Taylor Swift's Midnight’s Cuts Deep with Pop Sound
At Midnight on Oct. 21, Taylor Swift released her 10th studio album, but her first original album on her own. Many anticipated the album due to Swift giving updates via her social media and dropping track names for her fans. The album includes thirteen brand new songs, and one features singer Lana Del Rey making the anticipation for “Midnight’s” that much more intense.
When the clock struck midnight, the Taylor Swift fandom sprinted to their devices to listen to what Swift described as “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.” So naturally, we needed to know what she was talking about.
As soon as the album starts, the listener is greeted with the sound of “Lavender Haze.” The song's sound and album take fans back to Swift’s 2014 album 1989. Swift’s choice to open the album with “Lavender Haze” was the best choice she could have made. It’s fun, smooth, and catchy.
When you get to the album's middle, it tones down a bit but keeps the same tempo. The lyrics get more profound, and the songs get moodier. We start to see Swift's troubles — the trials and tribulations of love, fame, and personal vendettas.
The listener is destined to connect with the song as Swift opens up to make herself more human than the musical industrial robot that the media portrays her as. The song “Anti-Hero” is the most streamed song on Spotify, with 74.6 million streams.
Many of Midnight’s listeners connect with this song because Swift is talking about the need to be perfect constantly but will never be good enough or meet the standard even though she is the blonde hair and blue eyes, Miss Americana that most little girls are told they need to be. Swift also released “movies” that correlated with the album's songs. The “Anti-Hero” movie portrays Swift’s struggle with her body image and the constant comparison that she inflicts on herself or outsiders tend to do for her.
Swift then released a 3 AM edition of the Midnight’s album with the original 13 songs plus seven additional songs, which one may think are more personal and profound than the original 13 songs. The song “Bigger Than The Whole Sky” has many speculating that the song is about a miscarriage that Swift might have had in recent years. The speculation has sparked a conversation about miscarriages and how normal they are.
While listening to this album, one may feel like Swift is sitting with them and telling them her deepest darkest secrets as though you have been friends with her from the start. Each song is about a different era and life-changing event that kept her up until well past Midnight. By the album's end, you will have met an entirely new Taylor Swift; an open, honest, and unforgiving human.
K E E P U P W I T H
