Midnights Taylor Swift

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"?

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.

(AP) -- Taylor Swift “Midnights,” (Republic Records). “All of me changed like midnight,” Taylor Swift confesses halfway through her latest album, ...