Already breaking records, the new album Midnights by Taylor Swift was released on Oct. 21 at midnight. Midnights has had the biggest streaming week of the year and has had three hundred fifty-seven million on-demand official streams.

Given that this album has received so much recognition, I decided to take a listen and see what the hype was all about.

Right off the bat, one song I absolutely loved and caught my attention was “Sweet Nothing” because of the tempo. The tempo was calm and slow. Anyone who is a Taylor Swift fan, automatically knows Swift tells her songs in the form of a story. Many fans, as well as I, speculate that this song is about Swift’s mom getting diagnosed with cancer. The lyrics, “maybe I am just too soft for this” and “they say the end is coming, everyone’s up to something, I find myself running home to your sweet nothings,” leads many to infer Swift was singing about her fear of losing her mom. Furthermore, she doesn’t think she can accept the fact that her mother is dying. As for myself, I believe the second lyric is about how she feels safe with her mom.

Another song I adored was “Lavender Haze”. Swift admitted that the track title was taken from the Emmy-winning series “Mad Men“. The meaning behind the word is being in love and encompassing the love glow. Also, it represents how you would do anything to stay in that lavender haze (love) and won’t let people bring you down. This compares to Swift because she wants to stay in this lavender haze, but it is hard because the media is always judging her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn. Furthermore, she speaks on this when she says, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say”. This means she isn’t going to let the media bring down her relationship.

Last but not least, I really enjoyed listening to “You’re on Your Own, Kid”. This song was very relatable, and it was cool to see how she used the song to tell a story about where she is now. The advice towards the end of the song, “everything you lose is a step you take, so make the friendship bracelets take the moment and taste it, you’ve got no reason to be afraid” was very moving. It represents Swift talking to her past self and listeners about trying to be good enough. Additionally, this song is about not taking things for granted and living your life to the fullest.

With every popular singer, there is always that one song that turns out to be a big hit. In this case, those songs were “Bejeweled” and “Anti-Hero”. Starting off with “Bejewled”, I liked how she talked about having self-worth and confidence. The music video is also really good because it is a reenactment of Cinderella. Her hair and makeup in the video are gorgeous, but it has a more immature take on the tune which corresponds to the lyrics. “Anti-Hero”, on the other hand, is very popular on TikTok with the lyric, “It’s me hi, I’m the problem It’s me.” Contrary to “Bejeweled”, this song is about her insecurities, and how her life has become unmanageable. Overall, this is another song that was written pretty well.

Although Swift did have many great songs, others weren’t as good.

A song that I didn’t like was “Karma”. For starters, the lyrics are not catchy at all and there isn’t any meaning behind them; they seem jumbled up with each other. In addition, she repeats “Karma” excessively which makes the song a bit annoying.

Track four on Midnights, “Snow on the Beach feat. Lana Del Rey” is about two people falling in love with each other at the same time. Also, it illustrates how loving someone is so intense, and it feels dream-like, like snow on the beach. Although the idea behind the song was good, I was upset that I only heard Lana Del Rey in the backup vocals. I wish I heard more of her incorporated into the song.

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with these new songs. I had some mixed feelings about a couple, but there were others that I connected with. I would rate the whole album a 7.5/10 and fully believe you should listen to it.