In this age where we have constant access to artists and know so much about them, it's hard for reviews of albums from extremely popular musicians to not feel like a referendum on everything surrounding them. But it seems especially hard when you have an artist like Taylor Swift. Part of that is because she's one of the most famous people on Earth, so she has the inflated swirl of publicity and reportage that comes with that. It's also that she's someone who puts so much of herself and her life into her music. A Taylor Swift album and the discourse around a Taylor Swift album begin to feel like one in the same.
And the stars of discourse were not aligned for her leading up to Lover. Despite Reputation being a pretty good album when all was said and done, and despite it having an astronomically lucrative tour, the record was seen as a bit of a failure. On top of that, a fact that hadn't been the case for a long time was now true: Taylor Swift just isn't the biggest pop star in America anymore. In her absence, Ariana Grande scooped up the Millennial demographic and Billie Eilish conquered the Gen Z crowd. And it seems like reckoning with that reality caused her to scramble and make some fumbles.
The first of those fumbles was everything about initial single "ME!" Its release was coupled with a garish music video whose vibe was completely out of step with what people are looking for these days. Then there's her recent to decision to end her notorious silence on politics by finally coming out against Trump and in support of LGBT issues. Obviously, it's a net positive if she inspires some young people to become political, and it's better to be late to this stuff than to never come to it at all, but it's not unreasonable for people to think it's a calculated sales move. Adding to the feeling of calculation was the release cycle of the follow-up single, "You Need to Calm Down," in which a song that only makes one or two passing references to gay rights got a video that features a smorgasbord of queer celebrities. It all just seemed like a flurry of weird marketing moves that got the album off on the wrong foot.
That's a shame too, because despite all of the extra-textual elements surrounding the album being rancid, Lover is unequivocally great. Well, except no amount of initial perception could change the fact that "ME!" is a total whiff. Its generic, Target commercial melody and instrumentation is bad enough, but the fact that it inflicts Brendon Urie on our ears when so many of us are still trying to bleach his voice from the memories of our adolescence is beyond the pale. "You Need to Calm Down," however, is a monster pop song that sounds like it should've been a smash, and one has to wonder if people would feel more positive about it were they not annoyed with the video and Swift in general.
In interviews, she has spoken about how the aesthetics of this album are a direct reaction to Reputation's look and sound. Soft pastels fill the art of this release, a contrast to the hard black and white of her previous record. There's no coincidence in the fact that this album's title, Lover, is a direct inverse of her former favorite phrase "hater" either. She was a fighter on the last album. This time around, not so much. Lover sloughs off the angry edges of Reputation -- instead of fixating on people who've wronged her, she's forgetting they even existed on the album's opening track. Her only remotely Reputation-esque song is "The Man," which contemplates the gendered double standards that have plagued people's perception of her persona, but even that feels withering and even-keeled compared to the last album's agitated tracks. Meanwhile, the rest of the album is full of slick bops that are blissed out and love-drunk.
Though maybe that's just as much of a mask as the Disney villain cosplay of Reputation. Take "Soon You'll Get Better," which feels like the secret core of the album, as a counterpoint. It's a devastating and sparse song about her mom's cancer -- originally diagnosed in 2015 and re-diagnosed earlier this year -- that reminds the listener that not everything in Swift's life has been a cause for celebration. A line like "I'll paint the kitchen neon, I'll brighten up the sky / I know I'll never get it, there's not a day that I won't try" even indicates that the positive vibe on the surface of Lover is just an attempt to cope with a lingering sense of sadness. The album is suffused with little bits of anxiety, like on "Cornelia Street" where remembrances of the time when her current love first bloomed also features the line "And baby I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away." Things like that bubble up all over the album. It serves to lend this otherwise happy and content album a sense of stakes, the fact that Swift is grappling with the idea that everything good in her life could suddenly all go away.
She may not have the world-conquering singing voice of an Ariana Grande or the command of mood and sound of a Billie Eilish, but one aspect where Taylor Swift continues to be unparalleled in the pop landscape is the level of sheer craft in her songs. This album reminds you of how much of a structure wonk she is, with every song feeling like a perfectly constructed set of verses, choruses, and bridges that all fit into the tight little melodic frameworks she spins out like it's nothing. Never is that more apparent than early favorite "Paper Rings," a song that all the algorithms in the world couldn't make more mathematically catchy. It's a sock hop gem with undeniable melodies in its chorus and verses, that somehow manages to find another gear in its bridge.
