Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” Unique Album Review

The Taylor Swift album you hear on its release day rarely remains the same in your mind the following day, week, or month. With 16 years since Swift's debut, her fans (including myself—hello!) have mastered this cycle: First, we let the music wash over us; then, we meticulously dissect the lyrics and uncover connections between Swift's personal life and her music. Swift actively embraces and even constructs this dynamic, forming entire promotional strategies around it.

This cycle is once again in full swing with Swift's 10th studio album, "Midnights," released last Friday. However, it creates an immediate division—those who have avidly followed every episode of the Taylor Swift saga, memorizing each storyline, are fundamentally experiencing a different album compared to the casual listeners who drop in occasionally. For the latter group, "Midnights" might appear as a fleeting blip, a somewhat perplexing continuation of an artist known for constant reinvention.

Allow me to share my perspective: Despite its subdued nature, "Midnights" is a captivating record where reviewers may emphasize terms like "mood" and "atmosphere." Swift delves into her own mythos in a compelling and sophisticated manner, making this her most outstanding and ambitious album since her monumental pop transition in 2014 with "1989."

In "Midnights," Swift intricately explores her personal mythology, resulting in an immersive experience that embraces a synth-driven energy reminiscent of her pop trilogy: "1989," "Reputation" from 2017, and "Lover" from 2019. Lyrically, "Midnights" showcases her rawest and most vulnerable work to date. It takes the form of a concept album, with Swift announcing that the 13 songs (which, of course, Swift sigh in recognition, as 13 is her favorite number) revisit 13 significant moments in her life that occurred at midnight. Just three hours after its initial release, Swift surprises fans with the "3 am Edition," featuring an additional seven tracks.

Understandably, "Midnights" has been labeled as "overly familiar" and "aggressively normal" so far, which is fair to some extent. Audiences anticipate substantial growth from artists, especially from a pop icon who has been setting trends for a decade. Pop music demands innovation. If an artist aims to dominate the music scene and capture the public's attention, they are expected to build upon their previous work, both in terms of musical evolution and shaping cultural conversations 

However, the way "Midnights" revisits familiar Swift sounds suggests a deliberate excavation. The album opener, "Lavender Haze," a catchy anthem about defying expectations, bears striking similarities to "I Think He Knows" from "Lover," too much to be mere coincidence. "Labyrinth" closely aligns with "The Archer" from the same album. "Maroon" emerges as a more self-assured version of "Dress" from "Reputation," while "Snow on the Beach" heavily borrows from "Gold Rush" in "Evermore." Swift, never one for subtlety, even samples her own past work with "Question...?" incorporating elements from "Out of the Woods" in "1989."

If Swift is an ardent self-portraitist, "Midnights" represents the first time she allows herself to revise her previous creations. By engaging in a dialogue with her past self, Swift implies that these songs, like polaroid’s capturing different moments at midnight, genuinely reflect who she was when we thought we knew her. In "You're on Your Own, Kid," she powerfully reframes a time when we believed she had it all, confessing, "I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I'd be saved by a perfect kiss." "Midnights" meticulously rewrites the lore of Swift's artistry, intensifying the moments of joy and amplifying the pain she has already expressed. While this may appear inward-focused to new fans, for those already immersed in her artistic project, it stands as Swift's most gratifying album yet.

Swift has earned a, shall we say, reputation for crafting songs inspired by specific events in her life. However, there has always been a delicate balance between her inclination for the confessional and her resistance to unraveling publicly. While she aspires to raw, unfiltered confessions in her lyrics, what emerges tends to be a polished interpretation of complex emotions. She often maintains a certain distance. Swift doesn't delve into explicit details or provide explicit references—perhaps it's not in her nature, or perhaps the risk of exposing unrefined pain is too great. Instead, she cloaks her emotions in layers of symbolism, metaphors, and references (for example, using a scarf as a metaphor for losing one's virginity).

In "Midnights," however, Swift discovers a delicate balance between the facade of confession and the pressures of maintaining a polished and composed image: self-criticism. In this album, Swift refrains from naming names (though listeners can attempt to guess who "Spiderboy" might be), but she courageously exposes her own flaws explicitly. As she stated on Instagram, the album serves as "a real guided tour throughout all the things I tend to hate about myself."

