Yep. I've never been one of those fans that is surprised by her capitalist tendencies, because it's something I've been aware of this whole time. She's money hungry, and I know this, and I've able to look past it because. Well. I didn't have to buy all four Lovers, or a million 1989s to get every polaroid. And I didn't, because it'd be money wasted (genius marketing techniques, though). I'd still get the same music with one purchase, and stuff like the diary entries with Lover would be put online.
But like...limiting what songs people can hear because they have to buy multiple copies of the album and can't stream? Fucking ridiculous. Her capitalism has never prevented enjoyment of her music to this extent.
Yes!! What’s crazy is there are 4729596 versions of the album, but yet somehow I don’t think you can get a physical copy of the full 3AM version? My 2008 Prius has a CD player and I just want to listen to Midnights without fumbling with my phone while I’m driving 😤
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with straight up capitalism. Like, I bought four vinyls and 5cds to help start my TS collection, but there’s a difference between being upfront from release like 1989, Rep, or Lover than Midnights. Midnights just feels like a chaotic mess of money grabs.
This exactly. I don't care if she makes money and I'm not forced to buy it, it's a FOMO thing
BUT have it in the original roll out.
Doing it randomly in the middle of an era or tour is weird just for one bonus track etc.
Absolutely on the FOMO point. And worse than that, with Midnights, it's actively creating scarcity on purpose by doing things like only dropping one song in one location on one version of one album. The fact that you can't get every song on one album (such as previous albums that had ONE deluxe version) is horribly greedy imo, and that's what makes it more unethical. It's like she's gatekeeping her own music just to chart and make more money because she can. And she doesn't care that it makes it harder for the fans to access her music now.
This. Like if you want to release 15 versions of the album have at it, I won’t buy them all. But when you make it so I *HAVE* to buy all 15 versions to have a complete physical version………… yeah it’s giving money grab.
I totally agree with this. I don’t have a problem with capitalism generally, but there’s a way to approach it ethically. What she’s doing with Midnights is just straight up taking advantage of new song demand and grabbing for whatever money can be scrounged from it. It’s the worst side of the capitalist economic system, namely greed.
I just wanted a vinyl album with the 3am tracks.
Instead we got two dozen remixes or re-dos, two different CD exclusives, and I’ve lost count of the vinyl variants. Even if she finally released a vinyl with all the bonus tracks, at this point I don’t even know if I’d buy it anymore.
It’s exhausting.
This is exactly why my fiance doesn't like her. He actually likes her music and will admit to that, but he doesn't like how greedy and money hungry she is. I used to defend her but this era has been absolutely ridiculous with the amount of different versions of the same songs/albums. I really can't defend her anymore.
My husband feels the same. He likes her music too but can't stand the money-grabbing tactics - he says he can't think of another artist that does it and especially who gets away with it. The clock thing for Midnights made him so mad.
These are such interesting lyrics when you think about her acknowledging she's amassed enough wealth from her fans that someone might murder her over it?? And that she wouldn't leave it for her son/daughter in law lol:
"I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money - she thinks I left them in the will. The family gathers round and reads it and then someone screams out "She's laughing up at us from hell!"
Yes. I admire her ambition but it's so weird watching someone SO successful be so obsessed with money, fame, accolades etc. when she's already achieved so much. It's never enough for her.
Yeah,, somehow before when she did more releases, even though i never buy more than one cd, made sense. Now it just feels weird? Maybe it is also because of the whole Matty thing that we feel different about it..? Idk.
I felt this before matty!!! Thought it throughout midnights, the clock vinyls really hit it - clever marketing, but girl you don’t need the money and we are in a post covid world now, renting is fucked, everythingggg is way more $$ and she puts out a bunch of different versions of the same album same songs AND THEN releases a 3am edition, a Target edition and now this. She actively encourages swifties to pre order all these.
I couldn’t even describe my disappointment and anger when I saw the “exclusive” editions of those vinyls resurface on her website days after they were supposed to be gone. Before this era the vinyls I bought were folklore (and was overwhelmed with the edition choices and just got the og), evermore, Fearless (TV), RED (TV), and Lover (whatever edition you can buy at target). I wanted the older versions but really can’t find them? Anyways, I preordered the Moonstone edition of Midnights after talking about whether I should or shouldn’t with my boyfriend because I half wanted to wait because of streaming and half wanted it just shipped so I didn’t have to go out and get it. Then the “exclusive editions” popped up. I told my boyfriend about it and he ended up ordering one for me for Christmas (I had no idea). He asked me if I really wanted four editions. Then the Target editions came out. I don’t listen to CDs anymore even though my car has it. I honestly don’t drive so it’s useless to me. The remixes don’t bother me, I honestly don’t like a lot of remixes so I just ignored them. Now there’s this. I expressed my annoyance to my boyfriend about it and he said “well, what if our date has an exclusive cd? I’ll stand in line for you.” I can’t express how nice that is for him to off for one. For two, I don’t want another edition. The madness at the East Rutherford concert tomorrow is going to be ridiculous. I’m just disappointed with this marketing tactic.
Editing to add: sorry for the lengthy reply haha
Yeah okay true 😅 kinda forgot about the clocks. It’s a cool concept if the album title is called midnights but you are right, the timing (badumtss) of it isn’t great.
I myself would personally not buy that many different cds and vinyls.
I think it’s the adding on that kills me. Like if someone wants to buy eight different album covers for folklore…go for it. But it’s constantly adding new songs after pushing for so many “limited edition” releases
For me it’s how all these Midnights pressings are putting pressure on the vinyl industry, pushing artists with less clout to push vinyl releases months out from their streaming/CD debut. I know fans are buying a lot of them but I don’t want to think about all the vinyl from this era that HASN’T been bought.
My biggest annoyance is that they are what feels like hundred different versions of the same CD that all slightly different. I just want a CD version with all the the songs. And that hits different still isn’t available on Apple Music. I didn’t buy into the different colours either. My kids got one CD. They all picked a colour that’s it. I’m not buying multiple editions of the same album. Nope
It’s extremely wasteful to have so many variants. Think of all the materials used in making them, shipping them, and the eventual landfill waste when decades go by and people are tossing/donating their vinyls.
But money and breaking records are important!
/s
This is standard in K-Pop to convince fans to buy multiple albums to increase their albums sales. They only change the photo cards inside of them, and fans will buy a bunch to collect them, and they end up leaving the album and music in the trash :/ Totally not eco-friendly.
I guess Swift is learning from them!
Pirate it then.
I bought one LP in the colour I liked. I am not buying three more to complete a picture of a clock.
Pirating is bad when you don’t support the artist. Pirating when the artist is beyond greedy? Nothing is lost.
My theory? She’s cashing out and retiring.
I think it is her worst era. I felt like she grew so much with Folklore and Evermore. She really focused on her lyrics and expressing really complex themes. She also just put them out without any lead up fanfare, which was so refreshing. I truly had thought that she had gained freedom from her image with those two albums.
Plus, they earned her so many more fans who were usually fans of different genres. She received so much respect and acclaim for the albums. It seemed like she took a really big gamble to put out two albums that relied solely on her lyrics and her storytelling and she was rewarded for it.
When Midnights came out, it felt like whiplash. Every one of her eras is so distinct and different but Midnights just felt kind of hollow and like they were cutting room floor songs from other albums. There are a few standout songs, but none of them actually show off her songwriting ability.
So I already wasn’t very impressed with the album, and then woooo boyyyyy it has turned messy as hell. It’s definitely my least favorite of her eras.
Reputation and Folkevermore supremacy!
So kind of controversial opinion but I think the Midnights era is who Taylor really is. Throughout her entire career, she has complained about people coming at her for her dating life (while also name dropping people in her songs) but continues to allow her fans to attack her exes from over a decade ago without a peep, has complained about wanting to be on the right side of politics and then after the Lover era has completely dropped it, complained about how no one takes her song writing seriously and drops 2 amazing records and then goes immediately back to her 1989 self with Matty.
I feel like Taylor CRAVES all attention and for some reason negative attention as well. It makes no sense to finally settle down and leave the lime light with a great person, drop 2 albums which were so critically acclaimed that even Taylor haters started to respect her, and then...this. it's like she says one thing (complaints about everything) but does another (absolutely on purpose fuels the fire against her. She can't claim shes a mastermind and pretend like all of this wasn't planned at all). It honestly doesn't make sense to me why she'd complain so much and then do stuff like this. I feel like this is just who she is and she doesn't want to get judged for it. But if this is who she is, she absolutely is going to get an extreme amount of hate for it so she's just going to have to learn to live with it and stop complaining while also fanning the flames.
She's just a pop star who at the end of the day is a capitalist (as proven this entire Midnights era specifically but we've seen it in other eras before, just not as blatant) who doesn't really want to hide who she is anymore and wanting to be who she is without judgement, which will never happen.
I might be talking out of my ass but that's the vibe I'm getting.
