Taylor Swift, “Lover” 5/10

Taylor Swift isn’t exactly my choice of music to listen to. The American pop icon’s seventh full length album is a colossal return to form for the embattled pop songstress. Following the fallout of the drama between Taylor Swift and Kanye West, Swift released “Reputation”. an album that among other things was plain up her worst album of her career. “Reputation” was so bad that many critics believed that the time for Swift was long gone. With “Lover” however, we see Swift not only forget that “Reputation” ever happened but go even further back in her discography to her pre 1989 days. With songs like “Lover” being a throwback to her country days and the decently strong catalogue, “Lover” was shaping up to be Swift’s most enjoyable album. However, soon the back half of the catalogue started, and then the singles, and then the writing. For most of the first half of the album Taylor’s team actually does a very good job at keeping things tonally together and making the production incredible. Even in the singles off of this album, which I generally disliked, the production is undeniably good. However the production wears on you to the point where the album just becomes too bloated for its own good and the boredom starts to set in. This is only made worse by the terrible lyricism Taylor displays in the album. From the questionable pro-LGBT message in “You Need To Calm Down” which sums up to Taylor equating her own personal haters to anti-LGBT activists, to the just plain up bad lyrics in the other singles like the “Archer” and “Me”. Despite these setbacks, however, Taylor still creates an enjoyable experience that’s at least better than her last album.