... thoughts on Taylor Swift's REPUTATION CD...

mastercylinder, You have a first issue analog vinyl of the Taylor Swift album the OP is asking about?

Gershman Avant Garde RX20s! Beautiful, would like to hear them sing. From a reviewer: "As I had mentioned previously, the imaging produced by the Avant Gardes is first-rate, particularly for a floorstanding speaker. They are certainly capable of projecting a tight, well-defined image with lots of depth and layering. I found that Joni Mitchell’s "Overture/Cotton Avenue" from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter [Asylum 701-2] has some marvelous imaging. In fact, there are couple of incredible effects to check for on this track. First, there are some guitar chords that are played with the reverb out of phase, making the image appear to start in the center and explode out to the edges of the soundstage. There’s also a reversal of this, which is to play the chord out of phase with the reverb in phase. This causes the chord to start out at the edges of the soundstage and converge to a point that is dead-center of the speakers. This is a very cool effect when the system is imaging well. The other effect is at the end of the overture section, where there are a number of individual notes played in fairly rapid succession on a bass guitar. Again, if the speakers are imaging well, you will notice that each note shifts image, not just between the speakers, but in depth as well. "Overture/Cotton Avenue" is a must-have demo track in my book, and the Avant Gardes do it justice."
Looks a little like my JBL 250ti. The black one- not the "right" one, but everybody when they see them wants to be close and touch them...

... Would be interesting if mastercylinder does have the 1st issue vinyl - and could/can give us an accessment (and hoping that he will not compare her to George Gobel) of sonics... 

Well, even if he does the source material is probably digital...............

Reputation is state of the art modern pop production.  Complaining about DR and compression in modern pop is like complaining that rock and roll has too much drumming--it comes with the territory and to varying degrees always has.  We love it, particularly through the PMC monitors we use for recording.  Of course, we also love the older Taylor Swift albums too--and those had plenty of compression as well.  The common denominator is that they are all very well done.