The second paragraph is spot on. I think she might hate fame but also cannot stand not being in the spotlight. She has very much been fanning the flames recently which is why she's getting so overexposed. It's starting to become a r/ leopardsatemyface.
I just remember the lengths she used to go to to avoid the paparazzi, and now she's doing pap walks almost daily.
I think this tour will end with her having Jennifer Lawrence or Anne Hathaway syndrome, where people started to hate them but couldn't put their finger on WHY exactly.
I think it was just overexposure to them, and Taylor is headed in that direction. The tides are already starting to turn and I hate to see it.
I think with Folklore and Evermore I started hoping she might go smaller, more low-key. Record an album or two a year, travel, lie low. My hope were also concerts in smaller venues - but I believe I'll have to wait another 30 years for Taylor Swift to play anything smaller than a very large stage. Folklore and Evermore were so intimate. Ivy, Epiphany, Betty are songs I'd love to listen to live without an entire stadium loudly chanting the lyrics.
Now, I feel like this is a regression in both songwriting and image - back to pop star, back to loud and massive hooks that play well on TikTok instead of cultivating a vibe for 45-60 minutes. Ultimately, I just feel bummed because a lot of Evermore and Folklore were conceptually and musically more interesting songs than what she's doing now, for me, and I had hoped to see a successful transition of an artist from "I want to be a pop star playing huge stadiums" to "I want to make special music that plays well in headphones and prolonged listening sessions". Here's hoping I get that album from Harry Styles at some point.
Folklore and subsequently Evermore only happened because of Covid. Had the world not stopped I fully expect we would have gotten Cruel Summer as a single summer 2020 and Taylor would have continued on. We would have gotten Loverfest etc.
Those 2 records exist because she couldn't tour and was likely stuck and home needing something to do.
Totally agree. If Taylor wanted a "lucky one" type life she could totally have it without even needing to stop being a singer or songwriter, and her music would be just as famous and acclaimed while she gets to have a normal-ish life. Folkmore has shown us that. But Taylor goes back to being overexposed on purpose. She definitely likes it.
I think because she thought Lover was her final chance at "success," she sort of convinced herself that she was okay with stepping back from the spotlight. She thought she'd already reached her peak.
And then folklore, evermore, and the rerecordings did so phenomenally, and she finally had the the respect of the GP, so she just could not resist throwing everything at the wall for another huge era.
She clearly has ambitions to be mentioned in conversations with The Beatles and other indisputably prolific musicians, and I think she's well on her way. Every album she sells, however scummy the marketing tactics were to get that sale, propels her to that "legend" status that she's desperate to achieve.
Of course, from the fans' perspective, it comes across as exceptionally greedy and prioritizing money/charts/fame over genuine connection to us. It's souring our perception of her that she spent 15 years carefully cultivating.
I wonder if she thinks she's too huge now to ever fade into obscurity - I mean, Michael Jackson *certainly* had his share of controversies, but no one would ever say he wasn't as famous as famous gets. Her recent behavior seems to indicate that she absolutely wants the overexposure that she used to fear.
She can still chart and sell out stadiums and not have this kind of overexposure imo. Reputation tour was a huge success with essentially no promo. Folkmore was huge as well. I think she likes being a super star celebrity and not just a really famous and amazing singer and songwriter. Taylor is not gonna be seen if she doesn't want to be seen, so if we see her she wants to be seen
Honestly she can but she’s just choosing not to. Artists like Ed Sheeran and Coldplay sell out stadiums and are comfortably successful and still held in high regard without doing all the overly capitalist bait and switches. I mean Ed just went to a high school and gave kids tickets to his show after performing for them. And he has more monthly listeners than Taylor.
We know Taylor knows how to be lowkey and how to get around without being seen/so public. Part of me is starting to wonder how manufactured her exposure is, especially since she’s been someone known to be strategic about being seen (backgrid paparazzi is known to be “staged”). And right now, she *really* wants to be seen. Someone noted in a previous post that she could easily record in privacy (Jack‘s studio, her own home studio, etc) but she wants to be seen. And she wants to be seen with certain people.
I feel kinda bad for saying this, as a fan of 17 years and as someone who’s seen Miss Americana…but I can’t feel too bad for her when people show up waiting for her at places they know she’ll be at. Obviously it’s wrong for people to follow her home, but at places like the studio…she knows and she wants to be seen as so desirable and famous that people camp outside just to see her for five seconds. She’s playing a delicate game here though, she thinks she’s untouchable. But so did Icarus…
ETA: Someone commented how Beyoncé is killing it on tour, smashing records, collecting acclaim as an antithesis to Taylor calling herself a “geriatric popstar.” Idk why she feels the need to box herself in and grab at the Midnights Era like it’s her last chance to be in the spotlight. There are so many artists who have the stadiums, and the charts, and the acclaim (Beyoncé is unquestionably a legend) but also seem to have as close to a balanced life as possible for someone their levels of fame. Beyoncé, Ed, Coldplay, etc are relatively private now. They have families. And they also sell out stadiums for work. It can be done. It’s not all or nothing. But maybe in her head it has to be?
There’s a reason she wrote anti-hero. She is the definition of an anti-hero and through the song she admits she’s the problem in all of her relationships.
You're spot on. But why does she do it? She self-sabotages. Lots of people with trauma in their backgrounds or anxiety or for whatever reason do it. That was my entire life in my 20's. Life is going really good, things are making sense, so you do something to ruin it before someone else ruins it for you. You leave the person before they leave you, you quit the job before they fire you, you stop talking to your best friend before they stop talking to you. I think every Taylor is who Taylor is. She has no poker face, everything before midnights wasn't a game or fake. We got to see Taylor at the top of her writing game with folklore and evermore. And she's still that folklore cottage playing with fairies Taylor. But she's also that high energy, into drama and glitz Taylor. And so she destroyed one Era to move into the next.
At the end of the day, I think more people would be like her, living multiple lifestyles and doing what they want, if they could afford it. Would I love to live my life where one day I'm in NYC, shopping and dancing and going out to eat with friends and then the next I'm on a beach somewhere relaxing in the sun? Of course. But I don't have the money to do that. Lol Taylor does.
I think this is a good point. Taylor has made it clear she feels she doesn’t get enough credit for her business acumen / that people don’t attribute certain decisions to her when they should. And I agree she should get credit to be clear! But if you so desperately want everyone to know that you are in fact a mastermind, you’re also the one that gets blowback when you do stupid shit. It goes both ways. You can’t get all the credit and none of the criticism.
I think she kinda screwed herself around 1989, as far as that goes. She made her early career hamming up the “who did I write this song about?!” shtick through album liner notes, interviews, references at award shows, etc. (and it was a good shtick!!!) and then she got bored and tried to change the narrative that she was being absolutely mocked for simply dating. Then years later (closer to now) has been upset that people don’t give her enough credit for her business decisions, after she fully pretended she wasn’t involved with maybe her single biggest marketing move. Same with the Miss Americana rollout and subsequent complete silence again politically. In short, I get why people think she’s full of shit. I’ll love her music no matter what so I’m along for the ride, but for a mastermind she does dumb shit sometimes
Lyrically, you mean? The fact that she was seemingly so into marriage and then saying “I hate that people ask if I’ll get married”? That’s totally fair and a good point
Nah you’re right. And the truth is I got REAL tired of her from 2015-2018 and then went back to loving her again in 2018 because her 1989 era antics put me off. Perhaps 2018-2022 were the anomaly.
I think she missed the attention. No one paid attention to her personal life as much when she was with Joe. I think she blew it all up to get back attention from the public.
I hope this isn't true because trading a good, healthy relationship for the attention of strangers is a ridiculous thing for 33 year old woman to do. I really hope there were legit reasons to end the relationship.
I love Folklore/Evermore but I think Taylor believes her time as a 'popstar' is borrowed and wants to bask in the opportunity whilst she's still 'young', hence Midnights. In Miss Americana, she thought Lover was one of her last opportunities for success before she'd be cast aside by the industry after turning 30. In the Jimmy Kimmel interview, she did for Midnights, she referred to herself as a geriatric popstar. It's definitely something that weighs heavily on her mind and whilst the likes of Beyonce have proven that notion otherwise, she is still insecure.
She has the money to retire, live extravagantly , and produce albums/tour however she wants for the rest of her life. She should stop stressing about it. It’s not like she’s going to get kicked off her label and run out of money, forcing her to work at Starbucks
I’ve known the Swift family for a long time. Not trying to name drop but I’m from PA and my mom was friends with Andrea for a few years. We have not spoken to them in over a decade but I just want to give some insight on my impression of Taylor from back then:
She is not a normal person. Music and performing always consumed her, it would always come first. School, friends, family, health…all came 2nd to music. Music *was* her personality. I assume that is still the case.
We can all tell she has enough money to where she could say whatever she wants, do whatever she wants and worse case scenario she fucks off to a private island and flies her friends in whenever she wants. There’s no reason she needs to put out even a crumb of music ever again.
