Album Spotlight: Midnights by Taylor Swift
November 11, 2022
Taylor Swift’s tenth studio album, Midnights, has already broken records and taken the music industry by storm. The original album consists of 13 songs that Swift describes as, “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life,” came out on October 21st at midnight sharp. However, three hours later Swift released Midnights (3am Edition) that included seven bonus tracks. The track list can be found below.
- Lavender Haze
- Maroon
- Anti-Hero
- Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey)
- You’re on Your Own, Kid
- Midnight Rain
- Question…?
- Vigilante ****
- Bejeweled
- Labyrinth
- Karma
- Sweet Nothing
- Mastermind
- The Great War
- Bigger Than The Whole Sky
- Paris
- High Infidelity
- Glitch
- Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve
- Dear Reader
Before the release of the album, Swift introduced a series called Midnight’s Mayhem with Me. In this series she used an old school bingo contraption to announce one name of a track. She released them some nights at midnight, and definitely messed up some of her fans’ sleep schedules in the process. Along with the album, two music videos have been released. So far a music video for the songs Anti-Hero and Bejeweled has been released.
After the first few listens, fans started to comment on how many of the songs are the same style as songs from her previous albums. This would make sense as the ideas for these songs supposedly came from various times throughout her life. Before the release of the album, fans were excited for track 4, Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey), because it was a long awaited collaboration. Overall, this album seems to take the listener through the story of Swift’s life, and provide a song for every mood or feeling possible.
With all of this in mind, I thought I would write about my top 3 songs.
#3 Karma: Karma had a completely different style than I originally thought it would. I expected this song to have a darker aspect like her sixth studio album Reputation. Swift talked about karma in many of the songs on Reputation and during the Reputation era in general. Fans also speculated that Karma could’ve been the original concept of Reputation. However, on my first listen when I heard an extremely upbeat and pop style song I was pleasantly surprised. The concept of Karma is still talked about, but Swift focused more on a good relationship with karma.
#2 Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey): When I first heard about this song, I was immediately excited about the collaboration of Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. It took a few days for this song to grow on me, but after it did I couldn’t stop listening to it. This song has a haunting and ethereal style to it. This song compares a relationship to snow on the beach, weird but beautiful. Lana Del Rey doesn’t have a huge role in the vocals of the song, but her voice can be heard harmonizing with Swift. Their voices together make this an amazing song, and I hope to see more collaborations between the two in the future.
#1 Would’ve, Could’ve Should’ve: This song was easily my favorite on the album. In this song, Swift talks about the loss of her youth. As an artist that started her career so young, it’s easy to see that it could’ve taken a toll on the pace at which she matured. She was thrown into the spotlight so quickly, and was also involved in relationships with other stars. Fans have started to speculate that this song could be about her former relationship with John Mayer. The lines “I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil at 19,” led to the speculation as Swift was 19 when she dated John Mayer. Overall, this song has elements of rock and pop, and is an amazing revenge song.
