Lover - Taylor Swift: Review
really needs no introduction as one of the highest selling and most easily recognizable pop stars of the 2000's. She made a transition from the country pop sounds of her early days into full blown pop stardom on her back to back albums Red and 1989 earlier this decade. After this she took a decidedly darker tone on her next record Reputation and took on some of the critiques of her music and character, spawning from an ongoing feud with Kanye West. After starting off the Lover era with one of the most maligned singles of her career to date she recovered with a number of successful and well liked tracks leading up to the albums release.
Review By Lavender:
I have had a very long and storied history of being perplexed and annoyed by the music of Taylor Swift, Her first three records are all among my least favorite of all time and as a trilogy make up one of the most taxing and terrible listens to get started with a discography in pop and just general music history. Thankfully after three records I would flirt with literally giving a zero to, she improved ever so slightly on Red with a nauseating but far more professional sound that saw her finally reaching beyond her painful country pop stool and guitar roots. While I would still consider Red terrible it has only been up from there as 2014's 1989 was by far the least annoying record of her career so far and while I don't like it by any means, tolerable was an improvement for Taylor. This era also brought a fantastic B-Side that was my favorite Taylor track of all time for years in New Romantics. In 2017 Taylor really blindsided me with a noticeable switch-up in her sound on her 6th record Reputation. Despite having no expectations whatsoever for this album it became my favorite of hers by far as songs like Look What You Made Me Do, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, End Game and the absolutely fantastic Getaway Car showed me a new and very improved side of Taylor that was so much more tolerable, despite a few less than stellar songs in the mix. I gave that record a 5.5 when it came out and that got me some flak from both Taylor fans and Taylor haters but ultimately it gave Lover the highest expectations I've had for any of Taylor's projects to date. Given that there were 4 singles and I only truly enjoyed two of them I was hesitant, but Lover is actually a very bloated but sometimes cute record full of songs it won't kill me to hear on the radio for the next year. (This has nothing to do with the quality of the music but it deserves to be said, the Lover visual aesthetic is one of the best I've seen in pop music in years and by far the best of Taylor's career so far, I've consistently enjoyed the promotional material and I am in LOVE with the album cover, that is all.)
Lover gets off to a decent start with five songs going by before a real down point comes by. I Forgot That You Existed has a great instrumental courtesy of Jack Antanoff as well as a pretty solid tune at its core. The only issue I have with the track is Taylor's horrible attitude that turns a song about forgetting somebody into a really petty attempt to make them feel bad and proves she is still thinking constantly about the person she has allegedly forgot about completely. Cruel Summer has another great instrumental piece as well as some pretty spicy and sharp verses but I do wish there was any semblance of catchiness on the hook of the track because the performance is genuinely decent but there is an awful lack of any songwriting prowess that slows the track down in its key moment.
Lover is the title-track and the fourth single released from the record, as well as one that I enjoyed quite a bit. The song is a genuinely pretty ballad that isn't afraid to get personal and intimate and serves as one of the highlights of the record in regards to Taylor's songwriting and vocals, even if there are some choppy supporting vocals mixed into the song. The Man has a totally true sentiment behind it but Taylor misses the point so badly in her lyrics that I'm surprised her label even let her release the song. All of the tracks comparisons fall flat on their faces, but if you ignore the lyrics there is a pretty good tune at the core of the track that is excellent background noise.
Next up is The Archer my favorite of the records singles and maybe my favorite song on the entire record. It is a driving, genuine and personal ballad with some pretty interesting and unique themes of "The Archer" as well as a charming and girlish delivery on the part of Taylor that makes the verses a dream and the hook one of the albums best moments. The first handful of songs aren't the only ones I enjoyed on Lover either, Paper Rings may start off sounding like a corny tune from a 70's musical move but it gets a lot better as the song goes on and turns into a bright and more bearable track while very slightly avoiding the shimmering corniness of the Red era. Death By A Thousand Cuts is a very good track with an angelic instrumental and a number of gorgeous swells where Taylor is seriously bringing her A-Game along side a killer instrumental.
After a very rough patch we get to yet another single in You Need To Calm Down a track that has appropriately been torn up for being a shallow adoption of LGBT rights for political points, which it is. The song is bearable at its core and when Taylor brings the sass hard on the song it is pretty hard not to crack a smile. Another element of this that I like is Taylor finally stepping into the 21st century after way too many of her songs dabble in overused similes and wacky references she takes on some truly contemporary lyrics that are refreshing to hear. Afterglow is one of the only darker and more lowkey songs on the album that actually manages to be listenable with a punchy and booming drum kick that I like as well as some keys that aren't afraid to elevate the mix of the song. compared to the other tracks in this style the songwriting is so much more tangible and rewarding. The final song I enjoyed was the closing track Daylight which features some shimmering and inspiring builds that brings a lot the albums themes back around and is a fitting conclusion to the record.
So a lot of the tracks I liked are very far from perfect but there is a class below of songs here that are either airy and lack any purpose or are straight up annoying. I Think He Knows is a mediocre Carly Rae Jepsen song, it sounds like a lifeless rendition of her sound and a song she would have scrapped. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince is a song with a cool title that I wanted to like but the verses sound so awkwardly ripped out of the 2000's and the hook falls almost completely flat. The instrumental is the only real highlight but I wish it would go a little bit harder, as is the song goes absolutely nowhere. Cornelia Street sounds like a terrible ballad from the 1989 era that I want to stop listening to as soon as possible the moment it comes on.
London Boy features production from Sounwave which explains the trap drums hanging in the mix but somehow that isn't the worst part of the song. The worst part is that the track is a flip on Estelle's classic track American Boy, but without all of the charm and poise that made that track so infectious and great as Taylor stumbles through some half thought out stereotypes to a disappointing lack of conclusion. Soon You'll Get Better and False God both feature some minimal instrumentals that are completely worthless because the tracks have no bite whatsoever and the wandering aimless songwriting is put right in the spotlight where there is nothing else to pay attention to. Also what the hell is the ridiculously clunky guitar on Soon You'll Get Better how was something like that allowed to make it into the final version of an expensive and professional record.
Unfortunately Lover saves some of its worst punches for last. What can I possibly say about ME! that hasn't already been said as the song has gotten torn apart by critics across the internet for it's awful corny lyrics, complete lack of chemistry between Taylor and Brendan Urie of Panic! At The Disco fame, and its sickeningly sweet instrumental. Another one of the albums worst songs is It's Nice To Have A Friend which has an absolutely horrible clunky instrumental that sounds like some of the nightmarish ukulele songs from Billie Eilish's album earlier this year. Both of these tracks make me seriously wonder if there was any quality control whatsoever or if they just included the first 18 songs they came up with on the record.
I was hoping that Lover would continue Taylor's upward trend but its more of a parallel movement. There is a decent record within the bellows of the album but Taylor becomes the most recent victim of the streaming era as the album is so overloaded with tracks that the album just doesn't need and they border from forgettable to outright hilariously bad. I clearly didn't expect Lover to be my album of the year but ultimately the song has enough good music to live up to my tempered expectations, with a pile of shit heaved on top of it as Taylor and her team trades streams for quality in one of the digital ages most disappointingly consistent trends. 4.5/10