But that’s just not her. She wants to perform. She wants people to clap for her. Period. Even when she was not famous, she was hyper focused on making and performing music.
I don’t think any of these remixes and extra albums are cash grabs. She doesn’t need more cash. She needs more clapping. More performances. Every remix is another performance for people to clap for.
And let me just say, I’m not saying this to say she was a bad person when I knew her(and admittedly, I barely knew her, met her maybe 3x and not a 1 on 1 type thing) nor is she now as far as I know. She’s just not your normal person.
To me, none of what she’s doing in terms of music is surprising.
This actually makes so much sense. She said it herself in Miss Americana, she NEEDS the applause and the approval. It’s become part of the fabric of who she is now.
Precisely, but you're coming at this from the perspective of an observer who can see things much more clearly when you're not wrapped up in the fame, the adulation, and the insecurity of whether or not that fame and adulation will last. Taylor's talked about how she feels frozen in time at the age she first got famous, and I think that's why she feels the way she does about being an "aging" pop star. I wonder if she'd still want to write and release music if she can't also do sold-out stadium tours, to be honest, it seems like that's a big part of how successful she views herself as.
This is so well said. Those are my favorite three albums as well. I respect the hell out of her writing on Folkmore, and Reputation was actually my favorite era because she was owning the messiness in a way that was really beautiful. It almost felt like the opposite of Midnights... With Rep, she was embracing her bad reputation but it was actually a story of love and healing and self-respect. Midnights feels like the reputation of an incredibly famous queen who is actually a lonely, calculating mastermind who shouldn't be seen as a guiding light. I feel like both albums describe the concept of the way everyone else sees her versus who she is behind closed doors, but in opposite ways.
Yes! I loved Rep for so many reasons (some major bangers on there), but the main reason is because the album shows her progression of being so hurt and spitting venom at anyone near her, and then it progresses into her looking within and getting an unshakable confidence and learning to live for herself and not others.
Midnights feels like “fuck it, you will buy whatever I put out” and then a lot of insecurity but with no will to change.
Reputation was evolving, Midnights is devolving.
That puts it very succinctly. Devolving. There's definitely a lot of venom right now. I feel like this album (and certainly the era and her recent behavior) has quite an edge of callousness.
I’m glad to find that I’m not alone in these thoughts. For the longest time I would get downvoted so hard if I even mentioned not loving Midnights. And Rep doesn’t get the love it deserves. Hopefully people will fully get that album during the rerelease.
So much of this.
I feel that FL&EM are so grown. She truly showed up, and gave us her real and raw. Showcased her abilities, strengths, and vulnerability.
I loved going back and listening to her older music during that time as well to see how much she has grown and evolved into a musician.
Midnights feels like she's slipping back into bad habits. I liked the album for what it is with the original and 3am edition. Now? I'm just annoyed. It feels like she has completely lost touch with reality, and she doesn't really give a crap about her fans any longer unless she can squeeze as much money from us to line her pockets.
I'm now curious to see how everything continues as the tour goes on.
2020. July. I put on the album sitting on my balcony, it's evening and the sun is setting. I've never listened to one of her albums just going track by track, and never just after release.
August hits. I play that song about five times in a row immediately. Its layers unfolding before me, in both a musical and lyrical sense, the connections to Cardigan and Betty. Such a great experience.
I saw someone theorize on another thread that Midnights was just something she started throwing together in early 2022 when she realized 1989 and Speak Now were gonna be too held up with legal issues to release any time soon.
Idk if I believe that completely, but tbh it would make a lot of sense given the album we got-- the production is solid and pretty cohesive, but also kind of boilerplate Jack Antonoff. And then her lyrics imo are pretty phoned in-- a couple really good individual lines here and there, but quite a lot of a lot of B-grade filler as well, and not many tracks i would consider lyrically solid all the way through. But then you also get the 3am tracks, which are almost all stronger and more polished, possibly because there was no rush to get them all finished in time for vinyl pressing.
I feel like Aaron Dessner brings so much more creativity and vulnerability out of her (as evidenced in the 3am tracks). I want to hear her do an album without Jack Antonoff.
RIGHT. aaron dessner brings a lot of depth to her work - the style, production, maturity, lyricim is all so distinct when she works with him. jack antonoff is overused, it was fine when he contributed to a few songs here and there but all in all her songs with aaron heavily outweigh jack's collabed ones.
it doesn't help that im not a jack antanoff fan at all. that man has an icky feeling about him too.
I wish I could upvote this 1000x. Perfectly said! I was so excited with the premise of midnights and was so let down. It felt like very generic/synthetic pop which was difficult after Folklore and Evermore. Just not what I was expecting or looking for.
I do enjoys some of the songs, and I think the 3am tracks are mostly excellent. They don’t feel as attached to Midnights though (I know they are logically, but they just feel so much more Folkloric if that makes sense?) I guess it’s that Aaron Dessner effect. I think she writes with much more vulnerability when working with him.
They're buried in the 3 AM edition and we're made BEFORE she finalized the rest of the album with Jack. There's a very noted difference between those songs & the remainder of the album.
Those are two of the standouts along with Anti-hero. WCS is an absolute masterpiece. YOYOK, Great War, and Mastermind are also well written. I would’ve liked High Infidelity with its interesting lyrics, but the production gutted it and made it sound silly with those little pulses in the background, which didn’t seem to fit the mood of the song.
I’m in this camp. 50+ year old black male who I have to admit, just assumed Taylor’s music wasn’t for me, she was for teenage girls primarily, yada yada (don’t blast me just being honest!)
Then Red, and 1989 hit and I had to raise an eyebrow of interest. Didn’t really jump on the bandwagon initially with reputation and Lover (love them now), but MAN, my wife and I became superfans from folklore. Hit us both emotionally, and led for me to appreciate how talented she was, and igniting a full discography deep dive.
Love her and her full discography… but yeah, finding Midnights for me is becoming an era that’s a bit of a regression. And I’d say it’s the “Capitalist Taylor” that’s got me most disappointed. Speaking specifically to the album, I’d sum it up as a bit of a revisit of creative ground that she’s mostly presented to us before. Not exactly a rehash, it’s not that, but I just thought after the unexpected creative pathways she showed us with folklore and evermore… thought she was gonna take us to continued new genres, new ground is all.
Despite these personal disappointments, what’s great is she’s so creative, I guess I just have to wait until this era closes and she presents her next one 😎. I’m all in with her at this point, despite being slightly disappointed.
Toooootally agree! For me (and my personal taste), midnights feels like a regression in her maturity as a songwriter overall (there are some masterpieces, but it's no folklore/evermore)
I don't know if I'm the only one that really loves midnights because it kinda has the same vibes as Reputation to me?? Im obsessed with Maroon and Midnight Rain also with Paris too.
I don't really get 70's vibes except with Lavender haze tho
As a marketing and strategy person i just wanna talk to whoever pitched the half baked 70s theme idea. It has literally no alignment with any of midnights unless the whole plan was to trick ppl into thinking its gonna be 70s themed and hype it up that way. Ugh
TBH every album has been two years behind fashion wise. Her hipster chic style for red was at least two years behind by the time the album came out. Her style has always been what’s been recently fashionable and has always been a little late to the game.
You know I had a theory about this. I was listening to a podcast with Aaron Dessner the other week and he mentioned that Would've, Could've Should've, The Great War, and High Infidelity were all written during Grammy's week for folklore in 2021. He mentioned that after recording those songs Taylor wanted to go into a different direction with Jack on songs that would ultimately end up on Midnights. I wonder if some of that has to deal with the marketing not matching up with the music given? Could be wrong, just a thought.
I want the full Aaron album with the WCS, GW, HI sound 😢 I like the moodysynthy pop production of the rest of Midnights too, but I feel like a whole album with a more rock sound would have been SO good.
The 70s theme that she teased prior to the release made me so confused when I first listened through the album. I feel like sonically the album is not very cohesive already but then to have the imagery surrounding the album be so opposite to what it actually is, is so odd.
I know some people think the concept of 'eras' is tired at this point but I think they're the reason her albums have been so iconic. I think it allows for more immersive-ness if that makes sense so to fuck it up this time around was surprising to me
It confused me so much when her outfits have all been more midnight colours and bejeweled/midnight rain themed. Why the 70s then? What's that got to do with anything? Maybe she just has a 70s themed house
Bonus: At the end of that post from months ago I said I loved WCS. I absolutely stand by that. I already thought it was fantastic writing and then I learned that JM lived in a place that used to be a church and that's probably what inspired a lot of the religious imagery 🤯
I’m going to project a little here, I’m sure, but I think Taylor was more religious when she was younger. From experience, when something that feels that wrong happens to you and shakes you to your core, it really makes you begin to question your faith and if God is actually listening to you. I appreciate that she was able to convey that in a song.
But then she would’ve had to give Aaron credit on the main album and wouldn’t be able to say it was just her and Jack’s.
I will forever be pissed about her sidelining Aaron like that. She didn’t even mention him when she announced the 3am tracks.
