Taylor Swift's "Midnights"

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About

Taylor Swift's Midnights is the tenth studio album from singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, which was released on October 20th, 2022. Midnights follows Swift's 2020 release Evermore and was written by Swift in collaboration with Jack Antonoff. The album was unveiled at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, with the debut teased on her TikTok leading up to the release date. Internet discussions following the release focused on Swift's lyricism, her references to her past relationship with John Mayer in her track "Would've Could've Should've" and Spotify reportedly crashing after numerous fans attempted to stream the release at once. The song "High Infidelity" also resulted in an influx of speculation about its meaning, which some perceived as Swift recounting a personal moment that involved cheating. The album received largely positive acclaim, with some naming it one of the most anticipated records of all time.

Background

Taylor Swift's release and promotion of_Midnights_ differed from her surprise release of Evermore, her ninth studio album. The album was first announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards,^[1] followed by a graphic shared on her Instagram and Twitter that was memed and parodied at the time. ^[2]

Swift then released a video series on TikTok called "Midnights Mayhem with Me," consisting of 13 episodes between September 21st and October 7th, 2022, where she randomly released the names of various songs from the album. The first video^[3] in the series gathered over 10.7 million plays and 2 million likes in nearly a month (seen below, left). The last^[4] video in the series gathered 10.4 million plays and 1.5 million likes in two weeks (seen below, right).

Reception

The album received widespread acclaim upon release, gathering an aggregate score of 94 from nine critic reviews according to Metacritic^[5] as of October 21st, 2022.

Online Presence

Midnights Lyrics

Discussions surrounding Swift's lyricism were prevalent online soon after her album release, with various users sharing screencaps of what they considered to be questionable songwriting. On October 21st, 2022, Twitter^[6] user @mountbellyache posted a tweet sharing the lines "Lock broken / Slur spoken" from the 17th track on Midnights, named "High Infidelity." The tweet gathered over 5,000 likes in nearly a day (seen below).

The track "High Fidelity" also mentions the date "April 29th," as expressed in a tweet from the Twitter account^[12] @SwiftNYC on October 21st, gathering over 2,000 likes in less than a day (seen below).

“Do you really want to know where I was April 29th? Do I have to tell you how he brought me back to life? Put on your records and regret me. I bent the truth too far tonight.” – Lyrics from High Infidelity #TSmidnighTS April 29, 2016 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8kBrYhilzU

— Taylor Swift Updates (@SwiftNYC) October 21, 2022

On October 21st, Twitter^[13] user @miaaxenn posted a tweet with a meme questioning as to what happened on April 29th, gathering over 500 likes in under a day (seen below).

Also on October 21st, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @EwdatsGROSS posted a tweet questioning a lyric from Swift's track "Anti Hero," where she said, "Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby." The tweet gathered over 15,000 likes in nearly a day (seen below).

John Mayer / "Would've Could've Should've"

The 19th track on Midnights, titled "Would've Could've Should've," is purportedly about Swift's brief 2010 relationship with artist John Mayer, who was 32 years old when Swift was 19. On October 21st, 2022, Twitter^[8] user @midnightsmars posted a tweet about Mayer, gathering over 13,000 likes in nearly a day (seen below, left). Also on October 21st, Twitter^[9] user @bythepocketfuI posted a tweet regarding Mayer, gathering over 2,000 likes in less than a day (seen below, right).

Spotify Crash

Spotify user reports after Swift's album release indicate that the app crashed soon after midnight^[10] due to a suspected influx of Swifties attempting to stream Midnights. On October 21st, 2022, Twitter^[11] account @Popbase posted a screenshot of the Spotify home page indicating an error, gathering over 60,000 likes in nearly a day (seen below).

Spotify crashed following the release of Taylor Swift’s new album #TSmidnighTS. pic.twitter.com/exmM3UPd7l

— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 21, 2022

Various Examples

im able to instantly detect if jack antonoff worked on a song due to a visceral hatred of his production style pic.twitter.com/qebe0nugXS

— caleb gamman (@calebgamman) October 21, 2022