issue fifty-two

she served MIDnights: album review

If you’re new here to this newsletter, or even if you haven’t scrolled through my “Top” issues tag on the website, you probably don’t know about my long standing, probably one-sided beef with Taylor Swift. Whether this lies in the white feminism, the capitalistic exploitation, the posing with neo-Nazis, the singlehandedly destroying the ozone layer, or whatever she’s doing to piss me off that week, I’m always going to have something to say about Miss Americana and her bastioned army of rabid pack animals (stans). 

As of this last week, her tenth original studio album “Midnights” has swept the charts and Zara dressing rooms everywhere, including my feeds and timelines and waking moments. Surprise announced with a flurry of merch drops and vinyl bundles, a scammy wooden frame for a clock built out of no less than 4 vinyl records and no lead single, this album is projected to hit about 1.6 million units in its debut week (at the time of my writing this). I observed, I listened, and I have thoughts. 

My first is that it seems that nobody can be normal about Swift’s releases anymore, and that is a kind of mass hysteria that doesn’t bode well for her upcoming era of overexposure (a looming world tour and “Speak Now” re-record are most likely on the way in the next two years). For someone who seems to have mastered the craft of calculated secrecy and seems to live and work on her own time, this off-schedule surprise has been a conundrum in terms of Swift’s own rollout and critical reception. 

Binary extremes of “worst ever” and “best ever” have been swirling around social media for days, and the endless cycle of Swifties barraging anyone who dares to speak against their leader has certainly not stopped. None of this is surprising to me, because Swift’s releases are almost always polarizing and her fans are almost always out of line, but I can’t help but think that in a rebrand and aesthetic era meant to represent “wise and mature Taylor”, this grown woman can’t tell her fans to stop doxxing journalists who gave “folklore” an eight out of ten. It’s a little embarrassing and mostly telling of how she views her fans and the sheer mass of their power in regards to her career trajectory. 

For someone who took years and years to build deep relationships with fans (parasocial or otherwise) through secret incentives, engagement contests and a loyalty to mentioning them every so often to keep them fed enough, it seems that Swift finally is at a point where she doesn’t fully understand them. I’m not sure whether she lives in fear of the monster she’s created in an amorphous bubble of fame bigger than herself, or if she’s just too cowardly to face it for what it is, but the fact remains that multi-millionaires must sever parasocial ties with the 14 year olds they’re highway robbing. The lyrics on this album (which will be dealt with in a few paragraphs) are some of her most out of touch, the merch drops have been overpriced and universally hated, and Swift seems torn between fully dropping the comfort zone curtain of her commercially explosive “rebrands” and “eras” that have carried her through her entire career, and crafting an entirely new one under the guise of memories of vulnerability and her own “sleepless nights”. I’m pretty sure she chose the latter.

It’s funny that after the “transparency” (quotes because this is Taylor Swift we’re talking about) of the more stripped back “folklore” and “evermore” eras and re-recordings that bank on nostalgia and the childhoods of every white millennial, Swift seems to be dipping her toes back into mainstream pop (?) (kinda) for this album. I have a theory that “Midnights” was neither intended to sound like this or drop like this, that Swift spotted an impending wave of (perhaps rightful) public distaste from her carbon emissions data, soundtrack work for the adaptation of a deeply racist author’s work and working with a transphobic sexual abuser for a bit part and Best Death Scene of 2022, and she knew it was time to act and distract. This rushed rollout may be what contributed to how uncharacteristically confused this album is regarding itself. 

From the beginning of the announcement for this album months ago, its marketing and messaging have been split along two paths. The first: glitzy, moonstone blue, polished and industrial. See: Swift’s VMA outfit, the Apple Music ass font on the album cover, the general glam of it all. The second: vintage wood, 70s bangs and a retro photoshoot set, stripes and flares, mood lighting. See: every vinyl variant, the back cover of the album art, literally every single Midnights Mayhem video and that damn red phone. I think either one of these paths would have conjured a popular and widely successful project, but their use in conjunction baffled fans and baffled me. This mix-and-match is not represented in the album’s sound save for a few tracks of exceptions, it’s not really visible in the music videos, and just seems like it was made for vibes and whatever Taylor wanted to wear that day. 

