"Opalite" is the third track and second single from Taylor Swift's twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, released October 3, 2025, on Republic Records. Written by Swift alongside her longtime collaborators Max Martin and Shellback, the song arrived as an early fan favorite upon the album's release, when all twelve tracks from The Life of a Showgirl simultaneously occupied the top twelve spots on the Billboard Hot 100.
In February 2026, bolstered by a music video premiering exclusively on Spotify and Apple Music, a wave of physical singles sales, and official remixes from producers including Chris Lake, the song climbed to number one in its twentieth chart week, becoming Swift's 14th Hot 100 chart-topper.
Much of what makes "Opalite" so immediately and persistently catchy can be traced to a single guiding principle woven through its architecture: the chorus hook is introduced before the chorus arrives. From the very first line of the opening verse, Swift and her collaborators plant the melodic DNA of the song title hook - the octave leap, the descending D–C–B–A contour, the ending tag - deep into the listener's ear, disguised within the verse melody and then progressively intensified through the pre-chorus.
By the time "But now the sky is opalite" finally arrives in its fully formed shape, the listener has already absorbed its essential building blocks across every preceding section of the song, making the payoff feel both familiar and fresh.
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