Bee Goodman
October 31, 2022
Taylor Swift’s Midnights Strikes Big
With the release of her newest album “Midnights,” Taylor Swift has once again taken the world by storm. Just when you think Swift defined her identity as a star and established a sound recognizable to all, she appears out of the darkness with a fresh, new take that lights up like fireworks.
“Lover” from 2019 was the latest “mainstream sound” album Swift released, as 2020’s “Folklore” and “Evermore” is an untraditional idea that strayed from the normal catalog the world has got from Swift. The “Lover” era was a vibrant spectrum of daylight from sound to style, coming after the 2017 “antithesis” themed album “Reputation.” “Midnights“ stands between the day or night stances from the previous works. This is an album that you see Swift enjoyed creating; she jokes about an imaginary daughter-in-law killing her for money, and taunts fans with a crazy theory of a secret unreleased album named Karma. Opposite the joking manner, Swift deep dives into self-loathing, anxiety, sultry daydreams and a new unapologetic lifestyle.
Known for telling detailed songwriting, this album seems the most honest from Swift compared to her other works. She spares no details in “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,“ singing, “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first,” about being groomed by a man at a younger age and the lasting pain that affects her relationships even now.
Fans online rave about how touching the bonus track “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” is to anyone who may have suffered a miscarriage. Swift has never spoken of one, but it’s clear how someone could easily attach the lyrics to the situation. Twitter user, MissFritzy says, “When I listened to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” all I could see in my mind is the baby I lost, and this put words to everything I’ve felt since the miscarriage. I can’t imagine this being about anything else.” Listeners point to specific lyrics to support the theory the song is telling if a miscarriage,
“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye / You were bigger than the whole sky /You were more than just a short time / And I’ve got a lot to pine about / I’ve got a lot to live without / I’m never gonna meet / What could’ve been, would’ve been / What should’ve been you / What could’ve been, would’ve been you.”
The overall sounds of the album have a high electronic sense of music from the 70s and 80s but could easily strip the songs to an acoustic level and still have a fantastic product. Critics have had good impressions of the album; Rolling Stone gave it a perfect score.
The album was only released on the 21st, and has already broken several records. Spotify announced, “Taylor Swift’s Midnights became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day, and Taylor broke the record for the most-streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history.” Additionally, Swift has broken a total of 35 Guinness World records.
As more time from its initial release passes, more records seem to break. Spotify announced this morning that Swift is the only artist to ever break one billion streams in the first week.
Swift describes the Midnights album as the stories of 13 sleepless nights happening throughout different periods of her life.
Swift stated in 2020 that she felt the Lover album would be the last popular project she’d make as she turned 30, mentioning that the music industry favors younger artists, especially younger women. Fans, critics, and even skeptics of Swift seem pleased with the new work and many look forward to more in the future.
You can stream Midnights on Apple Music, Amazon Prime, Spotify and more now. Music videos for “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled” can be streamed now.
