Midnights of Mayhem

Taylor Swift did it again with another successfully written album that keeps you wanting more. She has been rereleasing her albums to make them a self-record label by putting (Taylor’s Version) at the end of the songs and rerecording them. Taylor Swift also added “from the vault” songs, which are unreleased songs she wrote for her old albums. She has currently rereleased Red and Fearless. When Taylor announced she was releasing a whole new album, all Swifities were overly joyed to hear unique music. The album is called Midnights and has songs that were all based on late nights of Taylor Swift.

For many nights before the release of Midnights, on October 21st, she would announce the names of the songs in the album, one by one, using a Bingo wheel at midnight. She called these nights Midnights of Mayhem and made many Swifities lose sleep from staying up late. Even more so by releasing her album at midnight and revealing a “chaotic surprise” at 3 a.m. The chaotic surprise was news that 7 other songs were added to the album! They were added as the 3 a.m. edition because she believes those 7 songs felt like they were after midnight at 3 a.m. 

I personally loved everything about the new album and couldn’t stop replaying the songs since midnight on October 21st. Finding out the chaotic surprise was an additional 7 songs was crazy and had me up all morning. 

Midnights perfectly captures how it feels to be up all night and the different emotions you feel. The album starts with the song “Lavender Haze,” which I thought was the perfect way to introduce the album. The first line was even “Meet me at midnight.” It is one of my favorites and is about feeling in love and not caring what anyone else has to say about it. There are a few songs about feeling in love like “Sweet Nothing,” “Labyrinth,” “Maroon,” “Snow on the Beach,” and “Mastermind” (specifically only on Midnights, not the 3am version). “Mastermind” is my favorite love song on the album. The bridge to the song was so well done, and when the chorus comes in it has a whoop sound that is mesmerizing in a hypnotic way. There are also songs about revenge like “Karma” and “Vigilante Sh*t.” “Karma” is the perfect upbeat song that talks about how karma vibes with Taylor. The beat and lyrics in the song make it into my top 5 in the album. There are also very sad songs like “You’re on your Own Kid” and “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” that are lyrically monumental and have an amazing bridge to each of them. “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” is on the 3am version. The 3am version is the perfect addition to the album. It adds a whole other side to the album that is heartbreaking like an end to a long night.

The album is very well put together. The amount of records she broke just from the first day of release really shows it. It has lots of background music reminiscent of songs that sound from the 80s. Taylor had loads of help from other people such as Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, and William Bowery (Joe Alwyn). Some of her songs are very strongly done, while others are harder to get into. I don’t believe there are many skips in this album except for 1 or 2 if it isn’t fitting the mood to listen to. That makes the album this an 8/10 in my books.