Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Breaks Big Records!

Taylor Swift is the biggest artist in the world. Swift has covered many genres of music including country, pop, and folk. After various eras of her albums, from her self-titled debut album Taylor Swift to her latest album Midnights, she continues to be the face of the music industry.

Swift has released nine albums throughout her career in the music industry. Due to Scooter Braun, Swift’s ex-manager, taking control of the master records she made and selling them, she had to re-record all of her albums going up to Reputation. Two of the re-recorded albums named Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) have become an even bigger success than the original versions.

Swift is best known for embedding Easter eggs in everyday life that hint at new music. Swift’s fans across the world have caught on to her hints and look at every single detail in her clothing, music videos, and social media posts. After releasing Red (Taylor’s Version), fans suspected that she would soon start re-recording and releasing the internet-breaking pop album named Reputation. Soon after this speculation, Swift was nominated for a VMA for best long form video for her short film “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” (Taylor’s Version). Fans believed that she would be announcing Reputation (Taylor’s Version), especially considering that she had arrived at the award show in clothes representing her outfit from her hit single “Look What You Made Me Do” from Reputation. However, when Taylor won the award and began her speech, instead of announcing Reputation (Taylor’s Version), she announced her brand new album called Midnights. She also stated that she would be giving more information about the album at midnight. The same night, she wore a blue dress with four stars, portraying the new era she is entering for her next album, Midnights.

At midnight, Swift announced that the album would be released on October 21, 2022 and released new merchandise for this album. The anticipation for this new album from Swift became one of the biggest discussed topics on social media from late September to October. Swift has continued to “egg” on the new album all over social media. On September 21st, she created a new series on Tik Tok named “Midnight Mayhem with Me” in which she spun a bingo machine to let “fate” decide the track she shares to her fans each night. The series had a pattern at first for when she would post a new Tik Tok that fans caught onto quickly. The pattern started out as every two days she would release a new track name. People began to notice Easter eggs in her Tik Tok every two days. Two of her Tik Toks included an upside down phone which fans suspected were tracks that contained features from other artists. Another video demonstrated Swift picking up the phone with her right hand instead of her left. The phone also included something written on the bottom of it which she had only done once out of all thirteen videos for certain tracks. People have been speculating that this meant this track would be a single. One track named “Karma,” “broke” the internet after the name was released on Tik Tok. This became a big discussion due to Swift being canceled in 2016 for lying about vocalizing. She claims she did not say what had been said in a phone call with Kanye West and let him use it in his song. She had been proven right later on about the phone call. She was called a snake and many other harmful words that led her to leave the public eye for about a year and a half. Swift used to release an album every two years before she had been “canceled.” Fans speculated that the album following 1989 would be called “Karma.” Fans were more than certain about this theory because Swift had many Easter eggs in her music, music videos, and even her own friends. However, when Swift was canceled, fans believe she scrapped the album and created a new album called Reputation considering her reputation was destroyed by Kanye West and his then wife, Kim Kardashian. In the same video that Swift posted on Tik Tok for her name release of the track “Karma,” she laughed after she said the track name. This gave fans confirmation about their speculations of Karma being a real thing.

Swift continued to post on her regular schedule on the fifth of October, but the following day she posted again, throwing all of her fans off. The following night on the 7th at midnight, Swift posted three videos in one night every two hours, finishing the full track list. The same night, she began to like her old tweets, going back to 2009, as well as tweets about the 2019 album Lover. Fans were disappointed because they believed that she would release a single for the Midnights album that night. However, being such a large artist in the music industry, she does not need to release a single for her album. In addition, her team (Taylor’s Nation), continued to release more hints on social media. Including a calendar that had all of the events from the day before the release of the album to the following week. When the clock struck midnight on October 21st, the album had been released. The album consists of various pop songs following Swift’s 13 sleepless nights. However, according to the calendar her team released, there would be a “special very chaotic surprise” happening at 3am. As fans stayed up all night, it finally reached 3am, and the surprise was released to the public. This surprise was revealed as seven new tracks that had been added to her album in a “3am Edition.”

After the anticipated release of Midnights, fans were very much satisfied with the album. Being such an influential artist in the music industry, Swift was bound to gain hate, no matter what. However, she still succeeded by breaking numerous records. According to Billboard, Midnights became the top-selling album in 2022 and sets a new record for most vinyl record sales. In addition, the album broke the Spotify record for most-streamed album in a day. After listening to the first thirteen and additional seven tracks on Midnights, many fans can say this is Taylor Swift’s best pop album and are very pleased with her new music.