Taylor Swift's 'Lover': Everything we know about the pop star's seventh album

Taylor Swift's highly anticipated seventh studio album "Lover" is just around the corner. The 29-year-old pop icon has shared plenty of sneak peeks with fans while still leaving much to be anticipated for release day.

The follow-up to her 2017 album "Reputation," Swift has preceded her "Lover" debut with a string of new songs and flashy videos, with still more to come as her release week arrives.

Read on for everything we know about the season's most-anticipated album thus far.

When is 'Lover' released?

“Lover” is scheduled to arrive at midnight Friday.

The cover, showing Swift wearing heart-shaped glitter on her face against a pastel sky, was shot by 24-year-old photographer Valheria Rocha.

Fans can pre-order the new album on Swift's website, as well as four separate deluxe editions, each of which contains a different poster as well as a set of Swift's journal entries, handwritten lyrics and archived photos, along with a book of the album's lyrics.

"Lover"-specific merchandise and bundles are also available on her web store.

Where is Taylor playing live?

In addition to her appearance at MTV's Video Music Awards on Aug. 26, Swift will play a concert in Central Park for Good Morning America on Thursday, the morning before "Lover" debuts.

On release day, Swift will play an acoustic SiriusXM "town hall" special on the Hits 1 channel at 5 p.m. ET, which will also include a Q&A.

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What songs and videos has Swift released so far?

Swift's most recent release from "Lover" is the album's dreamy title track, which she shared with fans Friday, marking the fourth song Swift has released from her new album.

Following a lengthy lead-up on Instagram, Swift shared her first new song from "Lover" on April 26, a collaboration with Panic! at the Disco frontman Brendon Urie titled "Me!" and accompanied by a playful, candy-colored music video.

Swift followed "Me!" with her cheeky Pride month anthem "You Need to Calm Down" on June 14, followed by the song's celebrity-packed music video on June 16, featuring A-list co-stars including Ellen DeGeneres, the five "Queer Eye" stars, Laverne Cox, RuPaul and, most notably, Katy Perry, with the two former frenemies officially ending their much-publicized feud with an embrace at the end.

"You Need to Calm Down" has been the splashiest release of Swift's "Lover" promotional cycle thus far, with Swift going all-in on her Pride advocacy with a performance at the historic Stonewall, while other voices around the internet criticized the video's message.

The third new song Swift shared from "Lover" was the non-single track "The Archer" on July 23, which saw her reuniting with her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff on the song's production.

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Swift's recent September Vogue cover story also detailed the unreleased song "The Man," a "synth-pop earworm" that Swift said was inspired by her imagined life if she were born the opposite sex.

"If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?” she said about the song, which features the lyrics, "I’d be a fearless leader. I’d be an alpha type. When everyone believes ya: What’s that like?”

What are fans saying?

Just as she's done with previous albums, Swift is holding "secret sessions" for her super-fans to give them a first listen to "Lover." The first session was held Aug. 2 in London, and while attendees were sworn to secrecy regarding the details of "Lover," dispatches coming out of the listening party featured fans' raves of Swift's new music.

"The album was AMAZING," wrote Reddit user Nadianiffi. "So many amazing bops and also some true tearjerkers (archer who?????) I believe there’s something for everyone on that album. There’s some really stripped down stuff and some hardcore bops."

Another "Secret Session" attendee, Reddit user 13deviant13, gave the album a "9/10 for Taylor's standards," calling some songs "too mainstream" but predicting "Lover" will be an Album of the Year-"type of an album."

"The album vibe definitely matches the color of the album cover," the user wrote. "It has '1989' feels, 'Speak Now' lyrics, 'Fearless' hints and none of (Swift's most recent album, 'reputation')."

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What has Taylor said about the new album?

Swift has been coy about revealing too much about "Lover" in the interviews she's conducted leading up to the album's release, but has hinted at the various themes listeners can expect.

“There are so many ways in which this album feels like a new beginning,” she told Vogue. “This album is really a love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory.”

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in May, Swift delved deeper into the differences between "Lover" and her previous album "Reputation," saying, “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

“There’s a lot of a lot on this album,” she said. “I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing. … You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.”

Fans can also expect “really, really, really, really sad songs,” she added, but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Taylor Swift: Everything we know about her new album 'Lover'