re-record. I think it's safe to say Taylor is signaling with the color changes of her costume changes, and equally safe to say that no one has yet deciphered the pattern yet. I still think this is worth nothing, as Orange has become a symbol for Karma. We also need to discuss Rebekah Harkness. Yes, that one. Her third husband nicknamed her Karma. Taylor said she wanted to write the Rebekah Harkness story for a long time on long pond, and this could be a call back to many things - mostly a nod to the fact that sheâd been researching and thinking about Rebekah for a long time - likely since she bought the house, aka just before Karma would have been thought of. Taylor wore a white jacket with her albums emblazoned on it at her AMAs performance to accept her artist of the decade award. She was joined on stage by 8 kids, seemingly representing each of her albums, but only 7 albums that we knew of existed. We now have the Karma music video since the time of initial writing, and so many other easter eggs to unpack here. I love the countdown clock in the final moments of the video, but this entire post was inspired by the first few seconds of the song Karma, and thatâs what I will conclude with. I have been completely baffled that in all of my research on Karma, I haven't seen a single person point out that the beginning of the track sounds like an old album or like a dusty record. My partner picked up on this clue immediately because it was so obvious to us as older millennials. However, I didnât see anyone point it out online. Taylor visually emphasizes this at the beginning of the music video for those who didnât hear it automatically when listening to the track. Whether or not you believe in Taylorâs lost album, I hope you enjoyed reading the evidence I have compiled here today - and will continue tacking onto this post as time goes on. I canât possibly have found all of the easter eggs, but I have been as thorough as I could in the making of this post. Please feel free to comment or message me with things I may have missed, because I want this to be a true master post. Much like the ten minute version of All Too Well was once a myth but is now a reality, there is a chance you, like me, believe that Karma is realâŚ




















