#if i had to do it in order starting from worst rep / 1989 / lover

[sheiscoming]

feel like starting some drama. in no order 1989 reputation and lover are taylors “worst” albums

[evilwickedme]

gail!! what are your thoughts on tswift’s new album? tbh, i’m not a super huge fan of hers (when i was younger i listened to a lot of her stuff, my fav album is Red, but i skipped reputation), but i’m super loving Lover. paper rings might be my favorite song on the album rn, it’s just.. so much fun!!! so, thoughts?

OH MY GOD I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS YOU HAVE NO IDEA jganeqrlnlkenal

The Saturday after it came out I ranted about it for like an hour to @theorangedeath it was intense

ok so here in no particular order are my thoughts about the album gkqengleln

Afterglow is hands down the best song on the album!! the lyrics, the melody, the vocals, the execution, all of it is absolutely *chef’s kiss*

it’s sad that it’s sandwiched between THE WORST SONGS ON THE ALBUM WHAT THE FUCK TAYLOR

yes I think YNTCD and Me! are the worst songs on the album no I won’t be accepting any criticisms at this time

I actually have a ranking of the songs I’ll add it at the bottom

I don’t understand It’s Nice To Have A Friend it’s baffling to me. what is it about. almost everything taylor writes is directly inspired by her life or someone in her life (see You Are In Love for example which is about the relationship of two of her friends) but I have no fuckin clue what this is about and it’s such a pointless song???

except for Cruel Summer, any song on this album that was less than three minutes long was significantly worse

I mean if Taylor can’t even fill three minutes with material there’s something wrong imo

Cruel Summer is a Bop tho I’m enrblkanbeaklnalk it’s obviously about the summer of 2016 when she was suffering all around but being in the new relationship with Joe was somehow the worst and also I saw a theory that they were friends with benefits first and I think it makes sense!!!!! so that’s where I am right now

just. the “save rock and roll” vibes in “HE LOOKS UP GRINNING LIKE THE DEVIL” I’m -

The Man is her best political song there I said it

not that she gets political often but on this album alone there are three songs to pick from and The Man beats them all by a mile

ShE sAiD bItChEs

paper rings is EXCELLENT as you said but honestly I’ve been playing it on the piano and I think it could’ve done with the occasional melody replacing the fun spoken/childish yelling part, like the “aha”s could have definitely been sung

emotional whiplash??? all over this album?? like taylor at no point sticks with one mood from song to song this album would’ve been so much easier to listen to if like, Cruel Summer was immediately followed by The Man or Cornelia Street followed another quiet song like Afterglow

Cornelia Street should’ve been track five and that’s the tea 🤷

It’s one of the saddest she’s ever written, really, and if it had been track five it might’ve finally dethroned All Too Well as the best track five (even though I have a weak spot for White Horse cause that’s the song that got me into her in the first place)

the Layers™ in Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince…………… poetic cinema.png

I Think He Knows is Dress but upbeat change my mind

Like. what a thirst song

also Taylor the things that turn you on about Joe make no sense chill

“his hands around a cold glass make me wanna that body like it’s mine” are you Ronan Lynch cause it sounds like you have a hand fetish

who said the rising tension in The Archer was ok because the fact that the base never drops at any point hurts me and I think Taylor owes me money for emotional trauma

I get the narrative of starting with I Forgot That You Existed (and Cruel Summer too tbh) in order to close off the Rep chapter but like. was it really necessary? New Year’s Day was a better lead-in to Lover than IFTYE was a send-off to Rep

Lover is. such a sweet song. my heart is going to explode

Death By A Thousand Cuts is just I Wish You Would but earlier in the relationship change my mind

London Boy is silly but fun and I refuse to listen to any trash talk about it y’all are just spoil sports who can’t handle a bit of silliness every once in a while. it’s good for the soul

Soon You’ll Get Better made me cry in public the first time I listened to it and is genuinely the saddest song she’s ever written, period, so I just plain excluded it from my ranking. I didn’t have the heart to quantify it

False God was a little pointless, honestly? It was just Don’t Blame Me but less Intense and more grounded. it felt like it belonged on Rep

Daylight is. so good. I don’t even have the words

so to sum up: Lover is Taylor’s best (officially) pop album, but not because it’s a perfect album, just because the quality of her song writing has just soared in comparison to Rep and even 1989. Although Me! and YNTCD are awful, they still beat Look What You Made Me Do by a mile, and are pretty much on the same footing as the worst songs on 1989; meanwhile songs like Daylight, The Man, Cruel Summer, Lover, and especially Afterglow raise the quality of the songwriting so much higher than the best tracks on 1989 or Rep (New Year’s Day, Style, New Romantics, I Did Something Bad). It’s a little all over the place in execution - just restructuring the song order to be less whiplash-y would’ve been really great - but I stand by what I said: Taylor’s best pop album. If she keeps going in the direction the best songs on the album take her she might finally beat Speak Now and Red as her best albums, but she’s not quite there yet.

And now, my Official™ Lover tracklist ranking:

Afterglow

The Man

Daylight

Cruel Summer

Cornelia Street

Lover

The Archer

Paper Rings

I Think He Knows

Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

London Boy

I Forgot That You Existed

False God

Death By A Thousand Cuts

You Need To Calm Down

It’s Nice To Have A Friend

Me!

Soon You’ll Get Better, again, was left off the list because it was too sad to rank