Taylor Swift’s 10th album Midnights has become the most streamed album on Spotify in 2022 with more than 357 million streams.
Announced at the VMA awards, Taylor Swift’s album midnights has broken records like 1.14 million in US sales in one week, including vinyl, surpassing her own album Reputation in 2017 with 1.216 million copies sold. Midnights helped her become the first artist in history to dominate the entire Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, with Anti Hero being number one.
Swift is known for being an artist with a wide range of styles, singing different genres such as country, pop, indie folk, and more. This album brings her back to her roots with pop-music.

Visuals

According to Swift, this album will be a very visual album, with multiple music videos accompanying some of the songs. So far Swift has released twomusic videos for the songs “Anti-Hero”, and “Bejeweled”.
Both songs have some pop-like sounds, especially “Bejeweled”. Some controversy has started due to her music video of “Anti-Hero”, which includes a scene about her eating disorder she developed and how it made her view herself.
In this scene, she’s weighing herself on a scale, which shows the word “fat” instead of a number. This made some viewers upset, saying how the word “fat” on the scale was invalidating them, since there are people who have difficulty with their own image and her music video can affect their mental health.
The music video revolved around Swift’s insecurities, but includes two different characters representing Swift, one representing her mind, and the other representing her as a person.
Throughout the music video, Taylor is being influenced by her mind and how she made herself think throughout her life. She made herself think that if bad things happened, it was her fault, shown through lyrics from her song that say “It’s me, hi! I’m the problem, it’s me, at teatime, everybody agrees.” The lyrics describe how her mind makes her believe that everyone thinks she’s the problem and she is convincing herself that she really is.
She has also made a music video for her song “Bejeweled,”with a spin on the fairy tale we all know: “Cinderella”.
In the music video, Taylor plays the character Cinderella, and she has 3 step sisters as well as a stepmother who discuss an upcoming talent show.
The winner of this talent show will earn the keys to the kingdom, as well as a marriage proposal from the prince himself.
Just like in the movie, Taylor is not invited, but once the step sisters and mother leave, a magic door opens that she walks in to. She performs in the talent show, and ends up winning.
At the end of the music video, she rejects the prince, keeps the castle, and is finally happy, although the castle ends in flames with dragons.
Many fans have found easter eggs hidden in the “Bejeweled” music video. For example, Swift calls her mom a snake in a scene, referencing her album Reputation, as a response to criticism about Swift and Kanye West’s feud.

In this album, you can really “get to know” Swift since it is filled with songs she wrote on restless nights throughout her life. You get to see what happened in those times of her life and how she felt emotionally.
I also enjoyed how the album was promoted, as i kept fans entertained. For example, each night leading up to the album’s release she would use a bingo ball machine to decide one of the 13 tracks to be released until the entire album was available.
There’s also different versions of the album aside from the normal version. The 3 am version contains extra songs, and The Target exclusive CD and vinyl album includes 2 remixes and an extra song that isn’t available on any listening platform, with every CD and vinyl album having different colors.
Overall, I give the bejeweled music video a 10/10, due to the eye-catching and large amount of effort put into the variety of scenes, costumes and editing.Taylor is a great lyricist who is known to have hidden meanings and references in her music, and the same is true for this album.

Lyrics

Taylor is a great lyricist who is known to have hidden meanings and references in her music, and the same is true for this album.
In “Anti-Hero” Taylor establishes a pessimistic tone by using words such as lurching, monster, problem and narcissism. She uses lurching as a way to describe how she feels regarding others. She feels like she’s the “anti-hero” because if bad things happen it’s because of her, and she’s the problem. She also uses “monster” as another way to describe herself. She uses this word to compare herself to others and bring out her insecurities. In the song, she also uses “narcissism” because it’s why she or others think she causes problems because she is “self-absorbed.”
In ‘Bejeweled’ Taylor establishes a Admonishing tone. Throughout this song she talks about how the person she’s with is not giving her the attention that she wants “Don’t put me in the basement when I want the penthouse to your heart” and “Putting someone first only works when you’re in their top five”. She talks about how she should not really care that he doesn’t give her attention because she “can still make the whole place shimmer” without trying and “I think it’s time to teach some lessons I made you my world ,have you heard? I can reclaim the land And I miss you but I miss sparkling”.

In “Lavender Haze”, Taylor establishes a restrained and adoring tone by using words such as “scrutiny” and “haze” to describe how the “world” is restraining her and her relationships by “bringing up her history”. She uses haze to describe the feeling she gets whenever she is around her partner, and how she feels she’s in a love haze where all of her “bad” things like her past relationships and melancholia don’t matter.
Lasting Appeal
This album is one that can be replayed multiple times, thanks to the variety of genres such as pop, alternative indie, and more. If those aren’t genres that interest you, then this album would not be something that you play more than once. If these genres are some of your favorites, then this album will be a very enjoyable listen. In my opinion, this is an album that you could play all the time and won’t get old because of the different genres it has, but you obviously shouldn’t play it all the time. As with any song it could begin to annoy you, and begin to lose enjoyment.

The Verdict

Overall I think that this is an album worth listening to, and if you really enjoyed it I recommend buying it. I believe it has a good variety of different genres and her eras mixed into it, in a way where it all fits together.
I think this is an album that “older fans” , Swift’s or more pop fans will enjoy since it includes more of a pop sound, something we haven’t seen from her in a while since her album ‘Lover’.
In this album, you can really “get to know” Swift since it is filled with songs she wrote on restless nights throughout her life. You get to see what happened in those times of her life and how she felt emotionally. Taylor swift has announced her 6th tour: The Eras Tour, with 52 dates in stadiums around the United States. Many fans are excited to see her live for the first time since her last tour in 2018 for her album Reputation.
Ticketmaster Controversy
Swift is working with Ticketmaster to ensure fans are able to buy tickets for her tour, instead of bots stealing them, by using the “verified fan” method. The “verified fan” method works by making customers pick their top 3 dates to attend the concert and finish registration. However, “verified fan” does not guarantee the first buyers to get tickets, and instead randomly selects who will receive the tickets by giving them Ticketmaster codes that allow them to buy tickets in the presale.
Many fans however have received emails that their chances in the queue for the “verified fan presale” will be boosted just because they either preserved the album or bought merchandise from her website.
But just because you didn’t get tickets from the “verified fan” drawing, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get early access. Swift is doing a promotion with Capital One, where if you have a Capital One card, you can use the first four digits of your card as a “verified fan” code.
If you don’t have a card and don’t get tickets in the “verified fan” drawing, you can still buy tickets in the general ticket sale, although there might be fans reselling tickets close to the dates, due to not being able to go. Although, be careful and watch out for scammers.
According to BuzzFeed News, tickets will range from $49-449, like other tours. There are six dates planned here in Texas, three in Arlington at the AT&T stadium, and three in Houston at the NRG stadium.
On November 15th, many excited fans logged in to ticketmaster at around 10 a.m. for the pre-sale. However, many fans were disappointed to see they were put in a queue of more than 2,000 people. To make matters worse, the queue was paused for a while, making fans wait up to eight hours to have a chance at getting tickets.
Not all of these fans were able to buy tickets, as they sold out quickly, with most of the show’s tickets being sold in the presale. Fast forward to November 18th, the general sale occurred where fans didn’t need a sale code. As fans logged in to Ticketmaster, they saw that resale prices reached $22,700, with these sales ultimately getting canceled.
This issue caught the attention of some US politicians, such as Jonathan Skrmetti, a Tennessee attorney general. He claimed he would do a consumer protection investigation of Ticketmaster, after receiving many complaints from Swift’s fans.