Written by Negan Fu
This past Friday, pop superstar Taylor Swift released Midnights, her tenth studio album. Swift’s past few releases, which include Red (Taylor’s Version) and evermore, drew much acclaim from critics and fans alike, so it comes as no surprise that Midnights has been a highly anticipated project for many.
“Lavender Haze,” the opening track, marks an immediate distinction between this album and its two predecessors, folklore and evermore, trading indie-folk piano ballads for synth-pop tunes with electronic and dream pop sensiblities. The album shares far more similarities to Swift’s previous pure pop albums, including 2019’s Lover and 2017’s Reputation. This time, however, Swift cuts out the campy fluff that plagued the aforementioned albums and approaches the Jack Antonoff-led soundscape with elegant refinement. There’s undoubtedly a through line connecting her 2020 sister albums to Midnights; Swift has developed into a more mature, introspective artist that prefers soft-spoken grooves to sparkling stadium anthems (though there are certainly a couple of those present on this record too).
Track three, “Anti-Hero”, opens with a R&B-like drum machine beat, setting the stage for one of the more radio-ready songs on the album. Swift’s excellent lyricism is on full display here (“Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman”), though the song has its moments of cringe as well (“Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I’m a monster on the hill”). The track that follows is “Snow On The Beach”, the only song on the album with a featured artist. Sadly, Lana Del Rey’s vocals are barely detectable, resulting in arguably one of the most lackluster features in Swift’s discography.
The album’s weakest point, however, is “Vigilante Shit”, an Eilish-esque revenge tune that would better match the tone of Reputation. It doesn’t quite fit into the album and, while it is far from the misfire that “Look What You Made Me Do” or “You Need to Calm Down” were, it’s still an eye-roller.
Swift plays around with vocal modulation on the album, perhaps most noticeably on track 10: “Labyrinth”. It’s one of the prettiest sounding songs here, steadily pulsing with dreamy affection. Right after that, Swift hits us with a blast of pure fun in the form of “Karma”, a breezy, sugar-sweet bop with one of the singer’s catchiest melodies in a long time. The album comes to a close with “Mastermind”, a laid-back track with hypnotic synth notes sprinkled throughout like cinematic raindrops. It may not be the most memorable closer Swift has done, but it’s a fitting end to the tracklist and leaves the listener in a tranquil state.
Midnights consists of slick, dreamy tunes with retro-futuristic qualities, sonically resembling some of Swift’s other pure pop efforts while also channeling the more introspective storytelling and mellow nature of folklore and evermore. It very much feels like an extension and accumulation of her past work, providing a welcome return to pure pop Taylor and demonstrating for the umpteenth time just how seasoned of an auteur she has become.
Favorites: Lavender Haze, Anti-Hero, Question…?, Labyrinth, Karma, Mastermind
Least Favorite: Vigilante Shit
