Swift performing with HAIM earlier this year. Photo credit: Wikimedia user Ralph_PH.

By Mallory Brabrand

On October 21, at midnight sharp, the world changed forever. As the eleventh hour came to a close, sleep-deprived fans opened Spotify and refreshed the page, waiting for the album to drop. And then, there it was: Midnights by Taylor Swift. While my recollection of the night of the 21st may seem a bit dramatized, Swift’s new album was genuinely groundbreaking for a myriad of reasons.

It all started on August 28 at the MTV VMA Awards. Swift was nominated for “Video of the Year, Best Longform Video, Best Cinematography, Best Direction and Best Editing for her ‘All Too Well’ short film,” according to Page Six. She walked the red carpet in an Oscar de la Renta dress that appeared to be made of diamonds, surprising fans who weren’t sure if she would make an appearance at the show. Swift then proceeded to win the VMAs for Best Longform Video, Video of the Year, and Best Direction, according to USA Today.

Closing out the night, Swift accepted the award for Video of the Year, the VMA’s greatest honor, but her acceptance speech was unlike others she had given in the past. She closed with this: “And I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21st. And I will tell you more at midnight.”

Less than an hour later, Swift took to Instagram to announce her new album Midnights, “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams,” she wrote. Then, after weeks of waiting, the album was finally released.

Midnights is unlike any album Swift has ever released and is especially different from those released in recent years. Since 2020, Swift has released five albums: folklore, evermore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), and now Midnights. Both folklore and evermore took a step away from Swift’s popstar-esque genre music, such as her album Lover, to delve into storytelling and softer sounds, and her two re-releases consisted entirely of music written around the time those two albums first came out. So, for the first time in three years, Swift made her return to pop. Midnights blends classic pop sounds with more experimental tones, such as warped audio to open “Midnight Rain” and synth sounds in the background of “Labyrinth.” I appreciate Swift’s ability to gracefully transition to new styles and loved every new aspect of Swift’s lyricism and production that this record granted us. 

The album opens with “Lavender Haze,” whose first line, “Meet me at midnight,” was a sort of catch phrase consistently present throughout Swift’s promotional media for the album. “Lavender Haze” is an upbeat pop song about being in love and wanting to be kept safe from the outside world, something Swift has vocally struggled with in her past relationships. I think that “Lavender Haze” is a perfect first song for Midnights, as it encapsulates the overarching theme of the album, that love is not dead, while also providing listeners with an exciting and lively way into the album that was missed during her previous folklore and evermore eras.

The fourth track on the album, and only Midnights collaboration, “Snow on the Beach,” features Lana del Rey. This collaboration was highly anticipated, as Swift and del Rey both work heavily with producer Jack Antonoff and are two of the world’s most prevalent female musical stars today. This collaboration, though well-written by all three previously mentioned artists, left many fans, myself included, feeling disappointed. Similar to past collaborations with female artists, such as “You All Over Me” featuring Maren Morris and “No Body, No Crime” featuring HAIM, “Snow on the Beach” is almost entirely sung by Swift, with only minimal background vocals performed by del Rey. 

While many of Midnights’ tracks are cheerful and exciting to listen to at full volume on late night drives with friends, a few stick out as having softer melodies and tones. For example, “Sweet Nothing,” a song written by Swift and William Bowery (a pseudonym for Swift’s longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn), is a calm pause amidst the songs overflowing with exuberant energy. Swift sings, “To you I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it,” giving her audience a more raw view on her life and her love. 

Swift’s fans were mesmerized by the new album, but just three hours later on that same night, she did the unexpected and released seven more tracks. Midnights (3am Edition) consists of all 13 original tracks, in addition to seven more. Although she says that she thinks “of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour,” she notes that she wanted to release the other tracks that were created as a result of the entire Midnights process that didn’t make it onto the album, similar to her Vault Track releases on her Taylor’s Version’s of Red and Fearless. 

The 3am Edition includes some of what are, in my opinion, the best songs on the album. “The Great War” is a masterpiece of storytelling and imagery, whose upbeat nature contradicts its story of battle and bloodshed, but in a beautifully entrancing way. “Paris” is by far the best song to listen to at full volume, and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” is, in my humble opinion, the greatest song on the album because of its lyrically genius metaphors of religion and its powerful bridge. The 3am Edition, though released in the most chaotic of ways, really concluded the story of Midnights in a way that the original 13 tracks couldn’t quite manage on their own. 

Since its release, Midnights has surpassed seemingly unattainable precedents that either had yet to exist or had stood the test of time. Swift “became the first artist in history to claim all top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100,” received so many sales that Midnights is now the “best debut of Swift’s career overall,” and had the “single-largest sales week for a vinyl album since Luminate began tracking such sales in 1991.”

Swift performing at her Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018. Photo credit: Wikimedia user UltimateWarrior13.

Fans love Midnights. Madeline Port (‘23) says, “the album as a whole is a perfect blend of cohesive yet also distinct tracks,” but also notes that “The lyrics are less refined than those in folklore and evermore, which prevents some of the songs from reaching their full potential.” Fans have also shown their appreciation for the album through “historically unprecedented demand” for tickets to Swift’s Era’s Tour. On November 15, when presale for the tour opened, Swifties everywhere crashed Ticketmaster’s website in ways never seen before. Two days later, Ticketmaster was forced to cancel the tour’s general onsale due to the demand for tickets and lack thereof. According to CBS News, Ticketmaster says that “To meet the demand that surged to their site on Tuesday, Swift would need to perform over 900 stadium shows, which would be one show a night for more than two and a half years.”

Despite being 32 years old, Swift still manages to release world shattering music that breaks every record it sets out to defeat. Midnights is one of Swift’s best albums to date, as she takes musical risks while still staying true to her thoughtful songwriting process. I encourage everyone to give it a listen.

Featured image photo credit: Flickr user Eva Rinaldi.