In case you thought Taylor Swift was going to shake off the moody melancholy of “Folklore” and “Evermore” — the double dose of alluring alt-folkiness that she gave us in 2020 — suppose once more.
“Midnights” — the pop famous person’s much-anticipated new album that, after arriving on the stroke of midnight on Friday, will likely be protecting Swifties up all night time — is designed for the quiet of the darkish. Certainly, Swift’s tenth album — which comes virtually precisely 10 years after she started to make her play for pop dominance with 2012’s “Pink” — is a far grayer shade of the 32-year-old singer-songwriter.
And with way more subtleties than you would possibly count on from the artist who a decade in the past was singing “We Are By no means Ever Getting Again Collectively,” it’s an album that sneaks up on you quite than hitting you with the peppy punch that made her a pop powerhouse.
It’s a grower, not a bathe.
And certainly solely an artist of Swift’s stature might count on her viewers to patiently anticipate the payoffs right here. Now it is sensible why she didn’t launch any singles from “Midnights” earlier than the LP. There may be nothing approaching the sort of slam-dunk singles that launched a lot of her albums. And a few of it’s downright downbeat.
“Meet me at midnight,” she begins on the opener “Lavender Haze,” which pulses with electro.
However issues get darker on tracks such on “Maroon,” which finds Swift reflecting in regards to the “the lips I used to name dwelling.”
Lana Del Rey seems on “Snow on the Seaside,” with its low-key magnificence, however you may hear her affect all through the LP. In the meantime, there’s a Bon Iver-esque eeriness to “Midnight Rain.”
“Midnights” undoubtedly will get slightly too sleepy at instances. However issues perk up some on “Karma,” one of many few immediately catchy cuts.
’Trigger karma is my boyfriend/Karma is a god,” Swift sings in regards to the sweetest sort of revenge.
And definitely “Vigilante S—t” can have you questioning which considered one of her exes Swift is speaking about when she sings “Don’t get unhappy, get even.”
