Midnights 

is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on

October 21, 2022, via Republic Records. It was announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music
Awards, marking Swift's first new body of work since her 2020 indie
folk albums, Folklore and Evermore. A concept album about nocturnal
ruminations, Midnights was written and produced by Swift with longtime collaborator Jack
Antonoff.
Inspired by Swift's "sleepless nights", Midnights explores topics of anxiety, insecurity, self-
criticism, self-awareness, insomnia, and self-confidence, using confessional yet cryptic lyrics.
Sonically, it experiments with chill-out, electropop, dream pop, and bedroom pop styles, applying
an alternative approach to the synth-pop sound of Swift's previous pop projects. The songs are
characterized by subtle grooves, vintage synthesizers, drum machine, and hip hop/R&B rhythms.
Swift unveiled the standard track list on a TikTok series called Midnights Mayhem with Me from
September 21 to October 7, 2022, and surprise-released seven bonus tracks.
Midnights received critical acclaim for its restrained production, candid songwriting and vocal
cadences. Critics dubbed the album a career concoction, incorporating references to and
elements from Swift's previous albums, and placed it in best-album rankings of 2022. It was
commercially successful across all formats of music consumption and broke a string of records
globally; publications dubbed the ubiquitous success a testament to Swift's cultural impact and
longevity. It achieved the Spotify feat for the most single-day streams of an album and topped the
charts in 28 territories. In the United States, it opened with over 1.57 million units, logged Swift's
11th number-one on the Billboard 200, the largest vinyl sales week of the 21st century, and
became the best-selling album of 2022.
The album spawned 10 top-ten songs on the Billboard Hot 100—the most for any album—in the
same week. The lead single "Anti-Hero" scored Swift her ninth number-one song in the US and
topped the charts in 14 other territories. "Lavender Haze" and "Karma", which peaked at number
two and nine on the Hot 100 respectively, have been released as subsequent singles; other
tracks such as "Maroon", "Snow on the Beach" featuring Lana Del Rey, "You're on Your Own,
Kid", "Midnight Rain", and "Bejeweled" also achieved high positions internationally. To
support Midnights along with her other albums, Swift has embarked on the Eras Tour in 2023; an
overwhelming demand for the tickets crashed its Ticketmaster pre-sale.

Background
After a dispute over the sale of the masters of her first six studio albums in 2019, Taylor
Swift announced that she plans to re-record the said albums.[2] She released the first two of these
re-recordings, Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version), in 2021.[3] The latter
included the ten-minute, original version of her 2012 song "All Too Well". It was accompanied by
a corresponding short film, All Too Well: The Short Film, written and directed by Swift.[4] Many
speculated that her next album would be Speak Now (Taylor's Version) (2023) or the re-recording
of 1989 (2014).[5][6]
Swift garnered five nominations for the short film at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on August
28, 2022,[7] and won three of them.[8] In her acceptance speech for the Video of the Year award,
she announced a "brand-new" studio album scheduled for release on October 21, 2022.[9] Shortly
after, Swift's official website was updated with a clock counting down to midnight and the phrase
"Meet me at midnight".[9] The canvases of some of Swift's songs on Spotify were changed to a
visual featuring the clock.[10] At midnight, Swift posted across her social media accounts that her
tenth studio album would be titled Midnights, accompanied by a premise. She described the
album as "the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout [her] life".[9] Swift's official
website crashed due to heavy traffic following the posts.[11]

Writing and production

Jack Antonoff is Swift's main collaborator on Midnights.

Aaron Dessner produced four bonus tracks.

According to Swift, the subject matter of Midnights was inspired by five major topics: self-hatred,
revenge fantasies, "wondering what might have been", falling in love, and "falling apart".[12] Swift
enlisted Jack Antonoff, her longtime collaborator since 2013,[note 1] to co-produce Midnights with
her, which came together as a result of Swift's and Antonoff's partners, English actor Joe
Alwyn and American actress Margaret Qualley, respectively, shooting in Panama for the
2022 romantic thriller film Stars at Noon. While their partners were filming, Swift and Antonoff
worked together in New York City.[14] The duo wrote 11 of the album's 13 songs together; of the
remaining two, Swift wrote the track "Vigilante Shit" alone and "Sweet Nothing" with Alwyn, who is
credited with his pseudonym William Bowery.[15] Some bonus tracks were co-produced by Aaron
Dessner, who had collaborated with Swift on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore.[16] She
conceived the bonus tracks on their "journey to find that magic 13 [tracks]", and claimed that she
released them because she wanted to share her entire creative process with fans.[17][18]
"Anti-Hero"

0:21

A sample of the hook in "Anti-Hero", a pop rock and synth-pop song about inferiority complex.

