Taylor Swift

The singer-songwriter's 10th studio album returns to the pop sound she left in 2019, and explores a familiar subject: how she is perceived, and how she ...

[rerecordings of her old albums](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-rerecord-albums.html), an offshoot of the ownership battles spurred by the sale of her old masters. There are songs on “Midnights” — “Midnight Rain,” “Lavender Haze” — that suggest an awareness of the ways Drake and the Weeknd have deployed overcast mood in their vocal and musical production, though she rarely commits. Of the new songs, only “Glitch” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” aren’t subtractive.) Which all prompts the question of where Swift might go as a midcareer pop star, if she were to pivot once more. “Midnights” feels like a sonic place holder, with stadiums in mind. The fleet, breezy and lightly damp “Lavender Haze” includes some sweet singing, though it feels overly reminiscent of the thumping digital folk of Maggie Rogers’s [Jack Antonoff](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/arts/music/jack-antonoff-bleachers-lorde-interview.html), constrains her voice. Throughout the album, on songs like “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Maroon,” Swift’s vocals are stacked together to the point of suffocation. “Snow on the Beach,” a collaboration with fellow Great American Songwriter Lana Del Rey, begins with light Christmas music energy and never really ascends. But she also thrives when writing about “Taylor Swift” — the idea, the metanarrative, the character. “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, like some kind of congressman?” Swift muses on “Anti-Hero,” an eerily shimmering Kate Bush-esque number that’s one of the album’s high points. [Taylor Swift](https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/taylor-swift) has always been at her best when writing about Taylor Swift — she is diaristically pinpoint, a ruthless excavator of her own internal tugs of war.

'Midnights' is, as Taylor Swift explained in a statement when her tenth studio album was revealed, “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout ...

“Best believe I’m still bejewelled/When I walk in the room/I can still make the whole place shimmer”, she asserts on ‘Bejeweled’. “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser”, later adding: “When my depression works the graveyard shift/All of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room”. A collection of songs “written in the middle of the night”, the announcement of this album came as something of a surprise. ‘Lavender Haze’ evokes The Weeknd’s 2016 album ‘Starboy‘, shuffling beats and muted vocals supporting Swift’s lyrics that rail against intrusive questioning: “All they keep asking me/Is if I’m gonna be your bride/The only kinda girl they see/Is a one night or a wife”. [ Taylor Swift](https://www.nme.com/en_au/artists/taylor-swift) explained in a statement when her [ tenth studio album was revealed](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch1Ed_Su6Qw/?hl=en), “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”. [a string of short clips](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFrwwKRs/) where Swift revealed the track listing of the album song by song, also saw her divulge that [Lana Del Rey](/artists/lana-del-rey) would be appearing on the record.

The singer-songwriter's 10th studio album is a return to the pop pipeline, with production from her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff.

Target, which has had a long relationship with Swift, has its own exclusive LP version (on “lavender” vinyl) as well as a CD with three exclusive tracks. The most ingenious or shameless part — take your pick — of Swift’s vinyl strategy is what she has done with the back covers. In a sense, “Midnights” is Swift’s return to the pop pipeline after her digressions of the past couple of years. Swift is releasing four standard versions of “Midnights” on vinyl, each with its own disc color and cover art; they also correspond to four variant CD versions. Swift’s friendship with Kravitz, as fans know, is close enough that she once acted as an [uncredited assistant](https://wwd.com/business-news/media/nyt-great-performers-2020-list-tv-tiktok-michaela-coel-sarah-cooper-1234672957/) on a pandemic-era remote photo shoot of Kravitz for The New York Times Magazine. [kitschy videos](https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorswift/video/7147533441326648618?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1) on TikTok that revealed song titles, one at time, taken from Ping-Pong balls in a basket, as if on a decades-old local TV spot. [making an album with Antonoff](https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a39035654/zoe-kravitz-interview-march-2022/), is listed as one of the six songwriters of the first track, “Lavender Haze,” alongside Swift, Antonoff, Mark Anthony Spears (a.k.a. But an important factor in the sales and chart prospects for “Midnights” may be Swift’s embrace of physical music formats like CDs and vinyl LPs, which, because of the way Billboard crunches data about how music is consumed, can have a major impact on chart positions. Swift’s marketing this time has involved a series of “I find myself running home to your sweet nothings.” “Folklore” won The marbled vinyl has been pressed and sorted into collectible variants.

