With the release of Lover, her seventh studio album, we see Taylor Swift back at her best. Given its lead single “ME!,” featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, left much to be desired with its sickly-sweet beats and underwhelming lyrics, the album’s other 17 tracks feel like a sigh of relief.
Ultimately, Lover features everything you could want from a Swift record. It’s jam-packed with earworm hooks and her signature visually enthralling lyrics. Swift has a knack for making each album she releases have a tangible feeling, and this era is no different. With Lover, listeners are called to bask under warmth, sunlight, and cotton-candy coloured skies.
This return to happiness feels more genuine and rewarding than it did at the release of her 2014 smash-hit 1989, a similarly upbeat pop record.
Anyone with access to Internet, TV, or a pulse has most likely heard of the summer 2016 beef between Swift, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West. This feud led Swift to remove herself from the public eye, a brief hiatus that was soon followed by 2017’s Reputation, a dark-pop album filled with done-me-wrong songs like its lead single “Look What You Made Me Do.”
In retrospect, pre-1989, Taylor didn’t have much to shake off other than your usual Twitter trolls and a rather heavy dose of public slut-shaming, but now, the return to light with Lover feels cathartic.
Of course, Swift hasn’t fully excluded herself from that narrative yet. The opening track off Lover, “I Forgot You Existed,” is an entire song about someone she insists she forgot existed.
It hints toward the Kardashian-West drama and fair-weather friends the singer lost along the way. In some ways, it should feel too been-there-done-that following Reputation, but it doesn’t. It’s fun, it’s silly, and succeeds in feeling carefree in every way. As Swift sing-speaks it: “It isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference.”
Next, listeners are sent on a perhaps-a-few-tracks-too-long journey of love and life with all of its complexities, thrills and heartaches—a.k.a., the Swift signature.
“Cruel Summer” is the lead single that should have been. With recognizable Jack Antonoff production, a hook guaranteed to get stuck in your head for days on end and sharp lyrics like “Cut the headlights, summer’s a knife / I’m always waiting for you just to cut to the bone,” it’s pop perfection tied up with a bow.
The title track is just as dreamy as one would expect, and its wedding vow-filled bridge hints Swift could have found the love of her life when she cheekily promises “to be overdramatic and true” to her lover.
“The Man” appropriately points out sexism in the music industry right on the heels of her public feud with Scooter Braun following the superstar manager wholesale purchase of Swift’s backlog of masters.
At times, the album fails to feel sonically cohesive. The production on “Paper Rings” feels straight out of the ’60s, while the dark, brooding rhythm on “False God” could not be any more of a polar opposite.
Regardless, Swift still succeeds at exactly what we’ve come to expect her to. Each song has its own story, which she’s able to tell incredibly well—so well that it can move us to tears—see “Soon You’ll Get Better,” a stripped down, violin-backed beauty featuring the Dixie Chicks which deals with her mother’s battle with breast cancer. “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you / Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus, too,” she sings with a tremble that feels more like a blow to the heart.
At its worst, Lover can feel a bit discombobulated, but it’s an album about love after all—which itself is a complicated, beautiful, confusing thing. At its best, Lover delivers as fans and critics alike have come to expect from Swift. It’s a glittery, sing-along-worthy pop gem, and it was well worth the wait.
