Taylor is Swiftly back to her bright and witty best
FOUR months shy of her 30th birthday, Taylor Swift is taking a long look in the mirror. She made her name as a whipsmart singer-songwriter, but her talent has since been eclipsed by external distractions.
Her last record, Reputation, was concerned with settling scores with rivals such as Katy Perry and Kanye West. And her seventh album, Lover, arrives in the wake of a row over the sale of her old songs that has seen her threaten to re-record them all to regain ownership.
For now, she has dealt with the situation by going back to what she does best — writing clever, confessional songs that articulate her feelings with wit and self-awareness. Lover is lighter and brighter than the petulant Reputation — and all the better for it.
In moments of doubt, it pays to look back, and Lover reprises the bubbling synths of Swift’s best-selling album, 1989, and the zestful pop of its 2012 predecessor, Red. There are even traces of her Nashville roots. Producer Jack Antonoff remains, but the harder-edged sounds of Reputation are absent.
The fact that she is besotted with her British boyfriend Joe Alwyn, an actor who appeared with Olivia Colman in The Favourite, has clearly had an effect. Taylor wears her heart on her sleeve on Paper Rings, a brilliant girl-group pastiche, and the title track, a country ballad.
Then there’s London Boy, an unintentionally hilarious tourist’s-eye view of the English capital that has attracted online derision for its glowing portrayal of Camden’s crowded market and Swift’s improbable fondness for watching rugby in the pub. As an ode to transatlantic romance, it isn’t a patch on Estelle’s American Boy, but it works well enough as a lighthearted pop romp.
She addresses broader issues, too, skewering gender bias on The Man and calling out homophobia on You Need To Calm Down. On Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, she uses an unhappy high school prom as a metaphor for division in her homeland.
The latter owes something to Bruce Springsteen, too; its smalltown vignettes a reminder that Swift was raised in rural Pennsylvania before moving to Nashville with her parents at 14. She once scrawled a line from Springsteen’s No Surrender on her arm before a live show and refers to him by name elsewhere on this album. Unlikely as it might sound, she clearly sees him as an inspiration.
If her political points are voiced discreetly, there’s no such holding back on the personal front. I Forgot That You Existed celebrates fading memories of an ex-lover, while The Archer, all moody synths, is brutally self-critical: ‘I cut off my nose just to spite my face, then I hate my reflection for years,’ she sings.
Most poignantly, Soon You’ll Get Better is a haunting account of her mum’s battle with cancer. Embroidered by banjo, fiddle and superb harmonies by the Dixie Chicks, it reiterates just how good a songwriter Swift can be.
Lover, its 18 tracks lasting over an hour, is too long. Recent single Me! is a try-hard jamboree of Broadway showiness. False God, an intriguing detour into woozy jazz, sounds as if it belongs on a different record. Otherwise, it’s a case of normal service resumed. Lover closes with the optimistic ballad Daylight, which was originally the album’s title track. Taylor will be hoping it signals a bright new dawn.
SHERYL CROW pulls out the stops on her eleventh album, assembling such a powerful support cast that she has hinted Threads could be her final LP. With Stevie Nicks, Mavis Staples, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards on board, it certainly gives her a hard act to follow.
The Nashville-based singer is 57 but has the aura of a more seasoned artist as she combines effortlessly with the heritage acts here, whipping up a storm with Nicks on countryrocker Prove You Wrong and dovetailing with Richards on The Worst, a slow-burning Stones ballad from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge.
Crow and Clapton were once romantically entwined — her 1998 single My Favorite Mistake was about their relationship — and there’s a frisson to their reunion on Beware Of Darkness, a George Harrison cover. Alongside the many veterans there’s none more impressive than Willie Nelson on the barroom lament Lonely Alone.