With its confident songwriting and understated synth-pop, Swift's sophisticated 10th album indicates that she no longer feels she has to compete with her ...

Last time she broke cover with new material, she released [Folklore](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/24/taylor-swift-folklore-review-bombastic-pop-makes-way-for-emotional-acuity) and [Evermore](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/11/taylor-swift-evermore-rich-alt-rock-and-richer-character-studies), two pandemic-fuelled albums of tasteful folk-rock produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner. There’s an appealing confidence about this approach, a sense that Swift no longer feels she has to compete on the same terms as her peers. Everything has been [pored over for potential information](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/14/taylor-swift-celebrate-album-release-midnights-pop-acclaim) about its contents, up to and including the kind of eye shadow she wears on the album cover. Meanwhile, Anti-Hero offers a litany of small-hours self-loathing set to music that feels not unlike the glossy 80s rock found on Swift’s Elsewhere, if the Swift you love is Swift in vengeful mode, settling scores with a side-order of You’re So Vain-esque who’s-this-about? [more of the same](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/16/go-easy-on-me-why-pop-has-got-so-predictable): building an immediately recognisable brand in a world where tens of thousands of new tracks are added to streaming services every day. It’s an album that steadfastly declines to deal in the kind of neon-hued bangers that pop stars usually return with, music brash enough to cut through the hubbub. In fact, Midnights delivers her firmly from what she called the “folklorian woods” of her last two albums back to electronic pop. There are filtered synth tones, swoops of dubstep-influenced bass, trap and house-inspired beats and effects that warp her voice to a point of androgyny on Midnight Rain and Labyrinth, the latter a leading choice given the preponderance of lyrics that protest gender stereotyping, or “that 1950s shit they want from me”, as Lavender Haze puts it. [Taylor Swift](https://www.theguardian.com/music/taylor-swift)’s 10th studio album, Midnights. It’s an approach that Midnights’ one marquee-name guest, [Lana Del Rey](https://www.theguardian.com/music/lana-del-rey), knows a lot about, but not one to which Swift has adhered. Instead, breadcrumbs of mysterious hints and visual clues are very gradually dropped via the artist’s social media channels.

On Midnights song Labrinth, Taylor Swift discloses a shocking opinion: She really doesn't like elevators.

No word yet on whether this will affect [her approach to planes](https://www.vulture.com/2022/08/taylor-swift-private-jet-emissions-response.html). [Midnights](https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/taylor-swift-midnights-album-stream.html)), Taylor Swift discloses a number of intriguing takes: on “Karma,” she says that “karma” is like “a cat, purring on my lap”; on “Anti-Hero,” she says that she sometimes thinks “everybody is a sexy baby”; and, on the album’s tenth track, “Labyrinth,” Taylor slowly and softly tells us a story about falling in love by relating it to … Almost one minute in, she sings, “You know how scared I am of elevators / never trust it if it rises fast / it can’t last.” Taylor has been in an elevator at least twice prior to this song — once while dressed [as a “pegacorn” for Halloween](https://www.thecut.com/2014/10/taylor-swift-is-trick-or-treating-in-an-elevator.html) in 2014, and once [with Taylor Lautner in Valentine’s Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRbVrY5DDqk) — so, either something changed or she was secretly hiding how much she disliked them. On TS10 (a.k.a. Breaking: Claustrophobia just fell to its knees.

Taylor Swift's new album is here, and it's her most personal and eclectic work to date.

There’s a self-discovery within this record that feels incredibly satisfying to bear witness to, and it doesn’t hurt that the songs, clever and eclectic, get more addictive with each listen. Swift promised that Midnights was “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 12 ... A particular highlight is Sweet Nothing, which Swift co-wrote with her romantic partner Joe Alwyn (credited as William Bowery). That line draws to mind evermore’s cringey murder fantasy No Body No Crime, but it’s executed much more successfully here as Swift draws upon hallucinations and anxieties that are born from fear. The closest she’s gotten before is the hugely underrated Afterglow. After all, who hasn’t stayed awake into the early hours overthinking everything?

