Taylor Swift’s groundbreaking seventh album Lover highlights the best aspects of her old work and introduces an energetic, powerful, and personal era. The album features the classic sappy Swift songs and catchy singles, but this time it’s about her mother’s battle with cancer and meta social commentary on haters and gay rights, not some tragic love lost. Now there is a palpable contentment and finality within her work. She embraces her image, her past, her present, and moves into a future era of confidence and strength.
Many fans of “vintage Taylor” refuse to listen to her new music while others are too shy to admit that they even enjoy Lover. Perhaps this is due to Swift’s sharp turn from her country roots or simply because Reputation, her 2017 release, wasn’t as impressive as her previous albums. When Taylor released her first single from Reputation many disliked it for valid reasons. “Look What You Made Me Do (LWYMMD)” sounded nothing like the old Taylor, and as Swift herself says in one of her worst lyrics of all time, “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now… because she’s dead.” After “LWYMMD” disappointed her usual audience, many gave up on Swift’s album as a whole. Although tonally different, Reputation was an all-around cohesive and solid album. A handful of songs on the album were quite good (such as “Delicate” and “Dress”), but because many wrote the whole album off to begin with, they missed out on some decent work from Swift.
Taylor blundered again when she released “Me!” as the opening single to Lover. The lyrics in the bridge are unoriginal and childish, even the chorus becomes too repetitive after a few listens. Fans of previous albums, including myself, began to shake their heads and write off Lover as quickly as they had Reputation. By mistakenly releasing “Me!”, Taylor again ostracized many of her fans. Gems like “Cruel Summer”, “The Man”, or “Paper Rings” are better representations of the spectacular album that is Lover. Not to mention, any of these songs would have made much stronger singles. While her second single, “You Need to Calm Down,” also fails to live up to the rest of the album’s level, it’s pro-LGBTQIA message, political relevance, and clap-back attitude made sense from a marketing standpoint. Although “The Archer”, her third release from the album, isn’t incredible, it is sonically pleasing and a better representation of the album’s quality as a whole. “The Archer” also succeeded by showing listeners that lyrically speaking, Taylor still has the chops.
Yet it wasn’t until the fourth and final single that the public got a glimpse into the masterpiece Taylor had in store for them. “Lover” was everything fans were waiting for — a romantic, lyrically driven song accompanied by a guitar and incredible vocals. It was vintage Taylor, but with a newfound confidence which would later be seen throughout her album. This confidence is precisely why Lover is one of her best albums to date. Reputation felt forced, and even 1989, although it won album of the year at the Grammys, didn’t feel like Taylor. Lover’s strength is that it is the crowning culmination of Taylor’s career so far.
In Lover, Swift expertly navigates genres: country, classic pop, and even a 70s-style song like “Paper Rings”. Lover features Brendon Urie from Panic! At the Disco, and The Dixie Chicks, which speaks for itself about the variety of genres. Swift goes from sad (“Soon You’ll Get Better”) to sexy (“False God”) to calling out the patriarchy (“The Man”). From dark pop Reputation era (“Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince”) to 1989 bright pop (“I Forgot that You Existed”) to Red era romanticism (“Lover”), she traverses the paths of her old albums, including songs that could fit right into their tracklist. She even goes full-blown “The Story of Us” from her Speak Now album in the fun, upbeat “Death By a Thousand Cuts”; when listened to closely, the bright danceable pop gives way to deep cutting revelatory lyrics. She even includes the quirky, strange “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” which sounds like nothing she’s ever produced to date. This amalgamation of Taylor’s previous albums simultaneously combines with branching into new territory, displaying the reason Swift’s newest album simply works. Lover is an album for herself and for her fans, not for the haters, not for the critics, and not for those who only care about the drama.
The final song on the album, titled “Daylight”, is the perfect ending to Swift’s masterpiece; it gives listeners insight into the crux of the album’s success. The song ends with a voice memo of Swift saying: “I wanna be defined by the things that I love / not the things I hate / not the things I’m afraid of … / … I just think that you are what you love”. Lover is truly an album about love — for her fans, for herself, and for her new partner, but also for music itself. This album feels as though Swift has fallen in love with her music again.
The final lyrics sung on the album are: “You gotta step into the daylight and let it go / Just let it go, let it go”. Yes, Lover is what it is because of love, but it is also founded upon the basis of leaving the past behind in order to bask in the present and what it holds. Taylor Swift takes the positives of her past with her into her next era, and leaves everything else behind. Fans should stop looking for the old Taylor. She isn’t “dead”, she’s right before their eyes, evolved and better than ever. If they give Lover a listen, they’ll find what they’ve been waiting for since “You Belong With Me”. •
