Taylor Swift is a name that often comes to mind in the pop music industry. After rising to fame from her first album, Taylor Swift, in 2006, she quickly grew to be one of the most successful artists in the music industry. Over the course of her career, she has released a total of ten studio albums, with her most recent being Midnights.

Taylor first announced Midnights’ release on August 29. When she released the album on October 21st, it consisted of a total of 13 songs with Anti-Hero, Lavender Haze, and Maroon claiming the top 3 spots on the billboard charts. In fact, she quickly held the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100, with all 13 songs making the list.

At 3am, 3 hours after the release of Midnights, Swift surprised her listeners with an additional album titled Midnights 3am Edition. This album included an additional seven songs such as Dear Reader, Glitch, and Paris. Although these seven songs did not gain as much popularity as the first 13, many fans of Swift still adore these songs.
Although Midnights broke many music world records, such as Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day and being the first female artist in history to occupy the entire top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, this album also contained another first for Swift. Snow on the Beach was her first song that included a collaboration with Lana Del Rey. The song broke Spotify’s record for the most single-day streams on an all female collaboration. Although it gained popularity immediately, Lana Del Rey was not sufficiently featured. Listeners feel cheated out of what could have been an outstanding collaboration

Conversely, Mastermind, Karma, and Dear Reader are the songs that stand out. To start off, Mastermind tells the story of one of Swift’s romantic relationships.This song gave the perfect insight into the relationships and sounded beautiful at the same time.

Karma has an upbeat style and a pop song feel. Although the meaning of the song is easy to decipher, its lyrical simplicity does not take away from the lesson it teaches. Karma explains how Swift doesn’t mind criticism because she knows that karma is on her side. This song vividly resembles an older but classic Swift song, Shake it Off.

Dear Reader is the last song on Swift’s album. Its lyrics are a compilation of advice, acting as an ode to advice columns in a magazine. Swift compiles this advice and carefully crafts it into a song that is meant to teach the “reader”. Some of the best lines include “Dear reader/You don’t have to answer/Just ‘cause they ask you” and “When you aim at the devil/Make sure you don’t miss”. The song is one of my favorites because it teaches the listener what Taylor Swift learned while she grew up. Furthermore, now that Swift has entered adulthood she is passing this advice on to her children, which for her are her fans.

Overall, though the Midnights album gave Swift the popularity she deserved, Maroon, Karma, and Dear Reader should be higher on the charts. This album accurately reflected Swift’s continuous growth throughout her career.