Taylor Swift has announced her new album Midnights will be her first-ever visual album, sparking pandemonium among her vast fandom.

Swift last toured the world in 2018 to promote her sixth album, Reputation. Upon the album’s official release at 3pm AEDT, Swift marked the moment with a personal note to her supporters, saying, “Midnights is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows. THE COLLAPSE. THE SERVE. She was building us up to this MEGA event because Midnights is more than just an album - it is clearly a MASTERPIECE and we fully aren’t ready for it!! [@amazonmusic]for premiering this, the first video for Anti-Hero will be out tomorrow at 8am ET.

The vocals remain distinctive but the songs could do with more vividly told stories.

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On Swift's 10th and most challenging album, she and producer Jack Antonoff push her voice in new directions, rethinking the sonic rhetoric of first-person ...

She's still working to slacken the hold of the Old Taylor — of the many Old Taylors she's constructed through her music and celebrity. This is the kind of truth-telling that's earned Swift the devotion of her fans. For all of her kindness in the world and empathy and dedication to openness as a songwriter, Taylor Swift is, in her essence, sharp. "Labyrinth" — as good as any song inspired by one of her favorite subjects, the experience of still hanging on when you have to let go — melts her voice into myriad light streams, some as twisted as in a On "Midnight Rain" it's auto-tuned to vacillate between birdlike high notes and an almost masculine lower register, punctuating the story the verses tell of a young woman outgrowing a relationship with a sound that evokes that process of unfolding into a new self. is the kind of story song only Swift can write, dipping into gel-pen poetry to cultivate a swoony mood, then focusing on a scene of romantic persuasion and betrayal drawn so acutely that it stings. Usually she's explaining every move she makes, but here the music pulls her into the eternal now of her emotions, working against her persistent impulse to make sense of them. Sharpness is also key to Swift's perspective, surfacing in her love of the telling detail, of the rejoinder that cuts through whatever bulls*** the object of her love/hate has burdened her with. In the evening, with her lover nearby, does she vape a little Lavender Haze CBD Rosin and focus on the quietude creeping into her body beneath the relentless chatter of her thoughts? On Midnights she worked exclusively with her soulmate producer Jack Antonoff, bringing in only a handful of collaborators (the most notable is [Lana Del Rey](https://www.npr.org/artists/145913023/lana-del-rey), who gives great femme energy on "Snow On The Beach"), burrowing into a sound that might be called ahistorical chillout music. And then, in the studio, can she bring a lyric built on questions, turn to her trusted collaborator and say, "I don't care if this song is a hit, I want it to be weird"?

The album treads aggressively familiar territory—but with new wisdom and confidence. By Spencer Kornhaber. A portrait of Taylor Swift. Beth Garrabrant.

On the delightfully trollish “Anti-Hero”—“Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, and I’m a monster on the hill”—she makes the highly specific insecurities of a celebrity land as a (The lovely “Snow on the Beach,” for example, is almost ruined by a pointless Janet Jackson reference.) But the concision of Swift’s songcraft and the nuances of her phrasing should keep the listener tuned in. (Please diagram this double negative: “Karma’s a relaxing thought / aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?”) For the opener, “Lavender Haze,” the cartoon-villain smolder of her voice has human creaks and squeaks. “Maroon” and “Question…?,” two songs about hot memories, churn with a near-tragic blend of energy and frustration. That knack for relatability is her superpower—one so potent that it almost makes Midnights’ insularity seem noble. [Reputation](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reputation-taylor-swift-first-review/545561/) in 2017 and [Lover](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/taylor-swift-lover-review-faith-religion/596725/) in 2019—tinged with extremity and experimentation, brilliance and [cringe](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/04/taylor-swift-me-song-review/588118/). The concept behind the album title—Swift documenting “13 sleepless nights” over her lifetime—is an excuse to tour through old obsessions: exes, haters, feuds, her beau’s talent for distracting her from all of the above. Yet compositionally, Midnights is sleek and sturdy in a way that no previous album of hers is. Last year, she expanded an old ballad, “All Too Well,” [into a 10-minute saga](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/11/snl-taylor-swift-all-too-well-red/620706/) that flickered with controlled fury. What’s distinct about her return to synth pop is just the flavors she stirs in: oozing bass, surmountable melancholia, and the same type of confession and awkwardness that appears 45 minutes into an office happy hour. The choice of moodily distorted vocals feels especially dated; putting humanoid whale moans in an album’s first moments, as Swift and Antonoff have done, is like opening an IPAs-and-bacon bar in 2022. Transcending expectations is its own expectation, and Midnights makes clear, with modest poignance, that Swift has burned out on her own hype.

