5 Takeaways from Taylor Swift’s New Album, Lover - Pitchfork

Taylor Swift previewed her last record, 2017’s Reputation, with a dramatic mic drop: “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now,” she sang on lead single “Look What You Made Me Do.” “Why? Oh, cause she’s dead.” Painted as a liar by Kim and Kanye and criticized for not taking a political stance in the Trump era, Swift was no longer America’s sweetheart; instead she was pop’s snake and its perpetual victim. Reputation played into this narrative with brash songs that likened her public shaming to witch burning.

With her bad girl detour apparently behind her, earlier this year Swift announced her seventh record, Lover, with a gigantic mural of a butterfly, its wings filled with hearts, rainbows, and cats. “There are so many ways in which this album feels like a new beginning,” she told Vogue. “This album is really a love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory.” Unsurprisingly, Lover is a return to vulnerability and romance. Here’s what you need to know about the 18-track album.

The Sound

Swift has a habit of previewing her new albums with songs that aren’t necessarily indicative of the greater vibe, and Lover is no different. The Kidz Bop bubblegum of early singles “ME!” and “You Need to Calm Down” are without a doubt the record’s weakest moments (at least the “hey kids, spelling is fun” bit has been cut). Those outliers aside, Lover is blessedly cohesive, channeling 1989’s colossal pop escapism and Red’s hyper-specific intimacy with enough splashes of Reputation’s electro-pop edge thrown in to keep things surprising. While a couple of songs nod to Swift’s country roots (“Soon You’ll Get Better,” “Lover”), Lover takes her more recent sonic explorations and pushes them forward.

The Credits

Speaking of 1989 and Reputation, producer/songwriter Jack Antonoff is a big presence once again, bringing his dreamy synth-pop stylings to 11 out of 18 songs. He is joined by St. Vincent’s Annie Clark on “Cruel Summer,” one of Lover’s most euphoric bangers. The Dixie Chicks make a subtle but moving appearance harmonizing on “Soon You’ll Get Better,” which addresses Swift’s mother’s battle with cancer. And of course, Panic! at the Disco’s Brendan Urie pops up in an unfortunate cotton-candy cloud on “ME!”

Swift wrote or co-wrote, as well as co-produced, every song on the record. Max Martin and Shellback, who’ve worked with Swift consistently since 2012’s Red (arguably the start of her pop era), are noticeably absent from the credits. One particularly collaborative song on Lover seems to be the bubbly Anglophile moment “London Boy,” where the credits include rising soul singer (and songwriter/producer for hire) Cautious Clay as well as Sounwave, one of TDE’s in-house producers. That’s also the track that opens with Idris Elba casually suggesting a ride on his scooter, taken from the British actor’s 2017 Corden appearance.

Turns Out the Old Taylor Can Come to the Phone

If her last album’s half-baked commentary on celebrity felt a little exhausting to you, Lover may come as a relief. Though the album begins with a Reputation-era clapback (“I Forgot That You Existed”), Swift mostly returns to her specific, observational, and heart-on-her-sleeve songwriting style. On “Soon You’ll Get Better,” she prays to her mom’s orange medicine bottles and wonders how to survive without her closest confidant. On “Cornelia Street,” she memorializes the start of a new romance through the details of her life on the quaint Manhattan corridor. Overall, the album’s tone is self-aware and hopeful. “I want to be defined by the things that I love—not the things I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night,” she says on the closing song, “Daylight.”

Standing Up For Herself

Ever since Lena Dunham taught Taylor about feminism in 2014, the musician has framed her experiences with more of an eye towards gender inequality. This has been hinted at again recently as Swift has protested the sale of her master recordings to music manager Scooter Braun, which she called her “worst case scenario” due to Braun’s past bullying (he used to manage Kanye). “He knew what he was doing; they both did,” Swift wrote on Tumblr, referring to Braun and Big Machine’s Scott Borchetta, her former label’s president. “Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.” This week, in an effort to work around them, Swift announced a plan to re-record her entire back catalog.

This is the backdrop for Lover’s release. The album itself addresses issues related to sexism more overtly than Swift’s previous records. Like Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy” before it, “The Man” imagines its protagonist’s life as though she were male. Essentially, she would be perceived as complex, cool, indifferent, commanding, and respected. “When everyone believes ya/What’s that like?” she asks over a stuttering beat. Later, on “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” Swift uses her beloved high-school tropes to address toxic masculinity and disillusioned patriotism. “American stories, burning before me/I’m feeling helpless, the damsels are depressed/Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?/Darling, I'm scared,” she sings, amid cheerleader chants about fighting and winning.