Taylor Swift strikes Midnights: a return to sleek pop, earworm melodies and sparkling lyrics
Whenever the US pop star issues new music, it’s not so much a traditional album release as a coronation, as her millions-strong global fan base rushes to absorb these new songs into their lives.
Whenever Taylor Swift issues new music, the event is not so much a traditional album release as a coronation, with her millions-strong global fan base rushing to absorb her coolly sung, confessional lyrics into their lives.
On Friday afternoon, the much-celebrated American singer-songwriter released Midnights, a 13-track work accompanied by no advance singles. It is near-certain to be one of the year’s biggest releases — both in terms of cultural impact and the marketing budget of its issuing label, Universal Music — since Swift, 32, is one of the world’s most popular artists with a monthly listener base of 58 million on Spotify alone.
For a release of this scale, anything less than utter chart domination is a failure: like her previous works, it will be expected to debut at No.1 in dozens of territories.
In 2020, Swift surprised the pop world by releasing two albums, titled Folklore and Evermore, which attracted significant attention at a time when many recording artists felt stymied and stifled by lockdowns. Both works earned widespread praise for a compelling and successful turn toward subdued indie-folk and electronic-influenced music.
Although Swift entered public life as an acoustic guitar-strumming country singer-songwriter with her self-titled debut in 2006, she later became better known for the glossy bombast of pop, a genre she has ruled as its chief trendsetter for a decade or more.
In August, Swift described Midnights as “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams” and “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”.
Musically, it offers fans a return to her signature style of sleek pop music replete with electronic beds, club-ready beats, earworm melodies and highly quotable lyrics that sparkle with clever, relatable turns of phrase.
“I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser / Midnights become my afternoons,” she sings on third track Anti-Hero. “When my depression works the graveyard shift / All of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room.”
Dark, moody opener Lavender Haze pulses with the feel of an instant classic, backed by an ethereal chorus melody and a lyric that appears to attack the incessant scrutiny of her romantic life: “Talk your talk and go viral / I just need this love spiral,” she sings in its middle eight. “Get it off your chest / Get it off my desk.”
Eighth track Vigilante Shit is perhaps the hardest-hitting song she has ever issued, replete with a booming hip-hop-style beat and deep bass notes, drug references and the revenge fantasy of a wronged lover, where she sings: “While he was doing lines, and crossing all of mine / Someone told his white collar crimes to the FBI…”
Produced by Swift and her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, the only other voice heard on the album belongs to Lana Del Rey, another imperial US pop star, and their gorgeous duet Snow on the Beach is among the most elegant and restrained pieces here.
Penultimate track Sweet Nothing is a co-write with William Bowery, a nom de plume for her partner of six years, British actor Joe Alwyn.
The sparse piano ballad paints a picture of domestic bliss amid a stormy life lived in the glare of celebrity. Swift sings: “Outside they’re push and shoving / You’re in the kitchen, humming / All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing.”
With this treasure trove of musical data now being analysed in minute detail by millions of fans, speculation will turn to Swift’s highly anticipated return to the stage.
The star has not undertaken a full-scale world tour since Reputation, a 53-date run that included four Australian stadium concerts in November 2018. With Midnights having struck, perhaps now’s the time for another global jaunt.
