"Midnights" is Taylor Swift's perfect storm - Album Review

Two years on from "evermore", the natural extension of "folklore" released a few months after its first chapter and the result of a long series of writing sessions between Taylor Swift and her collaborators, the West Reading icon returns with a new studio work.  "Midnights", her latest effort, isn't really innovative in terms of content and sound, but it is certainly her perfect storm.
After the indie-folk interlude of 2020, which saw the American singer-songwriter collaborate with The National's Aaron Dessner, her new LP mixes the sounds of at least three of her previous projects: there are the synths and eighties vibes of 1989, a Billie Eilish aftertaste that's so much like "Reputation", and the catchy pop refrains of "Lover".  "Midnights" celebrates and emphasizes Swift's writing; at times both biting and romantic, capable of hitting you straight in the chest to teleport us into her mind with ease.

The album brings together thirteen tracks written at midnight and at different times in his life: it is about love, doubts, turmoil, fears, desires, drives and even monsters. "Anti-Hero", the first single extracted from the album, thus becomes the album's manifesto, whose true gems include pieces such as "Question…?", "Lavander Haze" - co-written with Zoë Kravitz - the duet with Lana Del Rey in "Snow On The Beach" and the syncopated "Vigilante Shit".  "Midnights" may not be Taylor's most ambitious work, but it is certainly her most introspective, analytical and mature body of work. In the meantime, the musician keeps on breaking records. In Italy, she debuted for the first time at the top of the week's best-selling album and vinyl charts, making her the only international female artist to reach the top of the Italian sales charts this year, as well as the most listened artist in just twenty-four hours on Spotify.

The album has already broken all sales and streaming records globally as well. It has become the the most played album ever in the first twenty-four hours on Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music. It also debuted among the top five releases ever on Spotify.
The same goes for the video clips of the first two singles' videoclips off the record, "Anti-Hero" and "Bejeweled", which have respectivly 35 and 15 million views on YouTube, respectively. According to Billboard, the tenth project of the musician who has inevitably marked a decade of pop music, will be the best-selling album in the United States in 2022, where it has already sold more than one and a half million copies sold. It has also gained the title of best first week of sales for an album on US soil since 2017. Impressive, isn't it? When it comes to Taylor Swift, it's rather a matter of certainty than anything else. 

Words: Alessia Bisini

Disclaimer: The original version of this feature appeared on the Italian publication HeyJude Magazine on Oct. 30th 2022.