Today, after a top to tail listen of Midnights, I realise Taylor Swift knows me better than I know myself. With the pandemic behind us, and party season ...

But it’s the clever play on words with "while he was doing lines and crossing all of mine" that stand out to me as a classic Swift move. I’m going to call it a sister song to folklore’s mirrorball for the fact that we see Swift at her most honest, holding a mirror up to herself and critiquing her perceived shortcomings. It’s a clever juxtaposition of the romantic reality of her private relationship with actor Joe Alwyn and the scrutiny of the tabloids, hungry for details the couple rightfully gatekeep. I could dedicate a thesis to how long I’ve waited for Jack Antonoff’s darlings, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey to collaborate. It gets the party started and signifies the ushering in of a new era, one that sees Swift letting her hair down and spilling secrets. The result is a sexy and sensual album, which in true Taylor style delivers 13 tracks of utterly flawless storytelling.

Taylor Swift has announced her album Midnights will be her first ever visual album, sending fans into a frenzy. Here's what fans and critics have said about ...

A 40-second teaser also showed a flurry of footage from the upcoming music videos. Just minutes ahead of the midnight release, the music streaming site Spotify crashed. Laura Dern, Dita Von Teese, John Early, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Jack Antonoff and the Haim sisters are all set to make an appearance. Airing during Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football, Swift revealed a star-studded lineup of celebrities set to make an appearance in one of the 13 songs off the album. Just an hour before Midnights was set to hit streaming services and available for purchase online, Swift released a trailer for all the music videos. Swift announced her album, Midnights, back in August when accepting the Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Taylor Swift revealed very little about her 10th studio album, “Midnights,” before it was released on Friday – she didn't sit for any interviews and just ...

In “Anti-Hero,” that honor went to the line, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I’m a monster on the hill.” This was a new level of candor from an album that, as [multiple critics](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/taylor-swift-review-midnights-lyrics-b2207166.html) agreed in [early reviews](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/taylor-swift-midnights-1234611211/), was pretty dark music for Swift. “I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror. “Not to sound too dark, but, like, I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person.” But you know, this song really is a real guided tour throughout all the things I tend to hate about myself. [usual cryptic hints](https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/20/taylor-swift-midnights-easter-eggs/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2) about what fans could expect.

We all know the songs about Kimye and Jake Gyllenhaal, but piecing together details from Taylor's entire body of work actually gives us a much deeper ...

In “ [The Archer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w),” she expresses her fear of deliberately sabotaging the relationship. [This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z3QJ4L1Bg0),” Taylor points out that “friends don’t try to trick you” and accuses Kanye of getting her on the phone to “mind-twist” her. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of ‘Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.’” According to her songs, about one month after Taylor and Joe officially started dating, they escaped to a cabin together so she could process the Kimye drama. She was also convinced that Kanye deliberately recorded their conversation intending to set her up — something she referenced in the album's title track, “ If this is the case, then it appears that Karlie wrote Taylor a letter to apologize while the singer was spending time in London with boyfriend Joe Alwyn. [RadarOnline](https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2014/02/taylor-swift-virginity-jake-gyllenhaal-jilted-lover/): “The day before — all was set — he was coming, no issues. The upbeat pop song follows “All Too Well” on the Red tracklist, and for years, fans had been confused by the emotional whiplash of that sequence. Many believed that the scarf was actually a metaphor for her virginity, and in September, Taylor became visibly flustered when she was asked about its meaning at the Toronto International Film Festival. [interview](https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/anne-hathaway-glamour-october-2015-cover-star): “She just seems to be following her heart. This also appeared in the All Too Well short film, where the woman protagonist tries and ultimately fails to fit in with her partner’s friends at a dinner party. Speaking on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2008, Taylor said of their failed relationship: “When I find that person that is right for me, he’ll be wonderful.

