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Taylor Swift has decided that if she can’t sleep, neither will her fans. Well before the release of her much anticipated 10th album “Midnights,” Swift was already busy scattering breadcrumbs of the music for fans to decode later. In Swift’s NYU commencement speech, she recited unreleased song lyrics from the unannounced album, and in an Instagram caption promoting the soundtrack to an Amazon Prime TV show, she included the suspiciously spaced: “at m i d n i g h t!” Swift and her fans enjoy these Easter egg hunts that invite wild speculation and conspiracy — sure to keep one up past midnight.
But on Swift’s 10th effort, there’s no such writhing. Despite being described by Swift as a concept album of “The 13 sleepless nights, scattered throughout my life,” Swift has never sounded more assured. “Midnights”’s sound exists somewhere between Swift's previous four efforts, capping off the last half of her career defined by albums where she has collaborated closely with producer Jack Antonoff. As a sonic culmination of these past four works, its sound is successfully muted, more palatable and reserved than ambitious. This might be strategy: With Swift’s foray into folk-ier sounds over the past two years, “Midnights” is her soft-launch back to pop.
But unlike her previous pop work, Swift keeps the calm she found in “Folklore.” On the shimmering “Karma” — whose name has sparked lost album conspiracies of Atlantis proportions in the past — Swift sings resolutely about how her past decisions have granted her a life she enjoys. On “Sweet Nothings” she’s tuning out celebrity clamor for the hum of her boyfriend in the kitchen. For an album purportedly about unease, there’s a newfound peace; Swift has made her bed and sounds happy to sleep in it.
This ease carries over to Swift’s writing, too. While her most recent folk-adjacent albums displayed a new depth of writerly ability with well examined characters and intricately packed lyrics, “Midnights” takes a casual, sometimes dropped-in approach. Swift’s less burdened by the pressure to prove her lyrical prowess on “Midnights,“ opting for ambience over explanation. This less labored style doesn’t always pay off, though: rhyming “funny” with “money” on “You’re On Your Own, Kid” or “tears” with “years” on “Karma” stunt ascending bridges. The lead single “Anti-Hero” has an entertaining, TikTok ready chorus, but the verse lyrics have also gone viral for their clunkiness.
This shake up in lyrical density leaves listeners with whiplash; it’s a slow realization that Swift might be having fun for real this time. And as a self-diagnosed try-hard, it’s refreshing to hear Swift let loose and write music that doesn’t need the listener to search for its brilliance through metaphors and plot twists. Swift explores motifs over fully fleshed out stories in “Maroon” where she waxes monochromatic over warm synths. It’s a darker, matured update of “Red”’s title track. Similarly, in “Labyrinth,” metaphors seek to elaborate on its misty, sonic drifting. “Midnight Rain” fuses concise lyricism with a catchy, vocally warped chorus, where a star beam of a synth stands in for the titular rain, and verses with handpicked imagery of pageant queens and peppermint candy thread together to make a constellation. It’s in moments like this where “Midnights” finds luminosity, combining her textured writing of spangling pop tunes with new nonchalance.
Swift is moving with less of the concern or self-consciousness that drove much of her earlier works, like “Lover“ or “Reputation.” She doesn’t abandon all of her nervous impulses, though. Still, on “Lavender Haze,” Swift jumps to address public perceptions of herself. The song’s contagious, pulsating landscape of distorted voices and staccatoed Haim sister delivery is undercut by a bridge that reads as the performance of being unperturbed — a subdued residual of “Shake it Off.” “Anti-Hero” tackles other narratives she can’t be excluded from, employing the “Blank Space” method of taking on negative media depictions as a persona, which she delights in in the accompanying music video.
Other familiar characters from Swift’s repertoire make an appearance on “Midnights” as well. “Vigilante Shit” retreads “Reputation’s” villain role with less of a heavy hand. Swift’s villain persona comes off more endearing than threatening, and the result is a song that would fit well on a musical about Billie Eilish.
Other tracks round out the album's glinted soundscape, building on their surroundings both sonically and thematically. “Question…?”’s bouncy, sing-songy chorus reflects on Swift’s relationship what-if’s with more resolve than past tracks that focus on this theme. “Bejeweled,” written with the same glitter gel pen as “Gorgeous,” is a crystalline confection with little interest in profundity. “Snow On the Beach” puts Swift two-for-two in unconventional Christmas songs, alongside “‘tis the damn season.”
In its 44 minute runtime, “Midnights” casts light on a Swift who’s more resolved and less interested in proving anything about herself. One might call her restful, which directly contradicts the premise of the album. This is where Swift’s scheming comes back in. Three hours after Midnight’s release, Swift released seven bonus tracks on the “3am Version.” This is where the conceptual aspect of the album, the tossing and turning, comes into full view, with sounds decidedly messier and lyrics less assured, disrupting the songs that were thought to be put to bed three hours earlier. Any longtime Swiftie should have known that “Midnights” is a confident hour for Swift; it’s the single-digits that prove to torment her. The contrast between “Midnights” and its “3am Version,” provides that trajectory of a night unsettled.
In the witching hour after “Midnights”’s release, Swift demonstrates her love for trickery and self-dubbed chaos seen earlier in her cat-and-mouse release games. The bonus tracks are Swift’s final moment to shake her listeners back awake, making a game of insomnia. Just like in “Mastermind,” the fake-out last track of the album — with arpeggiated droplets sure to please the ASMR enthusiasts — Taylor Swift proves that, at every hour, she is thinking ahead, making moves in the dark.
