Multi-award-winning American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released her record-breaking 10th studio album Midnights on Oct. 21 through Republic Records. The album features 13 tracks of love, contemplation, and revenge plot stories, including “Lavender Haze,” “Maroon,” and the newly released singles “Anti-hero” and “Bejeweled.”

Produced alongside longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift’s inspiration for this synth-pop collection came from 13 sleepless nights of diving into self-hatred, revenge stories, falling in love, and falling apart, as revealed in a teaser before the album’s release. While most of the songs were co-written with Antonoff, the first track of the album “Lavender Haze” was co-written with William Bowery (the pseudonym of Swift’s significant other Joe Alwyn). 

In collaboration with other artists, Midnights credits singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey for the song “Snow on the Beach,” actress Zoë Kravitz for “Lavender Haze” and “Karma,” and Red Hearse bandmates of Antonoff, Sam Dew and Sounwave for the creation of the album.

To accompany these late-night melodies, Swift also released the music videos for “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled” consecutively after the album’s worldwide release. But the visualizers didn't end there as the singer produced multiple music videos for several songs, which audiences are yet to anticipate.

Mesmerizing us with its upbeat and mellow depictions of an all-encompassing glow of love and sassy bad b*tch anthems, the 44-minute record gives the audience a glimpse of Swift experimenting with new sounds that brought out an electro-dream pop style unlike her folklore and evermore (2020) albums.

Memories that leave stains

Forgiven but never forgotten, Midnights is a collection of Swift’s memories and musings of the highs and lows of life. Struggling with body image issues, the pressures of having a public life, and dealing with mental health, the singer vividly describes the fickle nature of life, “Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely.”

With maturity in both the music industry and her personal life, Swift successfully creates a moody, atmospheric album that one needs when experiencing a journey of restlessness and midnight fog. One eventually finds creative clarity after a time of fatigue, having that sudden urge to remember past mistakes and all the “what might have beens.” 

The singer’s newest record plays with more dubstep-influenced bass, house-inspired beats, and vocal warping effects throughout. While accompanied by Swift’s poignancy and distinct coherence in her songwriting, the album is not only a testament to her writing prowess but also her and Antonoff’s music-producing chemistry.

Supplementary recommendations

• “Midnight rain” - The song tells the story of two lovers who danced to entirely different beats. By uttering, “He was sunshine, I was midnight rain,” Swift creates a scene as if one of the partners is peering through a window over their relationship’s bittersweet ending due to differences in their desires while simultaneously feeling both hurt and relief.
• “Bejeweled” - A dazzling track that boosts one’s confidence, this illustrates someone who “Can still make the whole place shimmer” despite not being admired by their lover anymore. The song resonates with those who have had enough of people who don’t value them. Through this track, listeners experience a self-realization of their worth. 

• “Karma” - “It’s coming back around,” she warns the people from her past. As karma is a recurring idea that one may come across in life, this song reassures a person that karma is real and life will do justice for them someday. With the word “karma” repeatedly belted and even described as a cat purring in one’s lap, karma becomes a term for achieving blessings and successes despite experiencing hardships.
• “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” - An utterly devastating song included in the Midnights (3 AM Edition). The track describes the regret one feels after being groomed at the early age of 19. As she bit out “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first,” one can feel the resonance of her vibrating anger as she accounts for the painstaking and long process it took in coming to terms with her past while not reducing to blaming her younger self.

The night doesn’t end yet

Despite the 13-track album ending, Swift offers more of her late-night experiences by releasing seven more songs under Midnights (3 AM Edition). Similar to her From the Vault pieces that are unreleased tracks that didn’t make an album’s original cut, these bonus tracks extend the midnight tales Swift wants to tell her listeners. 

These include “The Great War,” which has a poetic battle cry of lyrics, “I vowed I would always be yours. 'Cause we survived the Great War,” depicting the struggle of losing someone in a failed romance. “High Infidelity” is a bold track to groove to with its sharp lyrics and gentle buildup of melodies that one can certainly be “dancing around” to. Swift pampers fans with this sudden release of bonus tracks right after Midnights’ release.

The record feels like the love child of Swift’s previous notable albums 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), and Lover (2019) as it brings with it an overload of synths and electro-pop beats intertwined with fragile love stories and schemes of vengeance, a theme seen in her past albums, yet only now accompanied by Swift’s wisdom (undoubtedly, comes from a decade of experience).

Ultimately, Taylor Swift’s Midnights is a record that encapsulates Swift’s profound perspectives about love, relationships, and the world while showing off her confidence in experimenting with new sounds. This 13-track album is that rare type of music that forces you to sit and listen to it thoroughly with entirely no skips.

Stay up until dawn breaks with Midnights, available now on Spotify and other streaming platforms.