Last week, at 5.00 AM GMT on Friday 21st October 2022, 32-year-old American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released her newest album 'Midnights', awarding her the milestone of ten albums released in total. This was accompanied on the same day by not only a music video to her bittersweet new song 'Anti-hero', directed and written by Swift herself, but additionally a '3 AM edition' of 'Midnights', in which she included the tracks that were not part of the 13 songs on the main album.

   Swift described the album as a 'journey through terrors and sweet dreams'; within it she delves in a nuanced manner into not only her various love affairs and heartbreaks, as is her trademark, but also her deepest insecurities and regrets. With currently almost 65 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and a net worth of $450 million, this golden girl of pop has never shone brighter.

   However, Swift has faced several bumps in the road during her musical career; there has been more than once when the singer seemed in danger of sinking into irrelevance. Yet she possesses not only unmatchable lyrical and musical genius, but a unique gift of self-reinvention that has propelled her continuously to the forefront of global pop culture.

   Her story began in October 2006, where, aged only 16, she released her namesake album 'Taylor Swift'. The album, an immediate hit, spent 275 weeks at number 5 on the US Billboard 200. With singles such as 'Tim McGraw' and 'Our Song', Swift launched herself confidently as a country singer into a largely male-dominated genre. 

   This success was followed by 'Fearless' (2008), her second album, in which Swift demonstrated for the first time her extraordinary talent for adapting her image to remain at the pinnacle of musical relevance; the album was more nuanced, containing pop-style sounds to appeal to a mainstream audience.

   In the next year, however, the young singer would have her confidence crushed somewhat by the rapper Kanye West's interruption of her VMA acceptance speech for her award of best female video (given for her single 'You Belong With Me'). West insisted that Beyoncé ought to have won the award instead, claiming that she had 'one of the best videos of all time.'

   In spite of this setback, Swift soldiered on, releasing her third album 'Speak Now' (2010) in which she delved further into her various romantic relationships, unafraid to douse the tracks with her trademark candour. 'Speak Now' was followed by 'Red' (2012), a pop-rock album in which the singer revealed not only her increased maturity, but more of her defiant spirit in songs such as the ebullient 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together'.

   '1989' (2014) came hot on their heels, an album which Swift called her 'first official pop album', in which she joyfully explored her newly developed pop-persona. However, the singer would once again undergo reinvention following personal controversies over the next few years, which tested her to the limit. In 2017, after having virtually vanished from the public eye the previous year, she released her next album 'Reputation', a bolder, moodier comeback influenced by hip-hop and R&B, containing hits such as 'Look What You Made Me Do'.

   'Lover' (2019) was in some ways a deliberate antithesis to 'Reputation', and in others a continuation of it. Swift once again found a new sound, this time embracing an almost whimsical yet sassy style that combined inspirations from all her previous albums to create sparklingly upbeat hits such as 'Cruel Summer' and 'Daylight'. 

   In yet another unique transformation, during the coronavirus pandemic-induced lockdown of 2020 Swift created 'Folklore', which was released with little advance warning in July. Embracing a softer indie style, the singer described herself as wandering 'deeper into...the folklorian woods' with its sister record 'Evermore', released in  December of the same year. Both albums display not only Swift's lyrical genius and dazzling vocals, but her adeptness at effective story-telling via song, with tracks like 'no body, no crime' and 'champagne problems'.

   And now we are witness to a brand-new Swift era, with the advent of 'Midnights' this month. We cannot predict what the singer will do next on her journey, but I think that it is safe to assume that she and her music are here to stay.