Problems playing this file? See media help.

Swift's love life inspired the lyrics of "Lavender Haze" and "Snow on the Beach", the former of
which takes after the phrase "in the lavender haze" from the period drama series Mad Men. Swift
wrote "Lavender Haze" after she and Alwyn had to protect their relationship from unsolicited
scrutiny online ("weird rumors" and "tabloid stuff").[19][20] "Snow on the Beach" is about "falling in
love with someone at the same time as they’re falling in love with you",[21] and is co-written by
American singer Lana Del Rey.[15] The composition of "Lavender Haze" was first conceived by
Antonoff when he heard Sounwave, one of his collaborators, press a button accidentally, playing
a "small little loop" produced by Jahaan Sweet. Sounwave edited the loop, adding "a bunch of
effects". Sam Dew wrote some melodies to the loop with Zoë Kravitz, who had been working with
Antonoff as well. Antonoff then pitched the song to Swift, who wrote its lyrics. "Glitch" was also
born from these sessions. Sweet further reached out to Swift via Antonoff with "Karma", which
had also been worked on by Keanu Beats. The next day, Antonoff returned with "Karma" finished
with Swift's vocals on it.[22] In "Anti-Hero", Swift detailed her insecurities, such as struggling with
"not feeling like a person".[23]

Music and lyrics

The fourth track, "Snow on the Beach", features Lana Del Rey.

The standard edition of Midnights consists of thirteen tracks. The deluxe CD adds three bonus
songs, of which two are remixes, while Midnights (3am Edition), available only on music
streaming platforms, adds seven other bonus tracks. Six of the album's tracks are
labelled explicit. Del Rey provides guest vocals on the fourth track, "Snow on the Beach".[24][25]

Composition
Midnights has been described as a dream pop,[26] synth-pop,[12] bedroom pop, electropop,[27]
[28]
 and chill-out music album,[29] with heavy R&B,[30][31][32] electronica[33] and ambient elements.
[34]
 Departing from the indie and alternative folk sound of Folklore and Evermore,[35] Swift sought to
create an experimental pop album,[36] expanding her alternative approach to synth pop sounds.[37]
[38]
 "Maximalist minimalism" is the sonic signature of Midnights,[39] incorporating subtle melodies,
  emphasized rhythms,[40] vintage synthesizers (prominently Moog and Roland Juno-60),[29]
[35]

 drum machine,[4][42] Reese bass,[43] Mellotron,[44] downbeats, and low-key harmonies.[45] Swift's

[41]

vocals retain a country timbre,[29] but with rhythmic[45] and conversational cadences.[46] The vocals

are sometimes electronically manipulated,[44] resulting in androgynous[44] and "hiccuping" vocal
effects.[45] Influences of hip hop and rapping are present in Swift's vocal delivery as well, in line
with the lyrics' internal rhymes.[29][45][33] In describing its overall sound, Paste said Midnights "moves
fairly effortlessly between the discotheque and a moonlit boulevard",[47] The Guardian described it
as "a moody, sophisticated filter on the pop that made [Swift's] name",[48] and Beats Per
Minute regarded it Swift's foray into alternative R&B.[49]

Theme
We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our
self-made cages and pray that we aren't—right this minute—about to make some fateful life-altering mistake. This is a
collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the
demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching—hoping that
just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve ... we'll meet ourselves.
— Swift, introducing Midnights via social media[9]
Midnights is a concept album,[24][50] about "after-hour agonies" and thoughts.[29] Midnight is a
recurring lyrical motif in Swift's music, having been used in different contexts and viewpoints in
her preceding albums.[note 2] The A.V. Club said Midnights expands the artistic motif "into a full-
blown album".[52] The album marks Swift's return to a mostly autobiographical lyricism, after
exploring fictitious storylines and characters in Folklore and Evermore.[31] The New
Yorker said Midnights is a collage of various emotions during "the spontaneous, restless
headspace of nighttime thought".[53] The main themes are self-assurance,[54] self-criticism,
insecurity,[46] anxiety, public image,[55] and insomnia,[40][56] with a characteristic confessional but
"cryptic" tone.[36][35][47]
Several critics regard Midnights as Swift's most candid,[46][54] confident,[33] and frankest writing yet.
[34]
 Some others consider it a consolidatory work of her career, such as containing "bits and pieces
from all of Swift's eras" according to Billboard,[57] and a blend of "Reputation's attitude, 1989's
unimpeachable hooks, Lover's heart-on-its-sleeve vulnerability" in the words of Consequence.[58]