Critics praise the "fantastic songs" on Midnights, but some add there is "not a smash hit in sight".

On the twinkly Bejeweled she announces that she's "going out tonight", but the beats remain sleepy and sluggish. Swift's always as elusive as she is allusive." Swift is currently gearing up for a busy few months. Otherwise Midnights sounds ready for bed." All the while she keeps things just cryptic enough to keep the tension crackling and the speculation buzzing. But it also sees her re-engage her pop sensibilities, with lyrics that explore more personal subject matters. "As Swift has returned to her archive for to undertake the project of re-recording her previous albums, it's clear slipping back into her past self has unlocked something brilliant and fresh in her songwriting," she wrote. "The subtle melodies of Midnights take time to sink their claws in," she added. "But Swift's feline vocal stealth and assured lyrical control ensure she keeps your attention. [the Guardian's Alexis Petridis said](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/21/taylor-swift-midnights-review-small-hours-pop-rich-with-self-loathing-and-stereotype-smashing) Midnights "delivers her firmly from what she called the 'folklorian woods' of her last two albums back to electronic pop". Midnights is the 32-year-old's first original album in two years and sees her return to a more mainstream sound than the more muted, acoustic tone of her previous two albums. The Guardian said Midnights is a "cool, collected and mature" record which is "packed with fantastic songs".

As pop fandoms go to battle on social media wielding data about their favorite stars, Metascores averaging critical opinions have become ammunition, ...

— where he previously worked — and its [Next Gen stats platform](https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/), noting, “There is a greater crossover between sports fans and music fans today.” [top artists of the decade list](https://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-music-of-the-decade). “People used Metascores as an argument settler, a metric to put in each other’s faces,” Doyle said. 2” ranked highest with a Metascore of 90, while Juliana Hatfield’s “Pony: Total System Failure” landed lowest with a Metascore of 25. “We’re a professional outfit.” The site makes money from advertising, licensing Metascores and affiliate revenue. Passionate fan armies keep careful track of the scoreboard, and one of the most fervent is devoted to Swift, who will release her 10th studio album, [“Midnights,”](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/arts/music/taylor-swift-new-album-midnights.html) on Friday. Before they are averaged, the scores are weighted according to the critic’s perceived prestige and volume of reviews. If it’s not a case of plagiarism or fraud (which usually is self-reported from a member publication), such appeals are generally unsuccessful.” “Once you get to four reviews, then you generate the Metascore, which is an average score.” For the games section, the site sends outlets a list of questions “so you can really get to know their scoring philosophy,” he added, a process it has only recently started “for potential movies section partners.” “Every time they publish a review, you throw it in the system,” he said. Metacritic went live in January 2001 with a film vertical and a rundown of how its staff calculated Metascores. “There’s nothing quite like Taylor Swift,” Marc Doyle, 51, one of the site’s founders, said in an interview last week.

In the lead-up to the release of “Midnights,” Taylor Swift herself said this 10th record of hers was inspired by haunting late-night thoughts and, ...

(Laura Dern, the Haim sisters and Swift wrote and directed the video, which follows a Swift tortured by monsters like ghosts, bathroom scales and judgey people at parties. There is a moment of silliness about midway through, after a verse in which Swift sings about a dream she had about a future daughter-in-law who kills her for money, but Swift left her out of her will.

Her 10th album is a culmination of 16 years in the spotlight, and Taylor Swift leaves nothing unsaid.