This force is evident in the album's standout track and first single, "Anti-Hero." Its chorus carries a memorable and catchy simplicity ("It's me, hi / I'm the problem / it's me"), already propelling the song to trend across various social media platforms. However, it also delves deeply into Swift's relationship with self-loathing ("I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror," she concludes the chorus). The opening line, "I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser," serves as both a pushback against her own public image—Swift frequently faces criticism for persistently employing self-referential devices in her songs—and as wry self-criticism. The song also contains the album's most discussed lyric, known as The Sexy Baby Line. Yet, when viewed within the context of the song, it aptly captures the pressures imposed on famous women to embody youthfulness, modesty, innocence, and sexual appeal simultaneously.

However, self-hatred pervades this record. In other tracks on "Midnights," such as "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" from the 3 am Edition, Swift sings of how everything she touches becomes tainted with sadness, lamenting that it's all washed away and lost at sea. On "High Infidelity," she brutally condemns herself for cheating, acknowledging, "You know there are many different ways that you can destroy the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough."

One of the most remarkable songs Swift has ever written, "Would've, Could've, Should've," unquestionably deserves a spot on the main record rather than being relegated to the addendum. In this track, Swift passionately addresses a former lover (we all have our speculations), but she is equally scathing towards herself: "If I'd only played it safe, I would've stayed on my knees, and I damn sure would've never danced with the devil at 19." Placing "Would've, Could've, Should've" in the 3 am Edition collection appears to be a deliberate move to prevent it from overshadowing the entire essence of "Midnights." Had it been included in the original 13 tracks; it would have dominated all discussions and conversations surrounding the album.

However, that's not to say that this is the album's sole standout moment. "Vigilante Shit" exemplifies Swift's playful side, pulsating and vampy over a minimalist beat reminiscent of her "Reputation" era. "Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man," Swift smirks in the opening line, granting herself a license to both kill and cringe. On "Karma," the vigilante has accomplished her mission, and now she revels in the satisfaction of schadenfreude. Swift showcases her fun side on tracks like "Glitch" and "Paris" as well. Meanwhile, "Sweet Nothing," a co-write between Swift and her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn under the pseudonym "William Bowery," shines with an overwhelming sense of beauty.

Throughout "Midnights," Swift skillfully displays the lyrical prowess that established her as one of the leading songwriters in the industry. On "Anti-Hero," she delivers a gratifying set of internal rhymes ("I should not be left to my own devices, they come with prices and vices, I end up in crisis"). In "Mastermind," she effortlessly slips in the word "Machiavellian" without it feeling forced within a pop song.

While Swift has collaborated with various producers throughout her career, "Midnights" is primarily helmed by Jack Antonoff, a trusted collaborator. This arrangement presents both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, Antonoff's growth as a producer is evident as he refrains from relying on big choruses that characterized his earlier work. On the other hand, Antonoff's extensive musical credits sometimes result in musical ideas bleeding into each other, as seen in the bridge of "Vigilante Shit," which leans more towards a Lana Del Rey sound rather than one suited to Swift.

Surprisingly, "Midnights" marks Swift's fourth album of new material in as many years, not including the two re-releases of her previous work in 2021. While the "sister albums" "Folklore" and "Evermore" from 2020 expanded Swift's fanbase, "Midnights" seems to indicate that the folk-infused pop records represented a self-contained chapter rather than a new permanent direction.

However, the album's closing track, "Mastermind," showcases Swift at her most revealing. Swift has frequently denied accusations of being "calculating," but on "Mastermind," she comes clean: "What if I told you I'm a mastermind," she sings, as if acknowledging that the game is up. Swift opens up about her motivations, sharing that as a child, she wasn't embraced by others, leading her to scheme like a criminal to make them love her effortlessly.

If Swift has spent nearly two decades transforming her life into a narrative, "Midnights" reflects her desire to play with the stories she has already written. Some songs serve as precise edits that reinforce or challenge existing narratives. Others aim to dismantle established perceptions of Swift and construct entirely new ones. While "Midnights" may come across as vague and lacking in specificity to those unfamiliar with her body of work, for those who have delved into the depths of her discography, it stands as a cohesive and at times breathtaking progression for an artist whose evolution has become her trademark.

I would give this a 3 and a half out of 4 stars.