Taylor Swift knows what she’s doing. Her new album 1989 underwent a meticulous promotional cycle—staggered Instagram posts of stray lyrics and album art—that has made the record, her fifth, the biggest pop event since last year’s surprise Beyoncé album. The pop singles of 2012’s Red, produced by pop behemoths Max Martin and Shellback, anticipated her transition from country-pop to an entire album of straight-up pop (1989 was also produced by the duo). Considering Swift’s talent, 1989 should be a winner. But it isn’t.

This is because Taylor Swift is also very aware. This is not a vice outright; it’s part of being a songwriter of her strength, of knowing which combinations of melodies and lyrics create a surefire hit. It’s also part of being a pop star of her magnitude. Her personal life, particularly regarding her relationships, has become almost inextricable from her artistry; the lazy and, frankly, sexist law of “break up with her and she’ll write a song about you” has defined her music for years. Swift has spoken out about standing firm against this (often male-driven) criticism and continuing to do what she wants. Given this history, it’s strange that 1989 suffers from playing it safe. Despite a handful of standout songs, this merely decent album features largely vague lyrics and passable music.

The phenomenon was first observed in the unpleasant lead single “Shake It Off,” a glaring example of this inoffensiveness. Were it not for the references to Swift’s love life in the first verse (“I go on too many dates… that’s what people say”), the song would be completely anonymous. Musically, it’s a feeble retread of Pharrell’s “Happy” aiming for universal appeal that ends up sounding artificial, focus-tested rather than liberating. Meanwhile, the stomping “Bad Blood” tells of a broken friendship without going into any specifics. Again, Swift can’t escape biography. Many have already speculated the song is about Katy Perry, but it’s hard to guess as much from the leaden “problem/solve ‘em” rhyme and general lack of detail. More considered attempts to inject Swift’s own story falter still; the dismal opener “Welcome to New York,” referencing her recent move to the city, tries to claim the Big Apple but neglects to mention any identifiable part of the city, rendering the song useless. Ryan Tedder’s bland production doesn’t help the song, either—it is a bottomless pit of reverb with a plinky melody flung into it. It’s “Empire State of Mind” for people who don’t know anything about the city.

Musically, too, 1989 takes the easy road with its sonic palette, a pleasant blend of late eighties stadium rock and early aughts teen pop that sounds nice but is ultimately forgettable, particularly in “How You Get the Girl” and “I Wish You Would.” Elsewhere, Swift takes on musical trends with mixed results. “Blank Space” awkwardly fuses teen pop guitar strum with Lorde’s drum programming, while “Wildest Dreams” is a blatant Lana Del Rey rip. Album closer “Clean,” co-written by Imogen Heap, works a bit better, though it stands at odds to the Martin/Shellback sound that’s pummeled the listener up to that point. While Martin and Shellback tend to opt for bubblegum, Heap deploys a bending bassline, twinkling thumb piano, and layers of breathy backing vocals. The song finds Swift washing away a failed relationship, which evokes the album’s own failures, in a way.

What is fascinating about 1989, then, is that Swift’s more honest moments actually do align with the more musically exciting moments. Consider the gorgeous “This Love,” the album’s sole slow-burn moment, where two lyrics capture the album’s essence more succinctly than all of the tracks that precede it: “When you’re young you just run / But you come back to what you need.” Similarly, the early pairing of “Style” and “Out of the Woods,” both of which feature overt, knowing references to Swift’s relationship with Harry Styles, are sonic highlights, the former a sleek disco jam, the latter a windswept ballad. But “New Romantics” is the winner here, despite being frustratingly relegated to bonus-track land. Over a snappy electro beat, Swift finds solidarity with her fellow female artists—“we compare our scarlet letters”—and finds liberation in the night. “I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me,” she cries triumphantly, providing the mission statement that “Shake It Off” wishes it could have provided.

There’s no doubting the success of 1989 as a cohesive record; it neatly summarizes feeling happy, free, confused, and lonely in your early twenties. But as a Taylor Swift record, it disappoints because of its overall unwillingness to throw caution to the wind. With her talent, deliberately playing it safe is not enough anymore.