Just a week after it dropped, Taylor Swift conspicuously snatched all of the Billboard Top 10 songs with tracks in her new album, Midnights. Does the album deserve all of the hype that it is receiving? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, these songs all incorporate meaningful and down-to-earth concepts, which certainly deserve praise, but most of the tracks simply aren’t delightful pieces of “ear” candy. Here is a quick review of the 13 main tracks on the album.

My three favorite tracks, “Antihero”, “Snow on the Beach”, and “Karma”, are better than sliced bread. When I first encountered “Antihero”, it didn’t stand out to me, but after only a couple of listens, I heavily enjoyed it. This song is brilliant because Taylor vocalizes her insecurities and hatred for herself, and this comes off as honest and authentic. Alhough the lyrics reflect her self-hatred and discontent, the music itself is zesty and uplifting. “Snow on the Beach” features THE Lana Del Rey, and whenever she sings, the song metamorphosizes into a butterfly. This song is nostalgic and emotional, and though the first part of the song is mildly disenchanting, the second half of the song is delicious. As for “Karma”, I love the way that this track is relaxing, and her simplistic yet complex karma metaphors blow me away.

If those last tracks were better than sliced bread, then the rest of them would be considered either okay bread or moldy bread. Some of these moldy bread songs include “You’re on Your Own, Kid”, “Question…?”, “Midnight Rain”, and “Bejeweled”. In “You’re on Your Own, Kid”, Taylor makes an effort to shift from a depressing to inspirational tone, and sure, the lyrics are well written, but the song itself is disappointing. Even more unsatisfactory was the track, “Question…?”. I’m honestly questioning why it’s No. 7 on Billboard because the lyrics are mediocre at best, and the music is robotic and unintriguing. Though “Midnight Rain” might seem like a solid song to a Swiftie, to me, it felt slow paced and lacked sufficient emotion. As for “Bejeweled”, I’m not sure how I feel about it. The song is fun and peppy, which I’m a fan of, but the way she sings, especially how she sings “shimmer” hurts my soul.

Back to the bread analogy. The okay bread songs are “Lavender Haze”, “Maroon”, “Vigilante Sh*t”, “Labyrinth”, “Sweet Nothing”, and “Mastermind”. I felt that “Lavender Haze”, “Vigilante Sh*t”, and “Maroon” were pretty solid and expressed an emotional story. Still, I don’t think that these songs are as exceptional as some people make them out to be. The rest of the songs, “Labyrinth”, “Sweet Nothing”, and “Mastermind” sound similar and there’s nothing very memorable about them.

Overall, Midnights isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s certainly not a piece of trash. I think that this album should be treated as a concept album because Taylor Swift truly told a story in each and every song, and the meta metaphors she consistently uses further the messages that she wants to convey. I hope that Taylor’s next album is a masterpiece because if it isn’t, well, I’ll be sad.