Taylor Swift’s new studio album Midnights was released Oct. 11, 2022 and has been quite controversial with listeners ever since. Commentary that the album is “mid” and not nearly as good as her other albums is something I personally have heard a lot, and I agree.

Don’t get me wrong, the album is good, it just isn’t amazing. The songs on the album are solid, though there isn’t anything gravitating about them. As a fan, it upsets me. I really wanted to love her album, but I don’t.

The album features Lana Del Rey in the song “Snow on the Beach”. I expected Lana to have a big part or a duet like in songs (“Nothing New ft. Phoebe Bridgers” and “Exile ft. Bon Iver”) from previous albums, but Lana is simply the backup vocalist for the song; her voice struggles to stand out and a lot of other fans were upset about this like I was. I love Lana Del Rey and was looking forward to hearing her as a feature. I was bummed when I couldn’t identify her voice at all.

There are maybe two songs that I enjoyed and none I loved. I hate to say it, but when I was listening to the album I wanted to skip every song. My favorites were “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”.

Unlike the other tracks on the release, I love the way Swift portrayed her feelings with the lyrics “if clarity’s in death then why won’t this die?” and “give me back my girlhood it was mine first”. These lyrics hit home, and I love how she produced a song that perfectly encompassed my feelings as a listener. The first lyric emotionally explains the feeling when you know a person isn’t meant to be but they won’t go away.

Taylor is undeniably a very talented lyricist. Besides that, however, there were no songs that stuck out to me more than just enjoying them. I found no song was “perfect”.

Her album isn’t horrible, but it definitely didn’t meet my expectations, I was disappointed. I would rate Midnights a 3/5 stars.