It's in the lyrics however, where Swift truly shines and sets herself apart from her peers. Her music has always felt like the work of someone who's a tinkerer at heart. Every phrase is so precise and detail-heavy, written and rewritten to be the most lean and rich version of a sentiment possible. Over her last two albums it has felt like she was moving away from that evocative style in her transition to unambiguous pop, but Lover is a return to her roots on the lyrical front. Every line is so vivid and gorgeous, like her use of "holy orange bottles" to describe her mom's prescription pills on "Soon You'll Get Better." She's still got that fascinating way of phrasing things: "I think he knows / His footprints on the sidewalk / Lead to where I can't stop / Go there every night." And she paints memories with so much clarity that they unfold like real-time, present-tense moments: "I'm drunk in the back of the car / And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar / Said, 'I'm fine,' but it wasn't true / I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you / And I snuck in through the garden gate / Every night that summer just to seal my fate."
Part of the joy of a new album from an established artist is getting another opportunity to see them play in their sandbox like that. Her wild bridges, the breathy sighs she uses when she sings some of her lines, her last chorus adlibs -- almost all of the Taylor Swift staples appear on Lover. And the album features some her best phrase turning ever. There's "What doesn't kill me makes me want you more" on "Cruel Summer." There's "My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue / All's well that ends well to end up with you" on "Lover." There's "We're so sad, we paint the town blue / Voted most likely to run away with you" on "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince." For people who really love this stuff, it's a major treat.
The left turns end up providing even more joy. Album highlight "False God" is this low-tempo, midnight simmer that wouldn't feel out of place on an adult contemporary station, and I couldn't help but feel during the Joni Mitchell-esque stagger of words in the pre-chorus and those light saxophone stabs in the chorus the excitement of having never heard her do something like this before. "It's Nice to Have a Friend" is another highlight in that vein. Sounding a little like the "Cuckoo" song from Moonrise Kingdom, it blends the soft sounds of a children's choir with steel drums, and contains a bugle breakdown. Seeing that written out feels like looking at a menu where an item has a disparate blend of ingredients, but hearing it is like having those ingredients come together for an incredible flavor.
All of the tabloid aspects of Taylor Swift's life have never been a point of interest for me, but it feels almost impossible to review this album without mentioning Joe Alwyn. After all, he's the titular character in "London Boy," a fun and wondrously catchy song that humorless people don't seem to like much. Alwyn is the longest relationship she's had since entering the spotlight and it's hard not to notice how much happier and healthier it feels via her songs. On tracks like "False God" and "Afterglow," there's an entirely different approach to weathering the storm of hard times and conflict than we've ever heard from her. There's a real sense of partnership to these songs, a desire to work things out and attain stability. It's a far cry from the volatile approach to love we heard back in the days of "The Way I Loved You," and as someone who's listened to her music for over a decade, I can't help but be endeared by that.
So much life is inside of Lover. There's still something very intoxicating and hopeful about the way her mind and her pen works. It's full of "magical things" and "dazzling hazes." She channels that energy into every type of Taylor Swift song you could want on the album's 18 tracks, and it's easy to get caught not only in the its tide of joy and excitement, but also its splashes of melancholy.
In the weeks that led up to the release of this record, I made myself comfortable with the fact that Taylor Swift's peak was over. The creative arc of a musician is alot like an athlete's output. Her self-titled debut was the promising rookie season, while Fearless through 1989 was her hall of fame period of dominance. In that case, Reputation appeared to be the start of her "Lebron James on the Los Angeles Lakers" period: still good, but you can see the cracks in front of you and the best moments in the rearview. And that was nothing to be ashamed of -- any musician would kill to have an apex as long and high as hers, and merely good Taylor Swift is still better than almost any other popular music. But Lover is a turn-back-the-clock moment for her, a glorious accomplishment that stands right up there with her greatest work. It's rare for a pop star's seventh album to be this thrilling, this invigorating and engaging. The times may be passing her by, but she remains as talented as ever.
