Listen: Taylor Swift's "It's Nice to Have a Friend"

Lover is Taylor Swift's seventh studio album after what was a lacklustre Reputation, but it also expunges the latter's bitterness for love-soaked anthems, while showcasing a new Taylor who's "woke" and politically charged — as evidenced by Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince that cleverly retools her signature cheerleader hook for something peppy and poppy. The problem, then, is that little of it sticks, not to mention the album begins to overstay its welcome at 18 tracks. The lush country detour Soon You'll Get Better is gorgeous, as is Reputation's Delicate clone Cornelia Street. Her pop crossovers, meanwhile, continue to be hit-and-miss, a by-numbers exercise largely redeemed by the stripped back Archer and the subdued False God. The knockout, ultimately, arrives in the form of It's Nice to Have a Friend, a dreamy, twinkling acoustic melody accompanied by high-pitched ooh-oohs that sounds unlike anything she's done before. If only there was more of it in Lover!