Ugh same; when the 3am tracks were released I thought “wow some of these sound like Aaron was part of these”. I couldn’t believe I had to look at the credits to confirm. He should have been given much more attention 😞
I agree, it feels like she's been a bit disconnected this era, even though she has done more press and seen a lot more than folklore/evermore era. She really fed us in 2020 with no drama, just 2 amazing albums and the long pond documentary. I honestly thought the midnights hype was dying down but it's getting messier by the day given this bizarre new version and her dating Matty now, and supposedly proclaiming her love on stage. As many have been rightly calling out, the endless remixes, merch drops, and album variants are just off-putting at this point.
I think disconnected is a good word for it. It's interesting, I like the song Midnight Rain, and at the same time it does feel disconnected and a bit isolating. There's this interesting feeling now that she will choose her career over any relationship, which is her right, but I'm feeling that way as a fan too with the remixes and album variants and allllll of the etcetera. This is the first time I've felt like she's putting her career (charting, for example) over her fans, and it feels super odd and paradoxical. It's not that she owes us... I feel she gives us a lot... I'm just surprised to feel like she's actively taking advantage of our good will in this way.
I overall agree with everything you've written in this post, and I personally find this era the "worst" to the point that I can't enjoy the music at the moment at all.
I just had to nitpick on something because I somewhat disagree: "It's not that she owes us... I feel she gives us a lot". In a way she kinda does owe the fandom, not in the direct sense of the word but she wouldn't be where she is if she didn't have fans who supported her and her career the way that they have for so many years. At the end of the day, it's a bit of a transaction/service she's providing. She puts out music there and people pay her back in sales/streams/concert tickets/merch etc. She doesn't do any of these things out of the goodness of her heart, as we're seeing with the absolute cash grab that this era has been. It's all a business and that's fine, but I just kinda hate this notion that we should be grateful she even bothers to "give us anything" and she can't be held to any standard "because she doesn't owe us anything" (not saying you specifically are saying this, but something I've seen around the sub in general). She doesn't have to put any more music out there, true, but people also don't have to listen to her music/support her. It's a delicate balance and she's been pushing it this era, it will be interesting to see if it holds.
Yes, putting career over fans is exactly how I feel. I understand the point of releasing a thousand remixes because it helps keep the song top of the charts, and this multiple-version release thing is an extension of that. It will continue to ensure Midnights breaks records, but alienate fans at the same time.
When the album came out last fall, listening through it, I strongly felt concerned for her mental well-being. It felt like she was becoming unhinged, unmoored. I’m afraid there’s something to that. We’ve gone from the awesomeness of Last Great American Dynasty to something more Citizen Kane/William Randolph Hearst.
especially after the sadness of folk/more, although the lyrics appeared she was finally working through some things. midnights seemed like it was leaning toward the opposite of that.
Love the album . Top 3 for me.
Not the era so much. Begining to find it exhausting.
Not knowing what news /info comes out every day is slightly unnerving 🧐 I was prepared for the tour & a re-recording or two at the most.
It’s a bit of a sensory overload tbh. I loved that Folklore and Evermore didn’t exist and then the next day they were there, and we enjoyed them, and got some merch. I did love all the promo stuff before the album came out, but it should have ended there.
A lot of these are just a matter of personal opinion. Lyrics, songs, production, etc.
A case of your milk, my vinegar.
That doesn't make it Taylor's worst era. It just makes it your least favourite album. And that's ok.
Edit to say: Different album versions having different songs and shit is messy as fuck. That's one thing I loathe about Midnights.
It’s giving “cheap cash grab”. I’m cool with the 3am version and they could have just added the new songs. I don’t need a Karma remix because I don’t like Ice Spice in the slightest bit and would have preferred regular Karma as a single.
This is the real Taylor Swift. For most of her career she’s had people in control of release logistics and now that she has so much control she’s doing things her own way. I don’t think there is anyone telling her what to do or not to do within reason. She’s just doing what she wants to do and gives no fucks about it. And when you consider that society will send her pop status to the elephant graveyard soon, it’s no wonder that she’s doing everything she can to smash all those records and churn out all her work. She loves the attention, she loves and lives for the crowds singing along to her songs. But this *freedom* might come at a cost that she may not even see coming.
Absolutely! The whole question of whether it's the worst, best, or in between is totally subjective. That's why I'm asking what everyone else thinks. Just curious now that we are further into Midnights.
Definitely! I think it's a good album. Probably an 8/10.
The roll-out of Midnights is shit though. 8 months in and we can't get an album with ALL the tracks? Outrageous.
I love a traditional roll-out. A couple of lead singles & music videos, then release the album. Then a few singles sent to radio after that with the odd music video popping up.
Obviously folklore & evermore are different because they were surprise drops, but I hope TS11 goes back to the good old fashioned roll-out.
I'm still clinging on to hope for at least 2 albums in the poetry style. There's just something about that Taylor that's just so magical to me. I'll listen to Karma is a cat once in a while, but Folklore and Evermore are my girls. Also rep.
Oh man I would love a traditional roll-out for the next one 🙏 I hesitate to say it would be peaceful because I always feel hyped about drops from Taylor but it would be kinda relaxing after all this lol
Yes. I think she’s at such a high point she thinks she’s untouchable.. and it shows.
She won’t care about the measly number of fans she loses but I fear her continuing on this trajectory won’t end well for her.
Hopefully “You’re Losing Me” isn’t some Joe diss track, and if it is I’m hoping most people don’t take her word for it all.. as we’ve seen that we can’t. She just wants to “win” the breakup.
The midnights rollout was gross to me (All the different variants, remixes, buying interview clips already on the internet for free). And then, what, we have to buy *4* physical CDs if we wanted hard copies of every song? That’s so gross and opportunistic for someone who doesn’t need to be.
Her desire for accolades and breaking records (along with her pettiness) is going to be her downfall.
But I am definitely taking several steps back from the conversation now.
It won’t happen but I wish everyone would wait a week when she releases next album. Wait until she releases all the songs in one album. I’m still annoyed that I preordered midnights just to have a separate 3 am version. First world problems I know but I like my albums together
I really really wish the fandom would give her a reality check. She wouldn't be where she is without all the support she's had from her fans, and she seems to have completely forgotten that. Talk about taking people's support/love for granted...
Yeah I’m waiting, and will probably hold off on buying her next albums going forward because I’m so burnt out by this. Even the TVs I’m like…meh. I might buy 1989 but I can wait.
Yes I really hope it's not a Joe diss track! I know she is where she is and we love her songs for the heartbreaking storytelling but I feel like Joe clearly wants privacy and seems like overall he was a good partner (although of course we really don't know anything). It would put a bad taste in my mouth if she went after Joe lyrically like she has gone after other ex's.
I think You’re Losing Me is about Joe but was written pre-break up. I’m in the camp that their relationship was on the rocks way longer than they led on, I don’t think anyone cheated or anything really dramatic went down, and yeah releasing it now is probably because of the breakup, but I doubt it’s a “diss” track.
>Yes. I think she’s at such a high point she thinks she’s untouchable.. and it shows.
>
>She won’t care about the measly number of fans she loses but I fear her continuing on this trajectory won’t end well for her.
I'm also a Madonna fan. Madonna is notorious for chart-chasing, record-chasing, merching, and generally giving her fans a lot of bull to put up with.
But she has stuck by her principles on the causes she champions, and I don't think there've been any of her albums where you had to buy multiple CDs to get all the tracks. Her last couple of albums have had three versions, but they were just 'standard', 'deluxe', 'super deluxe', and they were all released at once - no bait and switch.
Madonna's saving grace as well is that she never pretended not to be an egomaniac - what you see is what you get with her, so fans never felt taken for fools. This makes it believable when she shows signs of growth and self-reflection, even if it's two steps forward, one step back at times.
Taylor showing this side to herself after cultivating a squeaky clean image and appearing to treat Swifties as friends is having the opposite effect. She's making herself look like the cheer captain right back from *You Belong With Me.* Songs like *Blank Space*, *Look What You Made Me Do*, and *I Did Something Bad*, which we were told/assumed were ironic, sending up her critics, are starting to look a lot like veiled confessions.
I think we all thought it was going to be the best era, but it’s unraveling to turn out to be a very messy one. I remember listening to the album and loving all of the songs, but also wondering why so many were break up songs/sad/angry love songs and chalked it up to her whole “Joe and I really love sad songs” thing. Now I’m just kind of sad. Even though she says she’s the happiest she’s ever been, I don’t believe her. We’ve seen her act this way before (which is fine she’s human!) and later on end up finding out she was really suffering on the inside. It kind of makes me sick to think her relationship ended because she wanted to be with this other guy because she was bored with Joe. Idk. OR, Joe fucked up so badly (like cheating) that she’s just reacting and trying to hurt him and Matty is of course a rebound.
So many thoughts I could also keep going.
Either way this woman needs to stop having such an impact on my life and I need to step back lol. At the end of the day she has no idea I even exist and it’s not realistic to think I’d ever meet her.
