Anchors: 4/5

American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift had the most successful week of her career at the beginning of November this year. With the release of her tenth studio album, “Midnights,” on October 21st, Swift became the first artist to ever lock down the entire Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100. “Midnights” broke the single-day Spotify streaming record for an album with 184.6 million streams making Taylor Swift the most streamed female artist in Spotify history.

It is no question that “Midnights” has become Taylor Swift’s most successful and profitable album, but is this album really Taylor Swift’s best work?

The production on “Midnights” is phenomenal––as to be expected from anything produced by Jack Antonoff. Tracks like “Maroon” and “The Great War” in particular are incredibly well produced, but really, every song on the album is. Unfortunately, when it comes to the song writing––which I consider to be Swift’s strongest talent––the album is not quite even all across the board. A few tracks on the album, like “Paris” and “Karma,” are a bit lyrically underwhelming. They lack the sophisticated nature of many of Swift’s previous works––such as her 2020 album, “folklore.” Luckily, in this regard, the good weighs out the bad. There is no denying that the bridges on songs like “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Sweet Nothing,” as well as verse 3 of “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” clearly display Swift’s writing capabilities. Even the pure catchiness of the more poorly written songs make this project *almost* worthy of the title of a “no-skips album.”

Overall, though “Midnights” is not one of Swift’s best works, it does what it needs to do. Its catchiness, production and, in some cases, its lyrics make it a great pop album. Though I don’t think it is album of the year worthy, I am sure that “Midnights” will be winning Taylor Swift some awards to go alongside the records that she has broken with its release.