On Oct. 21, Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated album “Midnights”. After two consecutive rerecordings, this is her first completely new album since 2020s’ “evermore”, becoming the 6th album she owns. 

Announced on Aug. 29, Midnights was pitched as the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Swift’s life. The tracklist has 13 songs (plus the 7 bonus tracks on the 3 am edition), each representing a separate story.

Midnights was written and produced by Swift with the main collaborator being her longtime friend, Jack Antonoff. Other notable collaborators include Aaron Dessner, the producer of both “folklore” and “evermore”, William Bowery, a pseudonym for Swift’s partner, and even actress Zoë Kravitz, among others. 

The album started off with a bang with the track “Lavender Haze”. The first lyrics heard were fittingly “Meet me at midnight”. From those first four words on, fans were shocked but also hooked. This album is a vastly different approach compared to the two previous sister albums, which many fans either loved or hated. Going into the album, many expected that it was going to be a similar feel to its predecessors, but the pop oriented production shattered all those expectations. 

The use of synthesizers and pop-heavy beats create an atmospheric experience that you can’t help but want to sing and dance along to. Swift is often praised for her masterful lyrics, and Midnights is no exception. Her songwriting abilities are further proven with the album. By using metaphors, poetic words, and other common literary devices, meaning is encapsulated in every line. 

To only prove fan’s adoration further, “Midnights” has broken countless impressive records. It occupied the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100, with Swift being the first artist to ever do so. This also marks the first time no male artists have been in the top 10. It’s already the best-selling album of 2022, debuting with 1.578 million units. Of the 22 albums that have sold over 1 million the first week, Swift has five of them. She’s the only artist in history to have a no. 1 song and no. 1 album at the same time: 4 separate times. It’s the biggest album debut of all time on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music, with the most first-day streams in history. In October, she surpassed 2 billion streams in a month on Spotify. This is the biggest amount of streams in a month by a female artist in Spotify history. It also broke the modern-era record for vinyl sales in a single week, along with numerous other records. The numbers surely don’t lie for this one. 

The tracks also vary in emotion. Love songs like “Snow on the Beach” and “Sweet Nothing’ are paired along with sad songs such as “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Bigger Than The Whole Sky”. There’s also a variety of other types of songs, like the revenge energy of “Karma” and “Vigilante ****”, and happy self-love songs like “Bejeweled” and “Paris”, along with many others. Whatever emotion you’re feeling, “Midnights” has a song to match it. 

Swift also recently announced her next stadium tour called The Eras Tour. It will be a dive into every album of her career from 2006 to now. The openers include artists Phoebe Bridgers, MUNA, Gracie Abrams, HAIM, Paramore, beabadoobee, GAYLE, girl in red, and OWENN. 

Despite the initial shock from the genre switch, fans could not be more satisfied with the album. It’s only further solidified Swift’s place as one of the greatest artists of our time, and fans will surely be showing up for her for many midnights to come.