Easter eggs Easter eggs are carefully looked over to find clues. The marbled vinyl was made into a variety of various collectible versions. The hashtags for fans are pumped up.
It’s time for the release of a brand new Taylor Swift album.
“Midnights,” Swift’s 10th studio album, debuted around midnight Friday. It’s the latest chapter of the incredibly productive two years for Swift who, at the age of 32, is still one of the most powerful musical creatives. Swift announced her 13 tracks of “Midnights” two months ago and described it as “the story of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life,” and “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.” (True Swifties (or, in reality anyone who has been paying attention to Swift’s performance on stage over the years is aware of her love for the number 13.)
This is Swift’s fifth album in just two years. It follows her indie-folk style, quarantine-era “Folklore” and “Evermore,” followed by “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version),” the two first rererecordings of her first albums, which she began after her previous recording label went under with her involvement. “Folklore” won album of the year at the Grammys in 2021.
In a way “Midnights” is Swift’s return to the mainstream after her discordances over the past two years. A lot of the songs, as Swift suggested that they resemble late-night musings contemplating the pressures of life and aging, as well as the significance of love. The threerd song “Anti-Hero,” she sings:
“I have this problem that I age but I am not getting any wiser.
Midnights turn into my afternoons
When my depression plays the graveyard shifts
Every person I’ve ghosted sit in the room”
As per the albums notes According to the album’s credits, the majority music was composed and recorded by her long-time partner Jack Antonoff, and much of it was recorded in Antonoff’s studio at home in Brooklyn as well as the Electric Lady Studios, the Greenwich Village warren founded by Jimi Hendrix.
A few intriguing names are mentioned on the album’s credit pages. It is reported that actor Zoe Kravitz, who has recorded an album together with Antonoff and is listed as one of six songwriters on the debut single, “Lavender Haze,” along with Swift, Antonoff, Mark Anthony Spears (a.k.a. The producer Sounwave), Jahaan Sweet and Sam Dew. Swift’s relationship with Kravitz and fans are aware is so close she was once an uncredited assistant in an era of pandemic remote photography with Kravitz in The New York Times Magazine.
Another track, “Sweet Nothing,” was composed by Swift and one William Bowery — an unknown name that appeared in the credits for “Folklore,” which Swift later admitted was a pseudonym used by an actor named Joe Alwyn, her boyfriend. “They said the end is coming/Everyone’s up to something,” Swift sang on “Sweet Nothing. “I find myself running home to your sweet nothings.”
“Midnights” stands a very high chance of becoming one of the top sales. Swift’s latest marketing is a series of snazzy videos on TikTok which revealed the song’s title each one at a time that were derived from Ping-Pong ball placed in a basket, as if they were from a long-running local TV ad. Swift also posted her release week strategy on Instagram and set out on a day-to-day calendar with an “special very chaotic surprise” on Friday, at three a.m. Eastern time; the release of the music video for “Anti-Hero” at 8 a.m.; “The Tonight Show” on Monday.
However, a major aspect in the sales and chart potential for “Midnights” may be Swift’s acceptance of physical formats for music like vinyl LPs and CDs and, as a result of the method in which Billboard collects information about the way music is consumed could have a significant influence on the chart position. Swift has announced four version of “Midnights” on vinyl, each featuring their own color for the disc and cover design; they also have four variations of CD versions. “Collect all 4 editions!” Swift’s website states. Target has enjoyed a an extensive relationship with Swift and Target, is the only retailer to offer an exclusive version of the album (on “lavender” vinyl) and the CD that has three tracks that are exclusive to Target.
The most innovative or sly aspect — pick your favorite of Swift’s vinyl strategy is what she’s made of the back cover. When they are turned upside down and put on grids each edition displays 12 numbers which are, when properly arranged make up the hours of the clock. “It could help you tell time,” Swift stated with a deadpan tone in an earlier Instagram video.
It’s not just that. For just $49, Swift’s site sells the actual clockcomprising four walnut wooden shelves that be used to store the LP jackets “with brass metal clock center piece,” the description says, “with 2 wooden hands that each have ‘Taylor Swift’ printed in brass ink.”
