The return of Taylor Swift

Since picking up a guitar for the first time at the age of 12, Taylor Swift has never stopped. In little more than a decade, always hovering between America's Sweetheart and marketing war machine, she has carved out a place for herself in planetary pop, going from awkward Pennsylvania teenager to country hopeful to one of the most powerful celebrities on the planet. Everything this 32-year-old with the lean physique and blonde fringe touches turns to gold, thanks to over 230 million followers on Instagram and, above all, the blind devotion of her fans, the Swifties. Confirmed was Midnights, the artist's tenth album, "a collage of intensity, highs and lows, ebbs and flows. Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely". Announced at the end of August during the VMA Awards, it was only anticipated by a series of "Lynchian" videos titled Midnights Mayhem With Me and posted on Taylor's Tik Tok profile, which fuelled the hype around the whole project produced together with Jack Antonoff and featuring, among others, Lana Del Rey and Zoë Kravitz.

Result? When, at midnight between Thursday 20 and Friday 21 October, the album, which encompasses the stories of 13 sleepless nights, one for each track on the album, that occurred in the singer's life, was released on Spotify, it scrapped the platform due to too many requests to listen to it and established itself as the most downloaded album on Spotify in the twenty-four hours following its release. As if that wasn't enough, Taylor continued to surprise fans with the deluxe edition Midnights (3am Edition) containing seven more previously unreleased songs, which allowed the star to break into the top 100 by occupying all ten positions on the Billboard chart. Swift was the first artist to achieve this in the 64-year history of the world's most famous music ranking. There is no doubt that Taylor Swift never misses a beat and can be said to be the most powerful female artist in the world of pop right now. More than Beyoncé. More than Lady Gaga or Dua Lipa.

Nothing can stop her or dent her popularity. Not even the controversy surrounding the Anti-hero video. In one scene, the singer doubles up and watches herself weigh herself on a scale on which the word "fat" appears. Accusations of fatphobia followed, which were promptly quelled by the deletion of the offending shot. Video was corrected and the controversy closed. If the Anti-hero video was much criticized, far more successful was the Bejeweled video in which Taylor plays the role of a modern Cinderella with the help of a star-studded cast including Laura Dern, the HAIM sisters, Dita Von Tees, Jack Antonoff and Pat Mcgrath. Mcgrath not only made a cameo, as the queen, in the video, but she curated the beauty look, playing with make-up to achieve a bling-bling effect perfect for the upcoming holidays. "It really was a celebration. A celebration of all that is Taylor, but also a celebration of beauty, of daring, of having fun, of being bejeweled, sparkly and glittery. It was really an explosion of all the joy". Said Mcgrath, who for the occasion used LiquiLust Legendary Wear Matte Lipstick in Elson 4 on the singer's lips and eyeshadows from the Mothership X: Moonlit Seduction Palette and Mothership IV: Decadence Palette, along with onyx eyeliners from her line. From today, however, replicating those looks will be easier because Pat McGrath has taken inspiration from Bejeweled to launch a new makeup line called Taylor-Made that includes a starter kit, a lip kit and an eye kit.

Swift kicked off November by announcing the dates of The eras tour, 27 live dates that starting on 18 March will take her around the States, from State Farm Stadium in Glendale to close on 5 August at SoFi Satdium in Los Angeles. The plus? Opening act will be the band HAIM. Fans will be able to see her not only on stage, but also on the big screen. These days the star is in the cinema as part of the cast of the film Amsterdam alongside Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington. Taylor has already acted in several films in the past, but his real dream seems to be directing. He has directed many of his own videos and recently the short film All Too Well. These hours, however, the Twitter account @PopBaseDaily reveals that his next project behind the camera will be a Netflix film called Midnight Rain, set in 1972, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton. Will it be true?