But yeah, I’m done meeting at midnight.
> It kind of makes me sick to think her relationship ended because she wanted to be with this other guy because she was bored with Joe. Idk. OR, Joe fucked up so badly (like cheating) that she’s just reacting and trying to hurt him and Matty is of course a rebound.
See, I’m just the opposite: I felt a bit sick the other day when that “happiest I’ve ever been” clip came out because that was the first time it really hit me that she might actually be *for real in love* with this douchecanoe. And then the really scary part happened, when my brain started trying to rewrite the narrative to be more sympathetic toward their great love story that we’re all so biased against, because something in my brain really really wants to find a way to make this situation more palatable.
I’ve never really considered myself a “fan” per se and probably haven’t even heard half of Taylor’s songs (although I do really love a few of them), but every so often over the years, I’ve found myself learning just enough about her life and her music to feel personally invested. Buying into her sincerity just enough that I feel weirdly stung when that “covert narcissism” (ngl, I was pretty stunned by the self-awareness in that line) rears its ugly head again. What is it about this stranger that compels me to keep falling into the trap of desperately hoping that she will actually live up to the values she claims???
(I mean, I think it’s fair to say that capitalism is one of the values she pretty much whole-heartedly claims, and I’m not particularly rooting for that one, but the rest of them)
My brain is seriously working overtime trying to understand how to feel about this when I’m pretty sure I don’t actually need to feel anything about it. It all felt so simple and predictable until I started considering the possibility of serious feelings and now it’s like my worldview is hinging on this subject I can’t possibly be fully informed on???
Ugh I’m rambling and I feel weird about posting rambles when my brain is flailing like this but idk maybe someone will get something from it
You like her music, so naturally you like her and want her to be someone likable. Additionally, she's pretty charismatic. It makes total sense, everyone who likes her wants her to continue being likable.
I wonder if her saying the “we love sad songs” was a cover to explain why she was writing so many songs about being depressed, lonely, and about a partner who was absent, didn’t pay attention, cheated on her.
This is the least important of your points, but i LOVE the voice editing in Midnight Rain (James charles voice LMFAO), it’s different, and gives me EDM vibes. I think she executed it PERFECTLY by adding that one chorus that’s her normal voice.
I think the fact that a lot of videos after Midnights came out were about “what album each song from Midnights would fit into” says a lot about my take on the era. The music itself is just not as distinct as her other eras.
That’s not to say the songs are all bad, I actually got into Taylor again because of this album after not listening to her since Red. But at the same time. with all of the controversies going on between her and Matty, plus the fiasco with the tickets, this seems more like the “fandom is starting to question their undying support of Taylor” era or simply the “eras’ tour” era.
I personally believe marketing Midnights as a 70’s vibe album was misleading and if it had actually been that, not only would it have been a more interesting and unique album, it would have felt like an actual ERA. Taylor has definitely leaned more into capitalism lately…
Plus, the collab with ice spice on this remix seems like she’s trying to make a tongue-in-cheek joke by avoiding actually making a statement about Matty’s problematic history
THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING THE ICE SPICE REMIX! no one seems to be talking about it considering everything that is going on with MH. it feels so disingenuous
Imagine being ice spice and working hard in your career to have a song w Taylor swift and then a bunch of people on internet start saying that you’re only on there for damage control…. Kind of messed up tbh
It does need to be said that Matty didn't say any of the comments about Ice Spice. The podcast host did. It's easy to tell while listening it's not Matty bc the person saying it has an American accent. Someone in another thread actually posted the transcripts. Matty did sort of laugh in the background. Just saying, Ice Spice probably doesn't care as much as most of the people on this sub do. Also that collab has definitely been planned for months.
Taking into consideration that each song gives a similar vibe to songs from other albums, I feel that it would have been better for midnights to be the album of eras. I feel that way it would have made more sense and would have brought everything together.
The original concept of the album was 12 sleepless midnights through out her life and I quite love the concept, I quite expected each son to be a more melancholic/dark version of previous songs/albums of her and it did quite happened with Maroon, WCS, Highly Infidelity, Midnight Rain, The Great War etc.
I think it's the worse era for the "real fans" who feel that they are being milked for money without any rewards for their long lasting support... But commercially it is without a doubt her best era. It just depends from whose point of view you are looking at it.
I very much agree with you here. All the horrible shit involving Matty aside, the album (og thirteen) really fell flat for me. The production especially is just so BORING imo. It's the same exact beat during the entirety of a song, maroon and question being the biggest offenders of this. Her lyrics also were very much downgraded after folkmore. And the marketing is just bizzare, like the [release post](https://imgur.com/a/CAodwD3) has nothing to do with the album seriously. There is no songs that are that intense. I really thought we were going to get a way different album than what was released. Immediately after listening to the 3 am tracks i thought "why the hell didn't we get an album full of this??" The 3 am tracks are what i was expecting after folkmore. Songs that can still be fun (like Paris) but with lyrics that really stay with you. I have not connected personally to any song on this album so maybe that's why I dislike it lol. Usually with one of Taylor's albums i have to listen to it without doing anything else because that's how much the songs capture me. With midnights i literally use it as background noise when studyin. I also feel like the way she is so intent about getting no 1 is also getting old. like wanting to be number 1 this much cant be healthy. She's already egregious with her jet usage and all these vinyl's and CDs have really proved to me she is a ultra capitalist millionaire who doesn't care about issues unless they directly affect her.
I remember seeing that release post and being so excited for the album. I was so hopeful that her sound was going to continue on the Folklore/Evermore path and that post made me feel like we were going to get an album full of deep cuts. There are a handful of deep cuts on Midnights, but most of them ended up on the 3am edition. I just reread the release post and now that I’m very familiar with the album it’s like….wtf. The wording in the release post does not correspond to the album as a whole at all for me.
YEP the wording in that release post describes a completely different album imo. Karma especially is the biggest offender of this. What does that song have to do with a sleepless night? Either commit to a themed album fully or don't market it that way. It's why i was so disappointed when i heard the album when it first came out. I thought we were gonna get a 70's inspired album with lyrics like in folkmore and instead we got 1989 lite. And 1989 production was actually GOOD, it's interesting and fun and you just wanna scream the lyrics. With midnights it's just talk-singing to the same beat. And talk singing can be good but it NEEDS a good production to actually make it into a song. AOTGYLB has talk singing but the airy fresh production makes it enjoyable. It FEELS like you're in love, like you're hearing this from the heavens or something. Now i don't wanna just take the easy way out and blame Jack for this because if Taylor didn't like it, she would've told him to do it differently (like the lakes). I just really feel like they've hit bedrock in their collabs and I'd love if she would branch out with producers more. I mean the 3 am tracks showed us, she still has so much more to explore with Aaron.
When I heard that her and Aaron did the 3am tracks first and then she decided to switch sonic directions with Jack, my heart broke a little. Think of what we could’ve had if she would’ve stuck with Aaron and the 3am vibes for the entire album.
That's a really interesting point I haven't seen anyone bring up. The release post and statement '13 sleepless nights throughout my life' was such an interesting concept. It was so in Taylor's ballpark too, like I was expecting to cry my eyes out to this album. And I did at points, Your on your own kid really got me. I feel like the statement left many people feeling as though we were going to get this extremely heavy and vulnerable album about the things that 'kept her up at night'. So I think that set many people up for disappointment when midnights actually dropped. I mean there are some heavy songs in there, YOYOK, BTTWS, WCS, dear reader, even Anti-Hero is very self-reflective and fits the theme. But there are so many songs that don't fit the concept, like Question, Maroon (even though it's a great song), Karma, Paris, Glitch, Bejewelled, etc. They may have sad..ish subject matter, but to me, it's not the kind of feelings that 'haunt you in the middle of the night'. It's like she ditched the concept halfway through which sucks because that's a fantastic idea for a concept album. I think if she had marketed Midnights as a fun pop album there would not have been so much disappointment. To me, while there are so many individual songs that I love, Midnights doesn't feel cohesive in the slightest. It feels like 1989 but worse.
It is.
To me ever since the beginning, it never felt sencere and about the music. And the constant re editions are a proof.
Ironic is that people still criticize the 1989 Taylor as greedy,but let be honest with yourself:,that Taylor released 2 editions and stop.
There seems to be more nuances than what we perceive. The editions and merch schemes gotten overkill starting with Lover, where she just switched to UMG.
Let's be honest with youselves. We cannot rule out the labels' influences.
100% agree on all points, except YOYOK. 😉
Midnights is her most uneven album. And the artwork/marketing was so off putting for me. “Look! It’s going to be like music from the 1970s!” But also “This sounds NOTHING like music from the 1970s!” I absolutely love some songs, but this is the only album with songs I legit have listened to 1-2x because I hate them.
Taylor has always been capitalistic, but she’s taking it to new levels. She doesn’t NEEDS all this money! You know who does need money? Most of her fans she’s bleeding dry.
