Taylor Swift's "Lover" is a love letter herself — past and present

If we’re to judge an album by its cover, “Lover,” Taylor Swift’s latest which was released today, is already a massive turnabout from “Reputation,” the 2017 album that was brooding and acerbic in bursts following the artist’s messy, public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Each of Swift’s past albums have brought updated personas; for a refresher, one only needs to view the music video from “Look What You Made Me Do.” There are more than a dozen past Taylor Swifts on display, from the sweet, glasses-wearing "You Belong With Me" singer to the bedazzled 2012 Met Gala attendee. But while it may be grounded in real-life romance — or, as Swift writes in the liner notes, a “love letter to itself” — Swift’s “Lover” Swift has had a tough few years. In a rapidly shifting era of pop-up music releases, surprise albums and streaming, Taylor Swift holds steady with, as The New York Time’s Joe Coscarelli termed it, the “traditional pop playbook.” Indeed, the lead-up to “Lover” has seen the strategic release of radio singles — “Me!,”“You Need To Calm Down,”“Lover” and “Archer” — along with requisite social media revamps, TV appearances and a well-timed Vogue cover. Swift signals this in a few ways, including through the scanned diary entries included in one of the four deluxe editions of “Lover.” There are scribblings from a wide-eyed 13-year-old writing about her love of music; a note from 2004 about meeting record executive Scott Brochetta that reads: “I really loved all the stuff he said in the meeting, and he stayed for the whole Bluebird show, and he’s SO passionate about this project”; an entry from the night before “Red” lost out on Album of the Year at the Grammys: “Never have I felt so good about our chances.” It’s a methodical and even slightly understated nod to the tracks within.