A shame, really. “Reputation” was Swift’s most forward-looking, contemporary-pop-aware album. Even if large parts of it were animated by agita, it was well-written and well-executed (if occasionally awkward) with a persistent hum of tension.

“Me!” — which is mechanistic fun, but dull at the edges — skips all that in favor of a kind of uncritical exuberance that’s almost piercingly saccharine. The song’s lyrics are in a familiar Swift mode (if on the whole, a little less punchy than usual): “I know that I went psycho on the phone/I never leave well enough alone.” It’s her singing that alters the calibration. Swift isn’t an especially powerful vocalist, but she’s long had an unerring sense of how to deliver tsunami-grade melody, knowing when to lean in to a buildup. But here, when she gets to the hook, her singing thins out, gets childlike, almost gleeful. The restraint is, at times, agonizing.

“Me!” is a duet with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, a potent vocalist with far lower star wattage who seems to be under-singing here so as not to trample the boss. (That Swift chose a duet for her return is also baffling — the collaboration is a distraction, not an additive.) And on Thursday night, Swift appeared for a brief interview during the N.F.L. Draft; “Me!” will be the soundtrack of its second round. It is difficult to think of a less apt partnership than Swift, who has recently found her political voice, and the scandal-plagued N.F.L.

All of which is surprising, because Swift is as aggressive and effective a chess player as pop has seen in years. These choices suggest that the urgency of the bigger goal — to shake free of the last few years of distractions — was far more crucial than the minor details of songwriting (by Swift, Urie and Joel Little) and production (by Swift and Little). Rather than opt to wear the patina of surviving a rough stretch, Swift has chosen a to-the-studs restoration and a fresh coat of paint. It gleams so bright, it just might obscure the fact that anything was ever out of place. Too bad. JON CARAMANICA