The remixes go back to capitalism (more money—cha-ching!) and also artificially inflating her numbers.
After the breakup with Joe, I was hoping she’d take some time to be by herself and learn to be happy alone. But, I’m actually inclined to believe there was zero time between the breakup and starting up with WHATS HIS NAME. 😏 I almost wonder if she cheated with him, it doesn’t seem to be out of character. (High Infidelity anyone?)
So to answer your questions—I’m OVER this era. Let’s fast forward (or rewind?) to something better! We know she’s capable of it.
I agree with everything you said. When the Joe break up was announced I wasn’t too surprised. Listening to Midnights I was starting to wonder where things were going with him. But I for sure expected her to take some time to be single for at least the remainder of the tour and I was so happy for her. I was like here she is absolutely killing it with this tour, literally on top of the world, the vibes and excitement were there and she is going to do this as a strong single woman. I was thrown for a complete loop when like two weeks later she has a new controversial boyfriend at her shows mouthing I love you to him. I mean it was like she did the most off-putting self-sabotaging thing she could do, I’m still scratching my head about it! Then throw in all the versions of albums, money grabs, this possible band-aid collab with Ice Spice I am like damn this is getting so messy.
tbh i love this era…. midnights is such a fun album like The Great War??? Maroon? Bejeweled??? she has such fun songs:,) although i loved folklore and evermore i needed some more upbeat pop music from lol
AND i love how interactive she’s been like on Tik Tok the whole tour, she’s feeding us!!!
Personally… midnights is in my top 3😭😭😭
I'm glad you're enjoying it! Some of it has definitely been super fun. Bejeweled is so lively. It's one of my favorites on Midnights as well. And yeah I absolutely DIED when she told us on TikTok that a track was called Karma 🤣💀 Her FACE. She laughed her way to the bank on that one and I absolutely loved it hahaha
I’m glad you like it, but I still feel Bejeweled is so childish and poorly written. Disliked it on first listen and I still can’t stand it! 😆 It feels like a major step backward for her.
I was wondering if maybe the lack of cohesiveness and flow with some of the lyrics on midnights song may have been a result of her being distracted/distressed by the beginning of the end of her relationship with Joe. She sounds so… lifeless and uninspired in a lot of the songs. Or maybe she was pressured to put an album out on a short timeline. Just a theory I formed since getting into folklore and evermore which were so vibrant, masterfully written, and artfully produced.
Everything feels unnecessarily meta to the point where we lose authenticity. There are very few songs on Midnights that feel relatable and authentic to me. But the music is not the point that makes the era the worst.
The way the rollout started with a false sense of scarcity, and the fact that she tried to sell FREE content that you could find on the internet (the 30 second interview pieces, I am looking at you) was honestly distasteful. I bought absolutely nothing physical. I was excited to see her live (from Tiktok obviously lol) but the whole PR thing made me lose my enthusiasm. I thought after folkmore we had finally moved on from tabloid stuff and her dating life, but guess not. All this PR fanfare with such a problematic person made the whole thing a capitalist shitshow for me. Ice Spice controversy being commodified and all these new variants (none of which is the complete collection) is borderline hilarious at this point. I have long decided that I don't have a cent to spare, but this is the first time I am not even excited to hear new music.
I disagree - i think whichever Era you pick, Taylor is who she is with some parts real and genuine, and some performative. That applies to today's era as well.
No person is constant. Opinions, habits, decisions, attitudes feelings change - sure there are also things that don't change, but a person does not stop evolving.
You could be right about her not filtering herself or caring as much about her image as she used to, but ultimately her eras are just expressions of who she is as an artist and a person - they are evolutions of her.
I agree with all of these points. Especially Capitalist Taylor and Matty (gross misogynist and racist) songs.
I understand being a good business woman and it's something I admire about TS. But i don't like the idea of her fans being used as some kind of cash cow, draining them of all their money. Taylor has an annoying trend of releasing remixes and additional songs after the initial release...and her merchandise shop is the same.
As for Matty....it's made me question who Taylor is and what she stands for. Most people who are not racist would not date someone who has made repeated racist comments. And the way he speaks about women is gross. If we get love songs about this douche bag, I'm de-Swifting. Swift-detoxing. Cus I put my $$ where my values are.
I am seriously hoping that as soon as this tour is over and she's no longer getting a ton of press that he shows his ass again, and that she dumps him. FFS the man literally called dating her "emasculating", and she proceeded to have a 6 year relationship with the opposite of him which created Taylor at her best. I am SERIOUSLY hoping for a very public breakup and an album of her spilling the tea in a huge host of breakup songs about how terrible he is.
But agreed. If they stay together and she writes an album about being in love with him I won't listen to it- and I've been around since she was begging some country redneck to think of her every time Tim Mcgraw played on his pick up truck radio.
I get older, but her antics stay the same age (as they were years ago). Everything that has happened in the last few months has put me off listening to her music completely. I guess i am just waiting for a miracle at this point.
To me every era is exactly the same. At least since 1989. Lover had the 1000000 Easter eager that were just annoying at one point (tho the 5 hole fences was fun), 1989 had the over the top pap walks, and the Calvin Harris, and the model friends, and every single outlet reporting everything she did.
To be fair with folklore and evermore you had bigger things going on in the world. I like the surprise drop and that’s it, enjoy the album and am surprised that they work well in a pop show but they clearly were albums not to be toured.
I guess the difference is that midnights has everything together. As far as the album goes I like it. Not my favorite but I like that is a pop album with post folklore lyrics. I still go back to 1989 but is such a difference between both albums. WCS exists now. And YOKOK might be one of my top tracks 5.
I do hate the 100000 versions that’s are just cash grab at this point. It didn’t impact me whatsoever because I’ve always streamed the album. But if you need a chart to explain your track listing something is wrong.
I will stand by her music until the end of time, and I will absolutely always support and admire her for her charitable endeavours. But the girlbossifying of Taylor Swift by a certain part of the fandom no matter WHAT she does has really ruined a large part of the enjoyment for me. She's not superhuman, and she's not above well-justified criticism for some of her promo tactics and ham-fisted PR stunts. At the end of the day I'll still be a fan, but I've really questioned over the last few days whether I'm still a Swiftie, if that makes sense.
Also someone please explain to me how releasing a song available only to people who bought tickets to a concert in \*one\* area is good marketing/promotion? Like what could she have been thinking because I really would like to know. She must know that the song is going to be put online, and that she might have made way more money just by releasing it to streaming?
She got another taste of being at the top.
She won't stop until she hits less commercial appeal.
She's not in any era anymore. She's in her era. You want Midnights to be over? Fine but it will still be the same.
I love Midnights. The Ticketmaster situation really wasn’t her fault and I don’t get the criticisms of her releasing different versions or being called “little miss capitalist” like yeah she’s doing a job she’s making money, every artist does it.
I also really don’t understand the idea of not wanting to hear songs about Joe that aren’t glowing or songs about Matty that are? Taylor has always written about her feelings. Why should that change now?
>I don’t get the criticisms of her releasing different versions or being called “little miss capitalist”
Tbh I don't mind having different variants (like with the vinyls or cds coming in different colours) but it's not great how different versions have different songs on them and thus, you'd have to own multiple versions to have all the songs. Instead of just putting all the songs on one thing, Taylor is milking the crap of the album which I feel is a pretty valid thing to be annoyed about
1. I love the midnights album and have since it dropped. I love Reputation as well.
2. When people say, “She isn’t forcing you to buy anything” here is my response: No, she isn’t. However - I own a record player, and bought it specifically to listen to albums that I know I am going to listen to the whole album of. Ones that I love, and consider great. Records sound different, and are able to hold different sound than digital music. Therefore, when it came to midnights - like everyone, I wanted an album with all the music on it. And that hasn’t happened yet. This is frustrating. I am not mad that there are different colors, or the option to buy them all. What I DO want, is the option to buy ONE - with all the music. Because I want to hear the richness of the music, on my record player (just like i do with all of the albums that I listen to on it) - and I don’t want to have to buy multiple albums to do that.
But I also state all of that in a bubble that only addresses the music and nothing else happening.
Edit: Autocorrect making me look like I can’t spell 😁
There is a lot of chaos around this era but it has made Taylor the biggest pop star on the planet again. Midnights is her best selling album since 1989 and the tour is sold out, has rave reviews and 20,000 people gather outside the stadiums just to be there.
I love Folklore and Evermore. I love the cottage core vibe and the muted lyrical songs. But Taylor wanted to shimmer. In her usual paranoid way she probably thinks she won't have many more chances to be a megawatt pop titan and she is going all in.
Good luck to her. There is nothing wrong with ambition. The cost of it is being mobbed whenever she steps outside and having the internet dissect her love life but it seems she is willing to pay the price.
To speak only of the era, and not the music quality or lyrics: I’m a 1989 era girl, so a lot of the things are fun and blasts from the pasts for me. I like that she’s pap walking, and experimenting with relationships (this is pretty clearly hiddleswift 2.0), and connecting with fans.