Like a knife to the gut, “Anti-Hero” is an instant self-hate anthem for the ages. Swift is cut open, bleeding to the world in this song, proclaiming herself a “monster” in a sea of “sexy babies” (it makes sense, trust us). I’m the problem, it’s me”

Ranking the swearist lines in Taylor Swift's new album Midnights which contains some of her strongest curse words including shit, fuck, damn, and cheap-ass.

The lean-back rhythm of her patter here is Taylor trying on her most world-weary “I’m washed” posture on the album. Taylor puts a “fuckin’” right in the center of this album’s biggest singsong pop chorus, pacing out words like a metronome so that she has to hit both syllables of “fuck-in” hard (and, yes, there’s no “g”). Okay, now we’re fucking — though, really, we’re only fuckin’ because Taylor is resistant to ever pronouncing the “g” at the end of the word. [inspired by Mad Men](https://www.nme.com/news/music/taylor-swift-reveals-mad-men-inspiration-behind-midnights-track-lavender-haze-3327307) (a show that is primarily set in the ’60s, but whatever), which puts Taylor in the position of a sort of Betty Draper raging against the feminist mystique or something. She’s easing up to the bolder swears later on in the album. And for all of her use of “fucking,” she tends to only use swears as intensifiers, not as descriptors of actually explicit acts.

On the heels of her highly anticipated album 'Midnights' and the world premiere of her new music video for “Anti-Hero,” fans around the world can now visit ...

Swift also has five music videos in YouTube’s Billion Views Club, two of which (“ [Shake It Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM)” and “ [Blank Space](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg)”) are part of a small group of videos to have crossed the 3 billion views mark. For the first time ever, Swift is inviting her fans around the world to share their anti-heroic traits to the soundtrack of the newly released track, “ [Anti-Hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk),” only on YouTube Shorts. Her music has charted on YouTube’s Top Songs chart in over 50 markets, and her recent release of [“All Too Well [10 Minute Version] (Taylor’s Version)”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tollGa3S0o8) peaked at #1 on the Global and US charts. Once you’re ready, head over to YouTube Shorts to start your own #TSAntiHeroChallenge creation and follow these simple steps: An anti-heroic trait could be as simple as always grabbing the last slice of pizza, clapping at the end of movies, always putting your feet on the car dashboard, using the same word to start your daily Wordle, leaving your clean laundry in the basket until the next time you do it, pretending you didn’t already watch the next episode of the series you watch with your pals, or even treating your cat like a human. The #TSAntiHeroChallenge is inspired by one of Swift’s favorite songs ever written, track #3 on her new album.

Picture of Taylor Swift greeting fans. Wesley Lapointe / Getty; The Atlantic. October 21, 2022. Share. Taylor ...

And the thing that got people excited in the music industry is more people saw him in Fortnite than would see him in a real-life concert. So it’s not a virtual world, but it’s a virtual community. And it’s not real time, in the sense of people hanging out in the same space. But because they don’t have avatars and they’re not meeting in a virtual space, it’s not technically a metaverse? Are Swifties actually living more of a true metaverse experience than the people using that platform? But the virtual community has to be as strong as the technology piece. In the book, Stephenson even mentions that it’s mostly just the wealthy who use VR headsets, and regular folks just use a regular computer. Au: Well, the fact that she’s created this kind of virtual office for herself, that’s—let’s call it metaverse-ish, especially if she ends up using it somehow in the future. It looks like it could be something out of The Sims or something. She has, in a way, created a virtual universe in which fans can experience the launch. That’s another thing that drives me crazy: the assumption that it has to be in VR. He is currently writing a book called [Why the Metaverse Matters](https://venturebeat.com/games/wagner-james-au-will-tell-us-why-the-metaverse-matters-in-a-book/).

The pop singer confronts her own flaws and calls everyone a “sexy baby” on the lead single from Midnights.

