Dreams, fantasies and some nightmares assault «Midnights», the tenth studio album by Taylor Swift, back to the path of electronic pop, but not so much to the disco as to circulate in the middle of the night through mental avenues between the mist and flashes of car headlights towards a sunrise on the beach.
The album has been published at dawn around the world in the midst of great secrecy, with no advance notice other than the release date and some of its sources of inspiration, basically sleepless nights (hence the title, “Midnights” in Spanish). ) either engaged in self-sabotage or “fantasizing about revenge.”
She also announced the name of the 13 songs, their composers (in all of them she appears as the main author) and the existence of a collaboration with Lana del Rey (“Snow on the Beach”) that had already been speculated by her followers as both had become regular artists of the same producer, Jack Antonoff, with whom he repeats here in a work full of small details.
The secrecy in this release, which on the other hand shows the total confidence in its progress, constitutes an anomaly in the current market, since today it seeks to squeeze the desire for new material from the followers with a dilated trickle over time of many «singles » before the release of the album to maximize the number of reproductions of all of them on digital platforms.
Faced with these routines, Swift has not released an official single to date that would allow her to outline the style of “Midnights”: Would she insist on the “indie” and intimate sound of her latest LPs, “Folklore” (2020) and “Evermore” (2020), or he would return to the pop field that also brought him so much joy in “1989” (2014) or “Lover” (2019).
It could be said that this time he has chosen the middle path. Compared to the organic and “folkie” component of his two previous installments, here the production of synthesizers and the digital treatment of voices abound, but without shedding a dreamlike halo and a certain air of unreality.
It is as if, driven by sleeplessness, the interpreter of «Cardigan» had decided to take her car in the middle of the night and instead of getting lost on mountain roads, this time she decided to head towards that beach that she evokes in «Snow On The Beach » along with Lana del Rey, whose collaboration here is limited to being an immaterial presence, like the choir of a protective spirit.
This search for atmospheres is constant and especially recognizable in cuts such as the remarkable “Maroon” or “Vigilante Shit”, this one with something of Swift’s well-known vein for the revenge of “Bad Blood” or “Reputation”, although on this occasion served Cold-blooded.
“I don’t start shit / but I can tell you how it ends / Don’t be sad, get even / On weekends I don’t dress for friends / Lately I do it for revenge,” he sings in that cut before the doubt about the recipient of this revenge in the form of a song. Perhaps Scooter Braun, the man she was forced to re-record much of her discography for?
In contrast, this album also offers lighter compositions that bring us back to another well-known facet of him, that of the 80s that he tackled in «1989», as is the case with the opening with «Lavender Haze» or «Anti-Hero», the which will be the official single.
As curiosities, it should be noted that among the co-authors of the songs, in addition to Lana del Rey and Jack Antonoff, whose name appears in most of them, the actress Zöe Kravitz (in «Karma» and «Lavender Haze») also appears, as well as the Swift’s partner for 6 years, Joe Alwyn (“Sweet Nothing”), with whom she has already written cuts like “Exile” in the past.
We must also review the work of the composer of the success of more than 10 minutes that was «All Too Well», since «Midnights» and its 13 cuts come to fruition in less than 45 minutes, which makes it one of his shortest albums.
Along with the release of the album, Swift is expected to publish the video clip for “Anti-Hero” this Friday and to make a “chaotic” announcement that, according to some voices, could be related to a major international tour in 2023, which would mean his death. return to the stage after 5 years. EFE
