August 23 has come and gone, and with it, Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated seventh studio album, “Lover,” has arrived. The singer-songwriter solidified her position as the queen of pop with this album, which many are calling her best. “Lover” is a complete turn around from her 2016 album, “reputation,” which showed the darker side of Swift, a frame of mind that came in the wake of her pop culture dustup with Kanye West. 

This 18-track album is different than any of Swift’s previous work, with the main theme being love instead of heartbreak. The album begins with a “I Forgot That You Existed,” a perfect transition from “reputation” to “Lover.” It discusses the issues of being wronged by someone you care about, but this time with the lighter perspective of “I dont care anymore!” Swift also uses this album to speak out on societal issues, as shown in “The Man,” when she calls out the blatant sexism she has been victim to in the past. For this song, she belts out her message anthemically: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” Her take on cultural acceptance and anti-hate messaging comes across with her usual winning pop rhythms in the song “You Need to Calm Down.” Spread love and not hate, she tells her adoring Swifties. 

The album’s overarching theme is love, and the album title “Lover” stems from the concept. Swift shows she can still write a love song better than most with tracks such as “Lover,” “Miss Americanah & the Heartbreaker Prince,” “London Boy” and “Paper Rings.” In “Lover”, she sings “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close?” putting the image in the listener’s mind of a relationship she never wants to let go of. A fan favorite on the album is “Cruel Summer.” In the song Swift sings about her unexpected relationship with her boyfriend of three years, Joe Alywyn. The song was an instant fan favorite, with many calling it Swift’s best song of all time, a challenging feat given that she’s written more than 230 songs over the course of her 13-year career. 

Swift doesn’t just look at the good parts of love, she also writes about the hard times in songs such as “Death By a Thousand Cuts,”  a song that discusses how hard it can be to get over an important relationship. It could be argued that the album’s cutting slow song “Soon You’ll Get Better” is her most heart-wrenching song of all time. In the song, which features backup by country musical legends The Dixie Chicks, Swift sings about the struggles she experienced witnessing her mom’s battle with cancer. 

In the album’s final track, “Daylight,” Swift reflects on her past mistakes and relationships, but explains she is now more mature, and that her current relationship is like a light at the end of the tunnel. “I once believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden,” she sings, making a direct reference to her album “Red.” The album ends with what sounds like a phone call, a reference to “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead.” in “Look What You Made Me Do” on “reputation.” She finally picks up the phone saying, “I want to be defined by the things that I love, not the things I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. I, I just think that you are what you love.” The song is a beautiful way to end a beautiful album, and the whole musical ensemble of emotions displayed on “Lover” show the world’s most famous pop star is still very much at the top of her game.