Taylor Swift, what a fall from musical grace you have had. I was brought back into the Swiftie-verse by Folklore and Evermore, and have been severely disappointed and put off by everything she's released since. This album is no different.

Even when I was a fan, I knew that Swift's production and musical innovation were severely lacking. It was always her lyrics that made her worth listening to, especially when she worked with skilled producers like Max Martin or Aaron Dressner. Unfortunately, her lyricism is so shallow and elementary here that even Martin and Shellback's production can't make up for it, especially since it's far from their best work anyway.

Really, most of this album sounds like a Carly Rae Jepsen wannabe ripoff. Carly has a special energy she brings to her music that tells a story and infuses all of her songs with an unescapable energy. This album, on the other hand, was very boring. Taylor Swift seems to be spending her most recent eras trying to be anyone but herself. She shines brightest when she ventures into her own inner world with restrained production, yet for some reason keeps trying to push herself into the big shiny popstar box of her earlier years. On this album, she is 35 years old giving us the stories and introspection of a 17 year old. Somehow, the world's most successful musician is also the world's biggest victim. It's tired and, frankly, semi-offensive given what the world looks like right now.

I wanted to give this album a chance because I thought maybe she had learned her lesson from the critical flop that was The Tortured Poets Department, but the only lesson that seemed to teach her is to get a better producer. That lesson may have backfired because there is noone and nothing else to blame but Swift for this album's failures. It's not the production. It's not her collaborators. It's Swift's perpetually immature, out of touch lens and serious lack of artistic innovation.

I will always feel upset with her for making us Folkmore truthers look delusional, but I think this album, if not her last one, has officially cemented that time as nothing else but another era for her. There are so many pop stars who deserve the praise and platform Swift has, and it's deeply frustrating that she is seen by so many as the pinacle of modern music.

This album was dull, lifeless, and self-indulgent. If there's one thing listeners can hope to take from this, it's the knowledge that commercially successful music clearly has no correlation with actual music quality anymore. I'm sure this will break tons of records, which will do nothing but further prove that the musical ratrace is all for show. So hey, maybe the life of a showgirl really isn't that bad after all.