Taylor Swift Was 'Fully In Shambles' Over Reviews Of 'Lover'

The reviews are in for Taylor Swift‘s new album Lover, and they are mostly very good. If we’re being honest, maybe even surprisingly good as we didn’t really hear a Blank Space or I Knew You Were Trouble anywhere on it.

Just sayin’…

But we’re happy for Taylor, who has been embattled of late as she faces the prospect of never owning her back catalog of music, which is being bought up by Scooter Braun.

Video: Taylor Performs At The VMAs

In fact, the positivity may have given her the confidence she needs to go back to the studio to re-record all those classic albums. But will she be doing that instead of touring for her new release??

Get all the Taylor news straight from the unicorn’s mouth with highlights from her Tuesday interview with Ryan Seacrest (below)!

Lover Reviews

Taylor tells Ryan about being in a hotel room with her parents and album collaborator Jack Antonoff when the album dropped and being filled with joy at finally getting to play the songs for the world — then reading the reviews almost immediately:

“It was this incredible experience and then all of a sudden what happens at midnight is the reviews start posting because these journalists have heard the album beforehand… so the reviews started hitting and all of a sudden, I’m like, ‘These are the best reviews I’ve ever gotten my entire career.’ Like, my hands were on my face. I was fully in shambles… I was like on the floor.”

Taylor says those accolades may have even served as positive reinforcement for her decision to re-record all her old albums!

“I think it definitely did and especially the fact that this is the first album that I own. It’s my own work, you know? It’s crazy when you create things for 13, 14 years and then all of it is sold out from under you and you have this new fresh beginning and the first chance to actually own your art that you’ve been making all along and the fact that everyone is like, ‘Oh, no, this is the best thing that you’ve made.‘ Like, I cannot explain to you. Like, it gets me emotional even talking about [it]. Like, I can’t explain to you how good that feels because it’s the first thing that no one can take from me. No one can sell it. It’s mine.”

Re-Recording Changes

Fans have been wondering whether Taylor will try to match the original recordings exactly or make some changes as she revisits the classic tracks.

And Taylor says they should keep talking about it — because that very online discussion has actually changed her mind on a few things!

“I have almost a year to plan and get all my ducks in a row and I’m really going to be listening to the fans because there are some amazing ideas that they’ve had. I’m always looking on Instagram and Tumblr and Twitter and seeing what they would want. Like, some of the things that they’ve said that are really interesting to me are like I wrote the song ‘Better Man’ for Little Big Town, and… they took that song all the way [CMA Song of the Year etc.], but that I wrote during the Red — it was originally going to be on the Red album — so the fans are like, ‘Maybe she’ll put ‘Better Man,’ her version, on the Red album?’ And I was like, ‘That’s an amazing idea!’ So I’m going to be listening to what they are saying.”

However, for the most part she won’t be straying too far from the formulas that made the songs so beloved in the first place:

“I think they want me to kind of stick to the original production a bit, like make them pretty close. I don’t think they’d want to hear like ‘Tear Drops on My Guitar’ as a pop version. … The best part is, contractually, I can make them nearly identical to what they were originally which is great.”

Touring Break?

Unfortunately, all that studio work may be in place of a tour for Lover.

No, really! Taylor may actually just sit the album out for once! She tells Ryan:

“I’m not quite sure what we’re doing with touring because with this album, I was so full-on planning this album release and directing the videos and putting all these different clues in these videos and trying to make this album release experience the most fun one for my fans, that I didn’t wanna plan what we’re gonna do in terms of live and I don’t want to do the same thing every time because I don’t want my life to feel like I’m on a treadmill. There’s a lot that goes into touring that nobody knows like you have to reserve stadiums like a year and a half in advance and that to me is like a lot. Like, with Reputation, I knew that nobody would really fully understand this album until they saw it live because I knew what I had planed for it live was going to make people understand what I had made on the record. But this album is different because people are seeming to get this album on a first listen basis which is so wonderful. I can’t even tell you how much easier that is.”

When it came time to set up the next tour, Taylor was OVER it.

She tells Ryan her management approached her half a year back trying to schedule the next tour, and she was just not having it:

“And I was like, ‘Guys, I just got off tour — I literally just got off tour. I literally just took my tights off and my thigh-high boots off from the last tour. I literally cannot do this right now. You need to give me space even if that means we have to do things a little bit differently.’ I really can’t feel like my life is just album tour, album tour, album tour, album tour.”

But don’t despair if you’re dying to hear Lover live. There is still a chance, though it may be something different.

Taylor assures:

“I’m waiting to figure out what I’m going to do with touring… I don’t want to feel like I have to do the same thing every single time. I definitely want to play this album live for a lot of people. I definitely want to give fans an opportunity and give me the opportunity to vibe with them on these songs in a live setting and see them sing the words back, but I don’t really know exactly what way that’s going to happen.”

It may even mean performances in a more intimate setting…

“Stadiums are fun. Stadiums are amazing — I love stadiums, I just don’t know if we’re going to do the same thing as we did last time… This album is so personal, so detailed, like, Reputation was very external, very loud… this is an album that is very personal, vulnerable, emotional so my goal for whatever live setting that we decide to do things in, is gonna be to try to make wherever we are… make it feel smaller like a living room… That’s my goal. That’s my objective, [but] I truly don’t know what we’re doing… I haven’t had the meetings yet.”

Also, it’s a bit of a logistical problem trying to fit hundreds of thousands of screaming Taylor Swift fans into a “living room.” LOLz!

Getting Political On ‘The Man’

So back to those good reviews.

One of the Lover tracks standing out for critics and fans alike is The Man, a song all about the double standards applied to successful men and women.

With lyrics like:

“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can,
Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man”

It’s a personal struggle but also something of a political statement — coming during the presidential term of a man who was forgiven every manner of sin, crime, and incompetence while his female opponent was judged on every outfit.

How does Taylor feel about negative reaction from some of her male fans?

“If a man hears that song and feels uncomfortable, that means he’s probably not the greatest feminist. What’s great is like when you hear that song — we do these things called ‘Secret Sessions’ and we have fans come and listen to the album beforehand and it’s guys and girls — and I see the guys out there nodding along to the song, because what we need in any fight for equality, in any group of people, is we need people from the other side to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right. You’re right to want that.’ So any time men are like, ‘I love your song ‘The Man.’ I’m like, ‘You know what? I want to give you a hug and a high five.’

It’s a song I’ve been wanting to write for a very long time because I’ve noticed the inequality starts at a basic perception level where it’s like nothing we do is perceived exactly the same, so how are we ever supposed to ask for equal pay? [Or] equal standing entrance into the boys’ club or whatever when nothing we do is viewed the same? So that’s what I kind of wanted to go into with the song.”

What do YOU think of The Man, Lover, and Taylor re-recording all her old albums?

Would you go to an intimate living room concert??

Tell us all about it in the comments section (below)!

[Image via WENN/Avalon.]