Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: REPUBLIC RECORDS
After a few months of listening and relating, Lover has won a place in this Interrobang reviewer's heart.

This summer, Taylor Swift dropped her seventh album, Lover.

I was a little late to the party and only just started listening to the album in September, but I am now officially obsessed. Since releasing her album in August, Swift has been busy working on a Christmas album that is supposed to drop in December. This is exciting because both this album and Lover belongs to her and not the record labels that signed her. Earlier this year she announced that she was leaving Big Machine Records because the owner sold the company and sold all her rights to her previous music, therefore making all her past music not hers anymore.

Lover is made up of 18 songs that all have a unique tone behind them. This album was self-produced by Taylor Swift Productions with the help of Republic Records.

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The title song “Lover” is a powerful song in the first half of the album. The song itself is a soft ballad which tells the story of her and her boyfriend of three years. I interpreted this song as a person learning how to love again after being through a lot. This, along with the first track “I Forgot That You Existed”, are probably two of my most played songs on Spotify.

The second song on the album is called “Cruel Summer” which is a pretty upbeat song followed by another upbeat song called “The Man”.

Next we have “The Archer” which is a song about overcoming the loss of friends and finding your own self-worth. I resonate with the lyrics to this song because of my own life experiences and feeling worthless. The definition of the word “archer” is a person who shoots arrows at targets for sports. For Swift, this is a metaphor for all she has been through with the battle of trying to get the rights to her old music, along with all the other challenges she has faced and the backlash she has received over the years. There are 14 more songs on this album, which all tell different stories about different experiences in Swift’s life. But the album mainly focuses on her story and her relationship with her boyfriend.

One of the most popular songs on this album is called “You Need to Calm Down”, which she wrote as a reference towards the pass of the Equality Act. Swift is a huge advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and she uses her platform to promote a cause that was very meaningful to her and many others.

The music video to this song all-stars members of the LGBTQ+ community including Ellen DeGeneres and the cast from Queer Eye and RuPaul’s Drag Race. With the release of this song Swift created a petition to pass the Equality Act, an act that would protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.

I personally love an album where I can get up and dance to every song and this one delivers. Whether it is a slow song or an upbeat one this album gets me on my feet every time. I have been a fan of Swift since her country music days, I never really had a favourite album by her because the past six have been great, but Lover has definitely won a place in my heart.

With over 2.2 million copies sold, Lover has topped multiple charts since its initial release. Upon its debut, the album hit number one on Billboard charts with in the first 24 hours. This is a pretty big deal seeing as this was the first self-produced album of hers. I am very excited to see what the next year has in store for Swift.