Midnights, Taylor Swift: A Review
Author: Grace Rogers
What were you doing on Midnight on the 21st of October, 2022? Me? I was up with millions of other Swifties, waiting for Taylor Swift’s new album, Midnights.
Taylor Swift is a successful singer and songwriter, and has been since she was 14 in 2004 when she signed a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. She was only 16 years old when she released her first album, Taylor Swift, and got over 40,000 copies sold within the first week of it being released. Taylor Swift has a total of twelve albums, 10 of which are original studio albums but the other two are re-recorded studio albums. Her most recent album, Midnights, has sold more than 1 million copies since it was released, four days ago. She explains how every song in the album has a meaning behind it and how the thirteen songs are, “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.”
One of her songs, Maroon, talks about how she used to have love for this one person, but that was before she really saw his true colors. Taylor Swift had a rough relationship with Tom Hiddleston in 2016. It was not a very long relationship, only about three months before Taylor broke up with Tom. Taylor did not feel very comfortable with being in a public relationship, but Tom wanted the opposite. The song talks about the how, even in a toxic relationship, the person tends to focus more on the positive memories instead of the negative ones.
Another song that talks about her past is, “Anti-hero.” Back in 2014 Taylor developed an eating disorder. As she became more and more famous, she would also develop more and more “haters.” After she went on her Red Tour people were saying that she looked like she gained weight. The beauty standard for girls is to be skinny, but when people started talking about her weight she started to see what was not true. She emphasizes how she’s the problem and how people didn't want to hang out with her anymore because of her size. These were all scenarios that she actually lived through when she was going through her eating disorder. In the official music video for Anti-hero there is a scene where Taylor steps on a scale and her weight is shown as “Fat” instead of an actual weight. This short scene caused a lot of drama, because so many people took offense towards her own view upon her own body. Taylor was pressured into taking the short clip out and now the video does not show her weight.
These are both good examples of how her songs in Midnight have their own meanings/stories behind them. Some stories maybe good memories while others maybe memories she would probably choose to not relive. Regardless, Taylor Swift has people talking and has impressed her fans with another amazing album.