Eight moments from 'Midnights' I'm obsessed with
Being a Taylor Swift fan is really the gift that keeps on giving. She’s released six albums in the last three years (if you include her two re-recordings), a true blessing (also a personal hell because I can’t rank all of her songs if she keeps coming out with new ones so quickly!) when you consider how other major fandoms, like the Rihanna Navy, haven’t been able to enjoy a new album from their favorite artist since 2016! (This is not an attack on Rihanna, of whom I’m also a fan. She’s just busy!) Swift’s newest album Midnights was released last Friday, and it’s already broken records: it’s the most streamed album in a single day on Spotify and Amazon Music, most streamed pop album in a single day on Apple Music, and sold over 1.2 million equivalent units in the U.S. in just three days, a feat almost unheard of in the age of streaming. (The last Taylor album that sold over a million units in one week was her 2017 album Reputation.)
I’ve been too busy over the weekend to listen to the album as much as I wanted to, so I’ll probably spend some more time listening to it before I decide on my feelings on the album, but here are some random moments from the album that I love:
1. The pre-chorus to “Anti-Hero”
“I should not be left to my own devices, they come with prices and vices, I end up in crisis.” I love almost everything about “Anti-Hero,” the first single from Midnights, but this particular part of the song might be my favorite. The way Taylor sing-speaks the lines, the slight pauses in between each word, the fun rhyme-y wordplay (“devices,” “vices,” “crisis”), all of it just works so well together in a mere eight seconds.
2. The 30 Rock reference in “Anti-Hero”
A lot of people have been laughing, making fun of, or both, regarding the line “Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, and I’m a monster on the hill.” Apparently, the “sexy baby” line is a reference to a joke from the NBC comedy 30 Rock (one of my favorite shows of all time!). The fact that Taylor Swift is a 30 Rock fan makes me love her even more!
3. The line “It’s me… Hi” in “Anti-Hero”
Yes, another moment from “Anti-Hero!” (Can you tell it’s my favorite song from the album?) I love the small pause between “It’s me” and “Hi” in her breakdown after the bridge. The pause last just a moment longer than it did in the choruses earlier in the song, just a moment longer than we expect. The song is about self-loathing and insecurities, and the particular way in which Taylor sings this line in the final third of the song, in a different way from before (she sounds out of breath), it’s as if she’s exhausted from fighting these demons and willing to accept them.
4. That part in “Vigilante Shit” that sounds like Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey is only featured in one song (“Snow On The Beach”), but you could’ve fooled me if you’d said she was also on “Vigilante Shit” (the less is said about the song, the better). The bridge near the end of the song (“Ladies always rise above, ladies know what people want. Someone sweet and kind and fun, the lady simply had enough”) sounds exactly like Lana Del Rey. It’s eerie, wicked, seductive, and sounds like nothing we’ve heard from Taylor before. (And it’s the only good part of the song!)
5. The cinematic “swooshes” in “Mastermind”
The little swoosh-horn sounds that appear right before the chorus in “Mastermind,” I don’t know what to call it, but I’m obsessed. It sounds like something that would fit in Lorde’s Melodrama album (which Midnights producer Jack Antonoff also produced), or something from a Hans Zimmer score (I love Hans Zimmer). I don’t know how else to describe this moment other than “cinematic”—it feels like a song that would work wonderfully in a film, as a dramatic closer to a drama.
6. Deep voice in “Midnight Rain”
“Rain! He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain.” From the very start of “Midnight Rain” it sounds like nothing we’d ever heard before from a Taylor Swift song. It’s a deep, digitally-altered voice. At first it may sound off-putting, but after a few more listens it becomes alluring, sexy almost.
7. The “Out of the Woods” interpolation in “Question…?”
“I remember…” Taylor’s 1989 song “Out of the Woods,” a song reflecting on the excitement and anxiety of a past relationship, is one of my favorite songs of hers of all time. So I was super excited when I realized the beginning of “Question…?”, another song reflecting upon a past relationship, started with a line from “Out of the Woods.” And yes, “Question…?” is also one of my favs from Midnights :)
8. The second half of the bridge to “Question…?”
When Taylor sings “That’s. Nice. I’m. Sure. That’s. What’s. Suitaaaablleeeee. And riiiiiight. But toniiiiIIIIiighttt,” in an auto-tuned voice. I don’t know why, but I love it.