Lover is the seventh Taylor Swift album and it was released on August 23rd! It was preceded by the singles “ME!”, “You Need To Calm Down” and “Lover”!
It’s a departure from Reputation (2017) and we need to find out everything there is to know about this new album!
- Lover is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift
- It was released on August 23, 2019
- The album is Swift’s first release under Republic Records and Taylor Swift Productions
- The lead single “Me!” featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco
- It was released on April 26, 2019
- The second single “You Need to Calm Down” was released on June 13, 2019
- The title track was released as the third single on August 16, 2019
- Aside from Urie, Lover also features a collaboration with the Dixie Chicks
- The album was produced by Swift, Jack Antonoff, Joel Little, Louis Bell, Frank Dukes and Sounwave
- Swift also serves as the executive producer
- Speculation of the album started on February 24, 2019
- Then Swift posted a photo of seven palm trees to her Instagram account
- Which she later confirmed was the day she finished the album
- On April 13, Swift released a countdown on her official website
- Counting down to midnight EDT (UTC-04:00) on April 26
- At midnight, Swift released the album’s lead single, “Me!” featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco
- Along with its accompanying music video
- Swift encouraged fans to find hints about the album title in the video
- And many fans pointed out that at one point in the video, the word “Lover” appeared at the top of a building in the background
- On June 13, 2019, Swift confirmed the album title in a livestream on Instagram
- And that the album would be released on August 23, 2019
- The numbers of the release date (eight, two, and three) add up to 13
- Swift’s favorite number
- Swift also announced that the album’s second single, “You Need to Calm Down”, would be released the next day on June 14
- Followed by its music video three days later
- She described the album as a romantic one
- Stating that it was “not just simply thematically, like it’s all love songs or something. The idea of something being romantic, it doesn’t have to be a happy song. You can find romance in loneliness or sadness or going through things in your life… it just looks at those things through a romantic gaze”
- In a Vogue interview published in September 2019, Swift described the album as a “love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory”
- The album was recorded in under three months
- Finishing on February 24, 2019
- Recording studios used for production of the album included Electric Lady Studios in New York City
- The album cover photo was shot by 24-year-old Valheria Rocha, a Colombian artist
- The album was released on August 23, 2019 by Republic Records and Taylor Swift Productions
- The standard edition was released on CD and for digital download and streaming
- And later in the month on cassette tape
- It is the first time Swift released an album the initial release day for streaming
- And the first time she sold an album directly on her website for digital download
- The deluxe edition comes in four versions
- Each containing a CD, two bonus audio memos and a blank journal, with different bonus content of Swift’s old diary entries, photos, and a poster
- The deluxe editions are distributed exclusively by Target in the US
- And on Swift’s official website globally
- A few weeks before the expected release of the album, Swift invited select group of fans to private listening parties called Secret Sessions
- A tradition beginning with the album 1989 in 2014
- Secret Sessions were held in London, Nashville, and Los Angeles
- Swift teamed up with iHeartRadio to release audio recordings of the Secret Sessions
- Swift partnered with Amazon in the lead-up to the release
- With Amazon featuring Lover designs on some of their cardboard delivery boxes
- On August 20, Swift released an exclusive playlist on Spotify
- Which incrementally revealed lyrics from the album
- The next day, Swift unveiled a line of clothing and accessories designed in collaboration with designer Stella McCartney
- On August 16, 2019, Swift announced the track listing of the album on her social media
- The song “Me!” featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco serves as the album’s lead single
- It was released along with its accompanying music video on April 26, 2019
- The lyric video was released on May 1
- The song broke several records
- Including the biggest single-week jump on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in its history
- It peaked at number two in the United States and in Canada
- While it debuted and peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart
- The second single, “You Need to Calm Down”, was announced during Swift’s album release livestream on Instagram on June 13, 2019
- And was released on June 14
- Along with the lyric video
- The accompanying music video, which was released on June 17
- It had special appearances from a variety of guests
- Most of whom are part of the LGBTQ+ community
- Including Ellen DeGeneres and RuPaul
- It debuted and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100
- At the 2019 Teen Choice Awards, Swift announced that the title track will be released as the third single on August 16, 2019
- On August 15, 2019, Swift announced on her social media that the music video for the song will premiere during a live Q&A session on YouTube
- A day before the album release, on August 22, 2019
- “The Archer” was released as the album’s first promotional single on July 23, 2019
- Swift explained it would not be a single
- And it was meant to showcase a side of the album unseen by fans with the two singles
- Therefore, the song would not receive an accompanying music video
- A lyric video was released on YouTube on the day the track was released
- It debuted at number 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated August 3, 2019
- Swift promoted the album and its singles on several live performances
- On May 1, 2019, Swift made the first live performance of the lead single “Me!” at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards with Brendon Urie at Las Vegas, Nevada
- Swift and Urie performed the song again at the season finale of the sixteenth season of The Voice on May 21
- Swift performed “Me!” solo at the finale of the fourteenth season of Germany’s Next Top Model on May 22
- On May 24, she appeared on The Graham Norton Show as a musical guest, performing “Me!”
- On May 25, Swift performed “Me!” at the quarter-finals of the eighth season of The Voice: la plus belle voix, the French edition of The Voice
- On July 10, Swift headlined the Amazon Prime Day Concert 2019 in New York City
- Performing “Me!” and for the first time “You Need to Calm Down”
- As well as a selection of songs from her previous albums
- On August 22, the day before the album’s release, Swift performed a concert at Central Park in New York City on Good Morning America
- Swift then performed “The Archer” on a YouTube livestream later that day
- Swift is scheduled to perform at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards on August 26
- There she is nominated for twelve awards
- Lover received generally positive reviews from music critics
- At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 78 based on 4 reviews
- Indicating “generally favorable reviews”
- As of July 2019, Lover is the most pre-saved album by a female artist in its first day on Apple Music
- Totaling more than 178,600 pre-adds worldwide on the platform
- Lover also holds the record for most pre-added pop album in its first day worldwide, also on Apple Music
- On August 20, Variety, quoting Republic Records founder and chairman Monte Lipman, reported album pre-sales worldwide were nearly one million
TACOTUESDAY says
GOOD ARTICLE I PASSED 😀