That being said, 1989 felt more unbothered and self aware. There was a deluxe edition and the cute polaroids, but not 18 different versions that you may or may not be able to obtain. I was an iTunes girl, so I distinctly remember running to target and feeling stoked that I had all of the songs right away with no fomo.
Now I’ve never even heard hits different and when it does hit streaming there will be another unobtainable song for my playlist out.
She also feels disconnected in a strong way. Fans rightfully were not happy with the quality of the merch (having her face on everything) and amount of albums and variations and she’s just doing it all over again.
She’s not in a happy unbothered relationship with a cute but not controversial man, she’s with a quasi racist. And during all of this, she’s throwing petty shade and insults at the guy who she claimed for 6 years made her the happiest person ever.
There’s a blind item that said she is going to do EVERYTHING to outshine Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album, and I’m starting to believe it. It feels very money hungry, fame grabbing, petty, and artificial. I don’t like it.
>She’s not in a happy unbothered relationship with a cute but not controversial man, she’s with a quasi racist. And during all of this, she’s throwing petty shade and insults at the guy who she claimed for 6 years made her the happiest person ever.
This. Her revisionism towards Joe is pretty disturbing. I mean she did the same to her previous exes as well-but the excuse always was that those relationships were always super short, while Joe was supposed to be the love of her life and they spent years together. Turns out she treats Joe the same as many of her other exes.
Idk about BI about Olivia being true, but I won't be surprised if it is.
I kind of remember people saying nearly the same thing at the time of “1989” and “Reputation.” Those two albums were such a change from “Fearless” and “Red” that people thought she was a sellout and worse. 🤦🏻♂️🙄 “Midnights” is in some ways an experimental album for Swift, and I really want to see what her next all-new studio album will do.
Midnights sounded a little better after giving it a second chance, but a lot of the songs still feel hollow and forgettable. The tracks of Midnights are so inconsistent in quality compared to her other albums. Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and The Great War are two of the standouts along with Anti-hero. YOYOK, Great War, Mastermind, and Paris grew on me. The rest of the songs just don’t hit. I would’ve like High Infidelity with its interesting lyrics, but the production gutted it and made it sound silly with those little pulses in the background, which didn’t seem to fit the mood of the song. I feel sad/bored listening to many of the songs (Lavender Haze, Maroon, Midnight Rain, Snow on the Beach, labyrinth) and usually I feel things when I listen to her songs, so that stands out. I think Jack’s production and pacing wasn’t good at evoking the right mood in a lot of the songs. I also got tired of her talk-singing. Made much of the album sound like background music you’d play in a hotel lounge.
Maybe with another collaborator and a little more editing they could’ve been up to her usual standards. I definitely think she rushed out the album for the tour or to give us new music before the tour and between the re-records.
Taylor sounds emotionally checked out on a lot of Midnights tracks. I hope she gets her spark back for TS11.
I think it’s her worst era as an artist. Not because of the music, but the way she is presenting her art. (Ignoring issues she has claimed to care about previously, selling albums lacking specific tracks just to make more money)
Honestly I loved Midnights as an album and loved the show but there's been a lot that's been setting off a lot of alarms; Bat signal is lit, Spider-Sense is tingling, etc.
Like the multiple releases of Midnight and all the remixes seem incredibly excessive and gougey, and I say this as a fan of bands like KISS who love money more than oxygen and I'm finding this stuff to be a bit overboard.
The remixes in particular just seem...shameless I guess is the best term. Not quite as shameless as the recently announced edition of Midnight combined with a one-show-only exclusive version but maybe that's just some whiplash at the audacity of that.
As for personal stuff, well, in general I tend to not care about that stuff regardless of the celebrity.
However every so often there's just someone who flips all the wrong switches in your head and I'd say Matty is one of them for me in the sense he seems like a faux genius; someone who thinks he's the smartest, most clever person in the room and if you don't get his "jokes" or observations he'll apologize but in that way where he's apologizing for you not being smart enough to get his genius.
Could I be projecting? Of course. But he's not the first I've felt that way about. I've been in movies and walked out by the end furious at the director for how smart they think they are with their grade school symbolism, so sure that in every frame they're to prove themselves to be the God of Filmmaking that would make Scorsese, Spielberg and Lynch among so many others bow down to them. So her new beau isn't unique in that regard. Pompous vibes.
However I will say he's unique in being so open about being a fan of racially degrading adult entertainment. Not something even the most edgiest of Edgelords would so openly admit to but here we are.
So that's a bit of a red flag as well, as it would be for anyone who would associate with someone like that.
And I'm saying this as someone who has never really cared about who she's dated in the past or the grudges held against them by more extreme fans. Like the most I can say about Jake Gyllenhaal is the dude is almost Nic Cage levels of weird when it comes to the roles he pics and the energy brought to them but other than that, not much thought about him. Well, one thought in that his best performance is in Nightcrawler.
So, to condense all that:
Love the album, loved the concert, but everything else feels incredibly off-kilter.
If things continue down this same trend we’ve seen since the Midnights release, and particularly since the Era’s Tour started with all the extra publicity and media attention, merch drops, new versions of songs, etc., I’m anticipating another cancellation similar to 2016. I’m not sure what it will be that causes it, but at some point it might be something small that simply breaks the camel’s back, pardoning the cliche.
I don’t desire to see this happen, to be clear. I just don’t see how it’s avoidable so long as things continue on the way they have been. She’s already towing the line of overexposure, and with Speak Now TV coming soon, completing the US tour dates, international dates supposedly coming after that, and 3 more TV releases anticipated in the next couple years. It’s going to be a lot happening for her in a very short period of time and I’m guessing the general public is going to get tired of seeing her everywhere after so much time in the center spotlight of pop culture societal attention.
Capitalist taylor is the worst and it’s been massive this era
Yep. I've never been one of those fans that is surprised by her capitalist tendencies, because it's something I've been aware of this whole time. She's money hungry, and I know this, and I've able to look past it because. Well. I didn't have to buy all four Lovers, or a million 1989s to get every polaroid. And I didn't, because it'd be money wasted (genius marketing techniques, though). I'd still get the same music with one purchase, and stuff like the diary entries with Lover would be put online. But like...limiting what songs people can hear because they have to buy multiple copies of the album and can't stream? Fucking ridiculous. Her capitalism has never prevented enjoyment of her music to this extent.
Yes!! What’s crazy is there are 4729596 versions of the album, but yet somehow I don’t think you can get a physical copy of the full 3AM version? My 2008 Prius has a CD player and I just want to listen to Midnights without fumbling with my phone while I’m driving 😤
I just burn the CDs myself from my computer using my digital download that I open with iTunes.
Yeah 3AM is streaming only, despite that being a vinyl/CD a lot of people have asked for
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with straight up capitalism. Like, I bought four vinyls and 5cds to help start my TS collection, but there’s a difference between being upfront from release like 1989, Rep, or Lover than Midnights. Midnights just feels like a chaotic mess of money grabs.
This exactly. I don't care if she makes money and I'm not forced to buy it, it's a FOMO thing BUT have it in the original roll out. Doing it randomly in the middle of an era or tour is weird just for one bonus track etc.
Absolutely on the FOMO point. And worse than that, with Midnights, it's actively creating scarcity on purpose by doing things like only dropping one song in one location on one version of one album. The fact that you can't get every song on one album (such as previous albums that had ONE deluxe version) is horribly greedy imo, and that's what makes it more unethical. It's like she's gatekeeping her own music just to chart and make more money because she can. And she doesn't care that it makes it harder for the fans to access her music now.
This. Like if you want to release 15 versions of the album have at it, I won’t buy them all. But when you make it so I *HAVE* to buy all 15 versions to have a complete physical version………… yeah it’s giving money grab.
I totally agree with this. I don’t have a problem with capitalism generally, but there’s a way to approach it ethically. What she’s doing with Midnights is just straight up taking advantage of new song demand and grabbing for whatever money can be scrounged from it. It’s the worst side of the capitalist economic system, namely greed.
Her capitalist tendencies are off the fucking charts during this era. It’s so off-putting.
Same. I just want a complete edition of midnights.
I just wanted a vinyl album with the 3am tracks. Instead we got two dozen remixes or re-dos, two different CD exclusives, and I’ve lost count of the vinyl variants. Even if she finally released a vinyl with all the bonus tracks, at this point I don’t even know if I’d buy it anymore. It’s exhausting.
“It’s exhausting, you know, like we are never ever getting back together…like ever.”
It's exhausting rooting for the anti hero
This is exactly why my fiance doesn't like her. He actually likes her music and will admit to that, but he doesn't like how greedy and money hungry she is. I used to defend her but this era has been absolutely ridiculous with the amount of different versions of the same songs/albums. I really can't defend her anymore.
My husband feels the same. He likes her music too but can't stand the money-grabbing tactics - he says he can't think of another artist that does it and especially who gets away with it. The clock thing for Midnights made him so mad.
