By: Faith Lam '23
On the night of October 21st, Taylor Swift fans all across the world anxiously waited for the release of her 10th studio album, Midnights. Swift announced the new album at the 2022 VMA award ceremony. The announcement was not a shock to her fans, as they had been speculating about the drop for some time. As the world anticipated the new music, Swift took to her TikTok account to announce each track of the album in videos called “Midnights Mayhem with Me.” In these videos, she spun a bingo ball and chose which track title she would announce at midnight that day.
The almost two month wait flew by, and release night for Swifties came rather quickly. Release night started with a teaser video of all the new music videos to be published. This trailer was played during Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. Swifties sat watching football just to wait for a glimpse of Taylor's announcement during the game. Throughout the game, the fandom took to Twitter to joke about watching football only for Taylor. From that time on, it was all a waiting game. Constantly reloading computers and phones to listen to the album for the first time became a habit. Once the clock struck midnight, Midnights was out!
The new album was full of Taylor reverting back to her pop genius sound. After the release of Folklore and Evermore, Swift’s back-to-back 2020 albums, fans got a little used to the folk indie sound of Taylor. But, for older fans, this transition back to pop felt nostalgic. The pop sound came with the partnership of Jack Antonoff, a close friend of Taylor, who produced and helped to create Midnights with Taylor. Jack has worked with Taylor on the majority of her albums and the two are a dynamic duo when creating music. The sound and vibe of Midnights have been compared to the work of Lorde’s Melodrama, which Jack also produced. It is safe to say with Taylor and Jack in a recording studio together, something magical will be created.
As fans ruined their sleep schedules for the new album, Taylor took to social media at three in the morning on Friday, October 21st to announce 7 new bonus tracks to the album. Then, the excitement continued with the music video for “Anti-Hero.” The video was a highly dramatic version of the lyrics in the song. This included a visual of a giant-sized Taylor Swift interrupting a dinner party, as well as her own funeral, which featured her fictional children.
With the release of Midnights, Taylor broke multiple records which included: Most Streamed Album Release Day on Spotify, Most Vinyl Records Sold for a Release, Most Streamed Artist in a single day, and the Biggest Pop Album of All Time on Apple Music. Midnights went on to sell over 1.2 million copies. Along with these records, Taylor beat her own record previously set after the release of Reputation in 2017 for the Highest Sales Week for Any Album.
It is fair to say that in the one weekend of the album being out, it has already become a legendary record for Taylor. Midnights is predicted to be No. 1 on the Billboard charts this week, which would be her 11th chart-topping album.
Taylor has been regarded as one of the greatest musicians of our time, and she proves this statement time and time again. While entering this new era for Taylor, we are sure to see many more records broken and her icon status to only grow. Now, as Taylor would say, “Meet Me at Midnight?”
Photos Courtesy of Taylor Swift on Instagram
Edited by: Genna Cottingham '23, Katarina Radulovic '24, Natalia Cseh '23, and Ms. Brilliant
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