I have been a Taylor Swift fan for as long as I can imagine. Though I have only seen her once in concert, I was and continue to be mesmerized by her performance. From Teardrops on My Guitar and Picture to Burn, to Love Story and 22, I can safely say I know almost every word to every song she has ever put out. With such a huge fan base, she must be doing something right to keep her fans eager to listen for more. That is exactly how I felt when her album reputation came out. The single, Look What You Made Me Do had my hopes high for what was to come. However, on her last album, reputation, something about it just never fully did it for me. I never found myself putting the entire album on repeat, or having any of the songs stuck in my head. However, in my opinion, the song and music video for Look What You Made Me Do had my jaw on the floor from shock, the rest of the album just really didn’t live up to my expectations, which for someone like Taylor, they were pretty high. Lyrically, I felt like I couldn’t completely relate. Of course we know a lot of the songs were directed at her enemies, but to me it seemed more as if she tried so hard to get revenge that it was rushed and not lyrically thought out like the rest of her discography.
With the anticipation of Lover, I was really curious as to how the album was going to come out. The first single, “ME!”, with my favorite artist of all time, Brendon Urie from Panic! At the Disco!, was really only enjoyable because the vocals were amazing. Lyrically, the song felt like it was targeted at a very young audience, especially with the lyrics “Hey kids, spelling is fun!” which ended up getting cut out of the radio edited version anyways. Next up was You Need To Calm Down, which was written to become an anthem for the LGBTQIA+ community. The lyrics really were able to reach many different people and was very meaningful, but the music itself I was not a personal fan. Her last single before the actual album dropped was The Archer. The Archer felt like it was missing something musically, and had a lot of build up that really just didn’t go anywhere. Lover though is when my mind changed. Lover is the title track of the album, and the song truly had me blown away. It was a love song written most likely for her lover, Joe Alwyn. But when August 23rd rolled around, I wasn’t particularly in a rush to listen to her new music because I wasn’t 100% sure if it was going to be worth it for me. However, I was wrong.
Every one of the new songs aside from the singles are musically amazing. Lyrically they made you feel some type of way that only certain songs can do for you. That is why the album Lover is significantly better than reputation. Reinvented Taylor took a while to figure out who she truly wanted to be, and what music she wanted to put out. But once she did, it seems like she is back to the Taylor we used to know and love.