Maps of Music

Midnights (2022)

Where the lyrics of Midnights take you, and where it was really made.

Midnights was announced at an awards show and the standard edition was followed three hours later by a surprise extended 3am Edition.

Key places

Recording at Electric Lady Studios (2022)

Recording site Electric Lady Studios — Swift recorded the standard edition tracks here along with Antonoff's Brooklyn studio. The studio is in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Midnights: tenth studio album by Taylor Swift
• Released October 21, 2022 through Republic Records
• Concept album about nocturnal ruminations
• Confessional songs on regret, self-criticism, fantasies, heartbreak, and infatuation
• Lyrical details allude to Swift's personal life and fame
• Standard edition produced by Swift with Jack Antonoff
• Sounwave, Jahaan Sweet, and Keanu Beats each co-produced two tracks
• Synth-pop, electropop, bedroom pop, and dream pop with elements of electronica, hip-hop, and R&B
• Extended 3am Edition co-produced by Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, surprise-released three hours after the standard edition

Background

• Swift began re-recording her first six studio albums in November 2020 after a 2019 dispute with Scooter Braun
• Fans had expected another re-recorded album in 2022
• Swift announced Midnights at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, during her Video of the Year acceptance speech
• After the show she revealed the title on social media
• On streaming platforms the album was labeled pop, which drew speculation about its sonic direction
• Swift framed the album as inspired by her sleepless nights, informed by five themes: self-hatred, revenge fantasies, wondering what might have been, falling in love, and falling apart

Recording

• Swift recorded all tracks of the standard edition at Antonoff's Rough Customer studio in Brooklyn and at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, Manhattan
• Antonoff used the Yamaha DX7 and Oberheim OB-8 synths to create the demos
• Final melodies were generated by analog synthesizers from the 1960s and 1970s, such as Moog, Mellotron, and Juno 6
• Sounwave made the first demo for Lavender Haze by experimenting with sounds
• Production of the final track Karma was completed after one day

Cover

• Minimalist design with a square photo of Swift in blue eye shadow, black eye liner, and red lipstick, holding a lighter flame near her face
• Photo occupies half the cover at the bottom right, bordered by off-white negative space
• Tracklist on the bottom left, title written in a blue gradient over the photo
• Typeface: Neue Haas Grotesk
• Tracklist layout recalls 1970s vinyl album jackets

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
• Named after singer-songwriter James Taylor.
• Moved to Nashville area at 14 to pursue a country music career.
• Signed with Big Machine Records in 2005.

Career

• Debut album Taylor Swift (2006) peaked at number five on the US Billboard 200.
• Fearless (2008) spent eleven weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US.
• Shifted from country to pop with 1989 (2014), which spent eleven weeks at number one.
• Released Folklore and Evermore (2020), indie folk albums that debuted at number one.
• Re-recorded her first six albums after a dispute over her master recordings.
• The Eras Tour (2023–2024) became the highest-grossing concert tour of all time.
• Holds 14 Grammy Awards, including a record four Album of the Year wins.
• Named Time Person of the Year in 2023.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Music critics regarded Midnights as an amalgamation of Swift's earlier albums and praised its autobiographical lyrics as engaging and refined
• Most reviews complimented the production as cohesive and tasteful, though some deemed it conventional
• Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, Chris Richards of The Washington Post, and Paul Attard of Slant Magazine deemed Midnights uninventive and too similar to Swift's past music
• Ken Tucker of NPR complimented Swift's use of rhymes
• Helen Brown of The Independent wrote that the subtle melodies took time to sink in and brought a rich listening experience
• Metacritic weighted mean score of 85 based on 28 reviews, indicating universal acclaim
• AnyDecentMusic? average of 8.0 out of 10 from 29 reviews

Reappraisal

• Billboard commented in November 2022 that the album's commercial success was undisputable, but its legacy within Swift's catalog remained to be seen
• Molanphy observed that few seemed to think Midnights was Swift's very best album
• Within one year of release it placed fifth on NME and Entertainment Weekly rankings of Swift's ten studio albums
• Snapes dubbed the album Swift's first consolidation effort in an October 2023 Guardian article

Records

• Debuted at number one on the album charts in at least 14 countries, including Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden
• United States: debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 1.578 million first-week units
• Best-selling album of 2022 in the United States
• United Kingdom: debuted atop the UK Albums Chart with 204,000 units
• Sold 80,000 vinyl copies in the UK in 2022
• Won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards
• Certified seven-times platinum by the RIAA in September 2025

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Sounwave created the first demo for Lavender Haze by experimenting with sounds, and Swift helped complete the final production
• A 13-episode TikTok series called Midnights Mayhem with Me ran from September 21 to October 7, 2022, with a lottery cage of 13 ping pong balls deciding each track reveal
• Swift appeared but did not perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Graham Norton Show
• Midnights was the best-selling foreign album in China in 2022 after nearly 250,000 copies sold within one day
• Swift's Eras Tour ran from March 2023 to December 2024 and supported Midnights along with her other albums

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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