Taylor Swift reclaims her glittering pop crown with Midnights

While promoting her new album Midnights, Taylor Swift revealed she categorizes her lyrics in three distinct ways: Quill, fountain pen, and glitter gel pen, conjuring the perfect weapon to rousingly convey her words. Her 10th studio album confidently sits between the fountain and glitter gel instruments; it’s extravagantly detailed yet decidedly frothy (a stark contrast with the album’s cover art). Midnights is a giddy, buoyant, somewhat messy return to pop; a heartbreaking confessional gift wrapped with confetti. And the seven bonus tracks, a surprise release from Swift, kick things up a notch.

Swift has moved impressively from country to pop to indie-alternative since her debut, and earned 11 Grammys in the process. Her songwriting and musicianship revel in reinvention, introspection, and passionate storytelling through it all. This profound talent has always been on display, especially in 2020’s folklore and evermore, albums that branched away from her previous records to create a quieter, more poignant symphony. Those albums were critically and publicly acclaimed, so naturally, expectations were high for her follow-up with Midnights.

Swift announced the album weeks in advance, and kicked off rollercoaster social media promotions and a Mad Men retro-glam aesthetic. But there was no indication—despite extensive speculation—of what the album would actually sound like. Would it be an extension of “folkmore,” experimenting with pop-rock Or another genre As it turns out, Midnights is an eccentric blend of Lover and 1989, with a dose of Reputation’s retribution for good measure. While still fun and incredibly snappy, Midnights isn’t as much of a cohesive smash due to generic production and arrangements that cause the synth-pop sounds to blur together in the middle.

Swift collaborates with longtime pal and music partner Jack Antonoff for 13 new songs, all inspired by the things that keep her up at night (midnights is a recurring motif in her body of work): self-loathing, dreaming of revenge, wondering “what if,” falling in love and then falling apart. The final result is a fascinating mixed bag of bops—because, let’s face it, that’s what Midnights is. That’s a compliment, not a complaint because Swift is the certified queen of serving up bangers.

Swift opens Midnights with “Lavender Haze,” a definite bop that celebrates her unperturbed love life (reminiscent of “Call It What You Want To).” And she closes the core album with a pair of tracks that cleverly confirm her relationship, starting with track 12, the amorous ballad “Sweet Nothing,” co-written by Swift and William Bowery (Joe Alwyn’s pseudonym). It’s mushy and uncomplicated, with the soft piano and string instruments elevating the song. That’s immediately followed by track 13, “Mastermind,” in which a Machiavellian Swift confesses her schemes to secure his love, and pokes fun at the public perception of her dating history. Except, he’s aware and doesn’t care: “I laid the groundwork / And then saw a wide smirk / On your face, you knew the entire time.”

The rest of the album oscillates from nostalgia (“Maroon,” a lush remnant of the Red era that proves no one on this planet can describe colors better than Swift) to fantasy revenge (the moody but sadly prosaic “Vigilante Shit”). She also builds on her track 5 lore with “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” an alt-pop coming-of-age tune about longing for attention. It’s wrenchingly incisive with: “I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this / I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.” Once self-realization dawns that she’s always on her own, she is ready to face loneliness head-on.

Swift is at her darkest, weirdest glory in “Anti-Hero,” the perfect lead single for Midnights. An early standout, it charts her exhaustion from giving in to her worst thoughts and impulses (“When my depression works the graveyard shift / All of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room / I should not be left to my own devices”). Backed by percussive drums, Swift’s vocals crescendo brilliantly before tiring out as the song tapers off. There are more gems here like, “I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero,” and the polarizing line, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby.” (Is this a weird crossover promotion for M3GAN). In reality, it manifests insecurities planting seeds as Swift’s fame skyrockets.

Midnights has a few more hits and misses. An atmospheric “Midnight Rain” boasts a strong outro. The song, about the woman leaving her small-town boy behind, feels like a dizzying follow-up to evermore’s “champagne problems.” An unapologetic bubblegum pop, “Bejeweled” is a feel-good melody meant to be played loudly. “Labyrinth” and “Question...” possess classic Swift charm and potent use of metaphors (“Does it feel like everything’s just like second best after that meteor strike” she asks her ex-lover after they’ve each moved on in “Question...”). The glaring misfits are the wintery “Snow On The Beach,” which barely has input from Lana Del Ray and moves at a crawling pace. “Karma” is leftover from Reputation but doesn’t match that album’s scathing fury.

However, the album ascends with the addition of the seven Midnights (3 AM) songs that Swift released without any notice. On three of those, she collaborates with The National’s Aaron Dessner yet again, including on “The Great War,” which features poetic imagery and lyrics about surviving the battlefield of a tumultuous bond and is enhanced by the production. Swift follows up themes tackled in “illicit affair” and “ivy” with “High Infidelity,” a knockout that picks apart why people cheat in unstable relationships. And then there’s “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” a fiery but tragic indictment of the older man she dated at 19 who took advantage of her naïveté. “Bigger Than The Whole Sky” with Antonoff is an agonizing slow-burn about the one that got away.

Clearly, there was no predicting in advance what Midnights would unravel. The singer’s “sleepless nights” have spawned an odyssey that’s cutthroat and shimmery. It finds a groove in Swift’s mature vocals compared to the albums it’s reminiscent of, as heard in her re-recordings of Fearless and Red. The album illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of the Swift-Antonoff partnership—the duo tends to “regress” every so often but knows how to tap into their forte, too. And it only hints at the possibility of more from the Swift-Dessner team.

There were some concerns that Midnights might mark a step back after the strides Swift made with folklore and evermore, but it’s clearly not. Swift has approached her new project as a reflection and revitalization. After multiple listens—and wishing that the 3 AM songs were part of the core album—it’s evident she embraces the chaos (what’s new, right). Much like 1989 before it, this album will stand the test of time, and will be enjoyed increasingly in the years to come, Midnights marks Swift’s self-assured return to her comfort zone: delivering sweeping crowdpleasers and nuanced hard-hitters.