For decades Taylor Swift has been a household name. Selling 114 million albums  worldwide, she has taken over the music industry and grown a fan base of people from every generation who look forward to her new music. 

As Swift was accepting her 14th MTV award, she announced the release of her tenth album: “Midnights,” on October 21 at midnight. Fans were ecstatic about the news since Swift hadn’t released new music since 2020. 

Swift revealed each track title through what she called “Midnight Mayhem with Me.” As she spun the bingo wheel, the bingo ball would fall out, then depending on which number that ball was, she would release the track correlating with that number. 

Many fans reported on social media about waiting until midnight every single night just to hear what each track would be called, jokingly saying Swift was detrimental to their sleep schedule. 

Supporters stayed up till midnight on Oct. 21st to hear the “Midnights” album. When they had finished listening and gone to bed, Swift was still awake. While they were asleep for just three hours, Swift released seven more songs. 

On her Instagram, Swift captioned a picture from the album photoshoot, saying  “there were other songs we wrote on our journey to find the magic 13. I am calling them the 3am tracks.” Little did she know that a few weeks later, the first 10 songs of the album would hold the top ten spots on the Billboard 100. 

After four days of “Midnights” being released, it became the biggest streaming week of 2022, hitting 3.482 million units sold in its first week, according to Billboard. The album also became “Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day” according to Entertainment Weekly (EW). EW also mentioned that she “broke the record for the most-streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history.” Fans continued to praise Swift for yet another successful album, including students here at Loy Norrix. 

“I think it has elements from her previous works and they are blended together to make this album so great.” said senior Violet Berg. 

Berg continued on to say that she likes how Swift has gone back to her pop music roots instead of the “peaceful and calming vibes from ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore.’”

 Swift has been known for the variety of her discography, starting off as a country artist, then pop, and with “Folklore” and “Evermore” a more indie genre.

Although her genre of writing has changed, Swift’s lyrics have stayed as personal as ever. 

Swift has been known to use her personal life as inspiration for her songs, and it seems like that continued in this album. In an interview, Swift said she got inspiration for her song “Lavender Haze” from “Mad Men,” where she heard the old ‘50s quote that was used to describe being in love. 

Lavender haze meant that you were in “that all-encompassing love glow,” Swift said it was about the “act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.” By this “stuff” she is referring to dodging countless rumors and ignoring tabloids. 

Swift also said the inspiration of her song “Anti-Hero” was that she struggled with the idea of not feeling like a person, otherwise known as depersonalization or derealization disorder. She later mentioned that the song is a “real guided tour throughout all the things that I tend to hate about myself.”

Giving her songs such deep meaning helps make the songs relatable and encourages more people to listen.

When compared to Swift’s other albums, “Midnights” has the most meaning behind it. Whether it is about new love, losing love, karma, or focusing on yourself there is a little something in this album for everyone. This is why some feel as though this is Swift’s best album yet.  This is not only because of the meanings behind the songs but also because of how many there are and how the songs have such variety throughout the entire album.  

Taylor Swift has once again reached into the world and released music that will be listened to for many years to come.