Taylor Swift's Midnights

“I haven’t been on stage in a very long time,” she told the crowd. “It’s very nice!”

That impression was confirmed a month later when Swift announced the release of her 10th studio album, Midnights, onstage at the MTV Video Music awards. She later revealed it would tell “stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life … a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.”

A week from its 21 October release date, she is yet to share a note of music – or do any interviews, leading to giddy speculation over its sound. Her understated pair of 2020 surprise albums, Folklore and Evermore, were made with members of the National and Bon Iver and billed as “alternative” on streaming services. Midnights, however, marks an official return to “pop” and features a guest appearance from the US alt-pop star Lana Del Rey. (...)

Whatever its sound, one thing is certain: despite being released in the last two months of the year, Midnights will easily become one of 2022’s biggest-selling albums. (...)

“She didn’t need it in my book but she got that final bit of critical respect off those albums,” said Dave Fawbert, the founder of Swiftogedden, a nationwide club night that plays exclusively Swift songs. “All those 50-year-old men who dismissed her were forced to admit how good she was.”

by Laura Snapes, The Guardian |  Read more:

Image: The cover of Taylor Swift’s Midnights/Beth Garrabrant

[ed. An amazing talent (and industry professional). This is the song that brought me in (fabulous acoustic version here). See also (this repost): 

Yes, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” as upbeat and propulsive as this record gets, is a very explicit tribute to Rebekah West Harkness, the eccentric multiple divorceé and Standard Oil heiress/widow who filled her Rhode Island mansion’s pool with champagne and her fish tank with scotch; “stole her neighbor’s dog and dyed it key-lime green,” a splendid detail after Swift’s own master-songwriter heart; and upon her death in 1982, had her ashes placed in a $250,000 urn designed by Salvador Dalí. (This song is also your first opportunity to hear Swift sing the word “bitch.”) Naturally, Harkness has inspired multiple lengthy explainer blog posts in the past 72 hours, because Swift wrote a song about her, because Swift owns her house now. (The refrain “She had a marvelous time ruining everything” becomes “I had a marvelous time ruining everything.”) And wow is it impressive, genuinely impressive, how charming this song is given the fact that it’s a white pop star, in July 2020, singing a song about her $17.75 million Rhode Island mansion.