When the clock struck midnight on Oct. 21, 2022, the world celebrated the release of Taylor Swift’s tenth album “Midnights,” her first original album since “Evermore” in Dec. of 2020. 

Swift announced “Midnights” at the Video Music Awards (VMAs) on Aug. 28 after winning the “Best Long-Form Video”, “Video of the Year” and “Best Direction” for her “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” music video. Later that night Swift posted details on her Instagram: “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out Oct 21. Meet me at midnight.”

Before and especially after the announcement of “Midnights,” Swift’s fans, better known as “Swifties,” began work on finding easter eggs. Swift is well known for dropping slight hints in every social media post and even in her clothing during public outings or show appearances. Swift began posting a new TikTok series called “Midnights Mayhem with me” in which she would reveal a random track name every couple of days. Swift even included a new song “Mastermind” in this album, which acknowledges her love for dropping hints and easter eggs.

The album’s first song, “Lavender Haze,” opened the new album perfectly with the first lyrics of the album being “Meet me at Midnight.” “Lavender Haze” sets up the mood for the rest of the album to be a spunky pop album, and that it was. 

In the third track on the album, “Anti-Hero,” Swift opens up about her self-image issues and depression through the years. Swift claimed, “‘Anti-Hero’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.” Despite the upbeat background music, lyrics like “I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror,” brought out a dark undertone to the album that isn’t seen at first glance.

“Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey)” was a big letdown to many fans. Since the title of the song includes “(feat. Lana Del Rey),” many fans were deceived into thinking Del Rey would be featured in the song. Del Rey was unfortunately only featured in the background. The song itself was beautiful and Del Rey did a stunning job with the vocals.

My personal favorite, “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” follows the theme of an upbeat song with depressing lyrics. In my interpretation of the song, it’s the perfect song for high school upperclassmen preparing to leave for college but wanting to enjoy the time they have left.

Swift announced a “special surprise” a couple days before Oct. 21 which was to occur at 3 a.m. after the release. The “special surprise” turned out to be the vault tracks (Swift usually releases vault tracks several months after the original release of the album). “Midnights (3am Edition)” features seven new tracks that didn’t make the cut for the original 13 tracks.

Nov. 1 Swift announced through Instagram a much-anticipated world tour. This is her first since her “Reputation Stadium Tour” in 2018. The “Eras Tour” will take place in the spring and summer of 2023. Tour dates for the United States have been released with worldwide dates to come in the near future. 

Although “Midnights” has only been out for a couple of weeks, it comes nowhere close to lacking in accomplishments. The most exciting achievement of the album is completely occupying all 10 spots on the Billboard Top 10, which has never been done before by one artist. In addition to the Billboard takeover, “Midnights” became the most streamed album in a single day and Swift became the most streamed artist in a single day.

After the first listen-through, “Midnights” wasn’t one of my favorite Swift albums at all. Since then, “Midnights” has really come around to be one of my favorite albums.

Contact Macey Thaxton at [email protected]