“Midnights”: A Journey Through Many Lifetimes
“Midnights is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows. Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic, or lonely. Just like Midnights.” - Taylor Swift
In October of 2022, Taylor Swift released her 10th album Midnights, “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life…”. Immediately following its release, the album took to the top 13 spots on the charts, not including the seven bonus songs revealed promptly at 3am after the album’s midnight release.
Midnights is a composition of all Swift’s prior discography, from the pop-synth of 1989, to the edginess of Reputation, the coming of age story of Speak Now, and the dusty old storybook that is folklore and evermore - with a more autobiographical narrative - is Swift’s most vulnerable album to date. Swift has noticeably taken a step away from the emotional distance of her last two albums, returning to a diaristic style which addresses her life, her individual conflicts and persona.
Within 24 hours of the official album release on streaming platforms, Swift amassed three Guinness World Records: the most streamed Spotify album in 24 hours (184.6 million), the most one-day album streams on Spotify (184.6 million), and the most streamed act on Spotify within 24 hours (228 million). According to Variety, Midnights is the first album in five years to register one million units in a single week - reaching that number in only three days - with the last album being Swift’s Reputation. Likewise, Taylor Swift became the very first artist to simultaneously reach each of the ten Billboard’s Top 10 slots.
Swift’s confessions contained within this vulnerable ‘autobiography’ explore the trauma which ensues from one’s allure towards control, the discourse on human love and connection, not always being the most healthy of fixations. With Midnights, her and Jack Antonoff produce a meticulously designed pop album contemplating the hopes, fears, regrets, and dubiety that our midnights are often haunted by. “Part of the album’s power is how it enacts how our adult selves are inextricably marked and intertwined with—but never completely defined by—our childhood and adolescence.” (Rick Quinn, Pop Matters).
Image courtesy of Teen Vogue.
“Lavender Haze” begins with a club beat as the opening line, “meet me at midnight” plays. The upbeat drums in this song compliment Swift’s lyrics of trying to balance the tension of love and patriarchal expectations, all under the public eye of scrutiny. The track calls out the hypocrisy that men want “a one-night or a bride” while society judges her upon the expectation that she should be married at her age, refusing to focus on the men who never commit.
Track Two, “Maroon,” utilizes moody pop instrumentals while describing the trials and tribulations of lost love that metastasizes into distance’s many shades of deep red. The hues of scarlet and maroon give way to the intensity and depth of her experience and emotions. This track pays homage to the girl who wrote Red all those years ago, wide-eyed and broken, reflecting on her wisdom that she earned along the way.
“Anti-Hero” incorporates a lot of the synth-pop that one notices in 1989, Swift’s fifth studio album. This beat foregrounds her lyricism of self-loathing, revealing that she too is deeply flawed, haunted by isolation and depression, “a monster on the hill”. She sings about her narcissistic qualities marked as altruistic, fearing that her relationships are purely transactional. Swift and Antonoff’s calculated use of rhythm and emphasis along with breath breaks in her enunciation of the verses are what particularly make this song the centerpiece of the album. This enunciation which shows off Swift’s full range of vocal capabilities can be seen in “Sweet Nothing.” Her ability to experiment with where the emphatic accent falls adds cadence to the music, enabling the listener to discern her insecurity fueled by shame.
Image courtesy of FSU News.
There is also much notability in the recurring theme of conversations with her past self. “You’re on Your Own Kid” addresses her past struggles and pressures of being new to the music industry, thrown into the public spotlight, while suffering from an eating disorder and having trouble making true connections with others. “Vigilante Shit” carries a heavy reference to Swift’s Reputation era, combining pettiness and owning up to her feats, wreaking havoc so to speak. “Bejeweled” summarizes the one-sidedness of relationships and sacrificing oneself for others’ sake. Swift recognizes her autonomy and purpose to shine and shimmer, establishing her freedom with the snarky “I don’t remember” to those constantly keeping her in question.
“Snow on the Beach” is a beautiful composition of the quiet beauty in nature, falling for someone complimented by captivating imagery. However, it came as a surprise to many that Lana Del Ray did not have her own verse on the track, embedding her voice in the echoing chorus.
“Bigger Than the Whole Sky” is a heartbreaking, yet touching ode to those suffering loss from miscarriage, lamenting, “I'm never gonna meet / What could've been, would've been / What should've been you.”
“Would've, Could’ve, Should’ve” is one of Swift’s darkest and most raw pieces. A confession and condemnation of innocence taken wrongly by an older manipulator from whom Swift additionally suffered emotional abuse - John Mayer. References to dancing with the devil at 19 connect deeply with the bruised girl in “Dear John,” while Mayer was 32 at the time of the relationship. Embedded with much more religious imagery, the innocent body she once was is mourned, bruising the listener with the brutally painful line: “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.”
Image courtesy of Variety.
“Karma's a relaxing thought / Aren't you envious that for you it's not?” “Karma” captures the sole essence of how far this wide-eyed girl has come. Taking the losses in strides and using them to transform. Becoming indifferent to all of the criticism, knowing that all’s well that ends well and people will eventually get what is coming to them. Swift celebrates her success and her journey up the hill of Hollywood stardom, surviving. “Ask me what I learned from all those years / Ask me what I earned from all those tears / Ask me why so many fade, but I’m still here.”
“Mastermind” (and “Karma”) exudes the true essence of Taylor Swift. A precise and calculated track blended seamlessly with her confessional vulnerability, her trademark and discography. This dialectic admits to meticulous plots, all the while intertwining those thoughts and actions of the reality of being not only a woman, but also a life-long underdog. As Swift writes, “I swear I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian because I care.”
Midnights is Taylor Swift coming into her own adulthood, finding some piece of herself at last. A poetry of wisdom and lessons rampant throughout the whole Swiftian corpus, affirming the fact that Swift wrote Midnights during many different lifetimes. Let me ask you one final question: “What keeps you up at night?”