In regards to the sonic landscape of the album itself, it falls anywhere between “reputation” and “Lover” with sprinkles of backing vocals reminiscent of “folklore”. The fact that its lo-fi pop and watery trap beats that chug along with no crescendo borrow from Swift’s two worst albums does not bode well for this reintroduction to present-Taylor, after a year of re-record-girlboss-Taylor. Almost every track on the main album sounds like it could be from the vault, some vault, any vault. The only moments where I glimpsed hints of novelty were the opener and queen supreme “Lavender Haze” and possibly “Labyrinth” whereas the rest mostly circle their prey with hammy callbacks to past eras. 

To this, I say we have re-recordings for this purpose. Obviously the 13 “sleepless nights” (now 20 due to the far superior 3am bonus tracks blessed by Aaron Dessner’s hand) Swift wants us to listen in on are distinctly tied to specific eras or times in her life, but I didn’t anticipate that they would be so directly borrowed from that time. In revisiting such distinguishable periods and matching their tone exactly, I felt the general concept part of this “concept” album was a little lost. Rather than getting the “almost greatest hits” from Swift’s dream journal of years past, I feel that the “Midnights” vision would have suited a mature and novel project looking back from her present day perspective with a cohesive sound to match that growth. 

Speaking of growth, we need to address the bejeweled elephant in the room (no, not Mother Pat McGrath making a cameo in that music video): the lack thereof in the lyrics. Swift falls back on SAT prep vocabulary words to pad her metaphors, she bounces between faux self awareness that directs criticism back to others rather than herself, and she is still trying to make Joe Alwyn a muse. Swift opening her bad bitch ballad in the form of an ode to revenge by snatching lyrics straight off of Tumblr copypastas in order to spin her umpteenth narrative of righteous revenge is the most painfully her thing she has ever done, and by that, I mean it’s like she stole candy from a baby. And then sold the candy back to the baby in a 75 dollar vinyl merch bundle. I’m not against earnest lyrics with intentional craft, but you can feel Swift’s effort and conscience of her own self-mythologizing oozing out of each lines; it reads a bit gimmicky that the guises of vulnerability on this album are hurled back at listeners in a manner that seems bred, born and bound for internet virality and reactions from her die-hard fans - in the wrong way. 

Like, please just observe the material. It speaks for itself. 

I’d like to take the time to insert this thought that I couldn’t really insert anywhere else: I believe in my heart that Taylor Swift is like 2% responsible for the broader cultural smog of white women’s persecution complexes because of songs like “Vigilante Shit”. Like, in the way that they think her masters getting bought was their Jim Crow era. Not that Swift can’t or shouldn’t write about her own feelings and experiences, that’s kind of the whole point of the gig, but watching the tracklist progress from “Vigilante Shit” (possibly her worst song in years) to “Karma” (one of the best on the album) and watching her fans respond to that genre of Swiftisms for years makes me ask the following questions: 

Is she still singing this song when there are so many other, more eloquent ways she’s already done so? What does she actually want her fans to believe or pull away from the things she’s said over and over again about one situation? Where is the intention? Is she not already living her “Karma” life, and she just wants to put “Vigilante Shit” on tee shirts and coffee mugs? If it’s reductive and painfully fan service-y to be this brand of vengeful after 5 years, where does that leave us all? Why is she feeding into the hidden album truthers while simultaneously encouraging her fans to cease the endless speculation about easter eggs, hints and clues, even her relationship? What are we as a world to do with the fact that those fans think saying anything I’ve said in this review is misogyny? 

In terms of the album as a whole, it's inoffensive and mid to a T. It’s certainly not her best and brightest, and definitely not her worst. I’d put it on while I was cleaning my bathroom, or something, but save for a few standouts and one of the bonus 3am tracks (“Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve”, Swift’s best song of perhaps the last 7 years), I think this album will ultimately fade away in the next wave of capital campaigns Swift helms. She has more business to get to after this interlude, which may be ultimately what she’s best at at this point. At least she did one thing right (silencing Lana del Rey).