[1989](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-1989/), the neurotic image analysis of [reputation](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-reputation/), the dense lyricism of [folklore](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-folklore/) and [evermore](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-evermore/). But after so many years of defending the moral high ground—from ex-boyfriends, [rappers](https://pitchfork.com/news/66882-taylor-swift-kanye-and-kim-are-lying-committing-character-assassination/), [label executives](https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swifts-music-ownership-controversy-with-scooter-braun-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters)—Swift [started to admit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w) her own fallibility. Swift and trusted collaborator [Jack Antonoff](https://pitchfork.com/artists/32408-bleachers/) keep the production simple—a methodical drum loop, simmering synths—focusing in on a series of vignettes in which Swift is haunted by past mistakes.

The best lyrics on Taylor Swift's Midnights, based on her five feelings she had when writing the album: self-loathing, fantasizing about revenge, ...

Since the track was announced, people were quick to make connections to last year’s Swift release, Red (Taylor’s Version), as she describes the various shades of red, all in a darker hue. Swift challenges the antiquated ideas of weddings here, addressing the “ She pokes fun at those criticisms by calling karma “her boyfriend,” her longest relationship to date. For someone who isn’t afraid to write songs about those important in her life, Swift shows a new vulnerability by being too afraid of admitting that she’s falling in love. She references her eating disorder that she revealed during her Miss Americana Netflix documentary, able to see her destructive behavior with larger clarity as a 32-year-old woman. It is our time to rise up and ask them a million questions knowing the answers will be painful no matter what. Swift has been battling marriage rumors almost as long as she’s been battling serial dater rumors. (Though careful, Taylor, with how you phrase it; you don’t want to become a meme like The ideal night of swimming in your own sadness and pity definitely includes calling yourself a narcissist and then considering every nice thing you’ve ever done a big evil scheme to make you look like a good person. Assuming this song is about her feud with Scooter Braun, she’s taking no prisoners by bringing up his divorce and Sexy baby has to be an inside joke, right? [has finally arrived](https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/taylor-swift-midnights-album-stream.html) and encapsulated all of our late-night thoughts.

I damn sure would've never danced with the devil at 19... Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.”

“The wound won't close / I keep on waiting for a sign / I regret you all the time.” You can listen to “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” and the whole of Midnights, here. I regret you all the time / I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep,” she continues. In fact, some people went so far as to label “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” the darker version of “Dear John,” or “Dear John 2.0.” Taylor then goes on to express “regret” at the past relationship in question, suggesting that she’s grown aware of how problematic it was since getting older. According to reports, their relationship ended after a brief few months, with a source telling Us Weekly at the time that Jake “wasn't feeling it anymore.”

Taylor Swift's track 17 on "Midnights," "High Infidelity," has Swifties searching for where the singer was on April 29 after a lyric referenced the date.

Swift went out shopping on April 29, 2014, according to photos from her outing. On this day in 2018, Swift posted a photo of herself rehearsing for her upcoming tour. Could this be an Easter egg that she's finally going on tour again? She wore a one-shoulder, black sparkly dress to the party in Los Angeles. [new single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOkQ4T5WO9E) with Rihanna: "This Is What You Came For." Swift originally shared the photos, but has since deleted the post.

Taylor Swift moves away from the experimental magic of folklore and evermore and delivers a giddy, self-reflective crusade with Midnights.

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?). 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. As it turns out, Midnights is an eccentric blend of [Lover](https://www.avclub.com/taylor-swift-is-done-proving-herself-on-the-resonant-lo-1837578581) and [1989](https://www.avclub.com/with-1989-taylor-swift-finally-grows-up-1798181732), with a dose of [Reputation](https://www.avclub.com/taylor-swift-has-a-big-drunken-night-out-on-reputation-1820342108)’s retribution for good measure. 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.” ( On three of the tracks, 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 Dessner’s production. 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. 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”). The singer’s “sleepless nights” have spawned an odyssey that’s cutthroat and shimmery. 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). [Taylor Swift revealed she categorizes her lyrics](https://www.avclub.com/taylor-swift-new-insight-songwriting-process-1849562389) in three distinct ways: Quill, fountain pen, and glitter gel pen, conjuring the perfect weapon to rousingly convey her words. That’s immediately followed by track 13, “Mastermind,” in which a Machiavellian Swift confesses her schemes to secure his love. That’s not a complaint, of course, because Swift is the certified queen of serving up bangers.