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Midnights, featuring stand-out sorrows, Anti-Hero and dizzying pop Lavender Haze, has had the biggest release week in almost seven years – selling over 1.5million copies.

“…a shimmering return to pure pop.”

A pop phenomena all in herself, who managed to seamlessly cross from country to pop mainstream, has entered the record books again as Midnights lands her 11th Number One in her glittering career. She not only smashed Spotify’s record for the most-streamed album in a day upon its release but also breaking Apple Music’s record for biggest pop album of all time by first-day streams and not mention Bezos’ Amazon Music’s most first-day album streams globally of any artist.

Her sombre storytelling and emotive narrative songwriting has allowed Swift to enter the realm of releasing gold music adored by thousands – however the music itself is received. The same can be said for Adele. In fact, the last album to achieve such a high number of sales in its first week of release was Adele‘s 25 in 2015 – which broke the scale with more than 3million units. Both Swift and Adele have climbed sheer heights that they’ve become untouchable as music artists. Due to the severe widespread coverage both receive, their music doesn’t necessarily have to be genre-defining or remotely avant-garde. It just has to sell. Harnessing a less is more approach, Midnights is a wispy that takes the cashmere red runes of mellow evermore/folklore and dowses it in autumn leaves, bringing with it the brighter sounds and colours of red, orange and crude yellow. One of those albums for a rainy night feeling particularly fragile, Midnights is profoundly Swift. Although boasting familiar numbers – Swift has 72 million active monthly listeners on Spotify alone – many avid fans of hers don’t seem to be sharing that same enthusiasm. Many go from calling it to ‘lacklustre’ to ‘boring’, offering insight into how each song just welds into another, not offering any sense of originality or morality. There’s only so many pages we can turn and burn, Swift. But despite the criticisms, it’s what you sign up for with Swifty. Despite the fallout for many, the consensus is loved by most – hence her entry in the record books again.