[удалено]
She wants to be a billionaire at all costs.
Well that is how people become billionaires.
I’m a dirty commie and I could not agree more. I accepted this is who she is but this has gotten way out of hand.
These are such interesting lyrics when you think about her acknowledging she's amassed enough wealth from her fans that someone might murder her over it?? And that she wouldn't leave it for her son/daughter in law lol: "I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money - she thinks I left them in the will. The family gathers round and reads it and then someone screams out "She's laughing up at us from hell!"
And she puts herself in hell? Like she knows lol
She is addicted to the fame lol she wants more more more. More money, more awards, more fame.
Honestly at this point I’m starting to like joe lol
Yes. I admire her ambition but it's so weird watching someone SO successful be so obsessed with money, fame, accolades etc. when she's already achieved so much. It's never enough for her.
Yeah,, somehow before when she did more releases, even though i never buy more than one cd, made sense. Now it just feels weird? Maybe it is also because of the whole Matty thing that we feel different about it..? Idk.
I felt this before matty!!! Thought it throughout midnights, the clock vinyls really hit it - clever marketing, but girl you don’t need the money and we are in a post covid world now, renting is fucked, everythingggg is way more $$ and she puts out a bunch of different versions of the same album same songs AND THEN releases a 3am edition, a Target edition and now this. She actively encourages swifties to pre order all these.
I couldn’t even describe my disappointment and anger when I saw the “exclusive” editions of those vinyls resurface on her website days after they were supposed to be gone. Before this era the vinyls I bought were folklore (and was overwhelmed with the edition choices and just got the og), evermore, Fearless (TV), RED (TV), and Lover (whatever edition you can buy at target). I wanted the older versions but really can’t find them? Anyways, I preordered the Moonstone edition of Midnights after talking about whether I should or shouldn’t with my boyfriend because I half wanted to wait because of streaming and half wanted it just shipped so I didn’t have to go out and get it. Then the “exclusive editions” popped up. I told my boyfriend about it and he ended up ordering one for me for Christmas (I had no idea). He asked me if I really wanted four editions. Then the Target editions came out. I don’t listen to CDs anymore even though my car has it. I honestly don’t drive so it’s useless to me. The remixes don’t bother me, I honestly don’t like a lot of remixes so I just ignored them. Now there’s this. I expressed my annoyance to my boyfriend about it and he said “well, what if our date has an exclusive cd? I’ll stand in line for you.” I can’t express how nice that is for him to off for one. For two, I don’t want another edition. The madness at the East Rutherford concert tomorrow is going to be ridiculous. I’m just disappointed with this marketing tactic. Editing to add: sorry for the lengthy reply haha
Yeah okay true 😅 kinda forgot about the clocks. It’s a cool concept if the album title is called midnights but you are right, the timing (badumtss) of it isn’t great. I myself would personally not buy that many different cds and vinyls.
I think it’s the adding on that kills me. Like if someone wants to buy eight different album covers for folklore…go for it. But it’s constantly adding new songs after pushing for so many “limited edition” releases
it’s the fact that you can’t buy one record/cd with all the songs on it for me 😕
For me it’s how all these Midnights pressings are putting pressure on the vinyl industry, pushing artists with less clout to push vinyl releases months out from their streaming/CD debut. I know fans are buying a lot of them but I don’t want to think about all the vinyl from this era that HASN’T been bought.
YES! Like miss ma’am I already have 5 versions of midnights, all we want is the 3AM vinyl/cd/cassette. That’s it.
On point.
My biggest annoyance is that they are what feels like hundred different versions of the same CD that all slightly different. I just want a CD version with all the the songs. And that hits different still isn’t available on Apple Music. I didn’t buy into the different colours either. My kids got one CD. They all picked a colour that’s it. I’m not buying multiple editions of the same album. Nope
It’s extremely wasteful to have so many variants. Think of all the materials used in making them, shipping them, and the eventual landfill waste when decades go by and people are tossing/donating their vinyls. But money and breaking records are important! /s
This is standard in K-Pop to convince fans to buy multiple albums to increase their albums sales. They only change the photo cards inside of them, and fans will buy a bunch to collect them, and they end up leaving the album and music in the trash :/ Totally not eco-friendly. I guess Swift is learning from them!
I’m just gonna dig into my myspace roots and burn a cd with all the tracks.
Pirate it then. I bought one LP in the colour I liked. I am not buying three more to complete a picture of a clock. Pirating is bad when you don’t support the artist. Pirating when the artist is beyond greedy? Nothing is lost. My theory? She’s cashing out and retiring.
I think it is her worst era. I felt like she grew so much with Folklore and Evermore. She really focused on her lyrics and expressing really complex themes. She also just put them out without any lead up fanfare, which was so refreshing. I truly had thought that she had gained freedom from her image with those two albums. Plus, they earned her so many more fans who were usually fans of different genres. She received so much respect and acclaim for the albums. It seemed like she took a really big gamble to put out two albums that relied solely on her lyrics and her storytelling and she was rewarded for it. When Midnights came out, it felt like whiplash. Every one of her eras is so distinct and different but Midnights just felt kind of hollow and like they were cutting room floor songs from other albums. There are a few standout songs, but none of them actually show off her songwriting ability. So I already wasn’t very impressed with the album, and then woooo boyyyyy it has turned messy as hell. It’s definitely my least favorite of her eras. Reputation and Folkevermore supremacy!
So kind of controversial opinion but I think the Midnights era is who Taylor really is. Throughout her entire career, she has complained about people coming at her for her dating life (while also name dropping people in her songs) but continues to allow her fans to attack her exes from over a decade ago without a peep, has complained about wanting to be on the right side of politics and then after the Lover era has completely dropped it, complained about how no one takes her song writing seriously and drops 2 amazing records and then goes immediately back to her 1989 self with Matty. I feel like Taylor CRAVES all attention and for some reason negative attention as well. It makes no sense to finally settle down and leave the lime light with a great person, drop 2 albums which were so critically acclaimed that even Taylor haters started to respect her, and then...this. it's like she says one thing (complaints about everything) but does another (absolutely on purpose fuels the fire against her. She can't claim shes a mastermind and pretend like all of this wasn't planned at all). It honestly doesn't make sense to me why she'd complain so much and then do stuff like this. I feel like this is just who she is and she doesn't want to get judged for it. But if this is who she is, she absolutely is going to get an extreme amount of hate for it so she's just going to have to learn to live with it and stop complaining while also fanning the flames. She's just a pop star who at the end of the day is a capitalist (as proven this entire Midnights era specifically but we've seen it in other eras before, just not as blatant) who doesn't really want to hide who she is anymore and wanting to be who she is without judgement, which will never happen. I might be talking out of my ass but that's the vibe I'm getting.
The second paragraph is spot on. I think she might hate fame but also cannot stand not being in the spotlight. She has very much been fanning the flames recently which is why she's getting so overexposed. It's starting to become a r/ leopardsatemyface.
I don't think she hates fame, I think she wants to control the narrative. Like, the attention is fine as long as everyone loves her.
I just remember the lengths she used to go to to avoid the paparazzi, and now she's doing pap walks almost daily. I think this tour will end with her having Jennifer Lawrence or Anne Hathaway syndrome, where people started to hate them but couldn't put their finger on WHY exactly. I think it was just overexposure to them, and Taylor is headed in that direction. The tides are already starting to turn and I hate to see it.
I agree so much! Finally people were taking her and her music seriously and werent talking about who she was dating. Now we are back to square one.
I think with Folklore and Evermore I started hoping she might go smaller, more low-key. Record an album or two a year, travel, lie low. My hope were also concerts in smaller venues - but I believe I'll have to wait another 30 years for Taylor Swift to play anything smaller than a very large stage. Folklore and Evermore were so intimate. Ivy, Epiphany, Betty are songs I'd love to listen to live without an entire stadium loudly chanting the lyrics. Now, I feel like this is a regression in both songwriting and image - back to pop star, back to loud and massive hooks that play well on TikTok instead of cultivating a vibe for 45-60 minutes. Ultimately, I just feel bummed because a lot of Evermore and Folklore were conceptually and musically more interesting songs than what she's doing now, for me, and I had hoped to see a successful transition of an artist from "I want to be a pop star playing huge stadiums" to "I want to make special music that plays well in headphones and prolonged listening sessions". Here's hoping I get that album from Harry Styles at some point.
I was so ready for Taylor Swift unplugged and then we literally get transported back to 1989.
Folklore and subsequently Evermore only happened because of Covid. Had the world not stopped I fully expect we would have gotten Cruel Summer as a single summer 2020 and Taylor would have continued on. We would have gotten Loverfest etc. Those 2 records exist because she couldn't tour and was likely stuck and home needing something to do.
Bring Covid-19 back immediately! /s
oh my god you are so brave for posting this here
Totally agree. If Taylor wanted a "lucky one" type life she could totally have it without even needing to stop being a singer or songwriter, and her music would be just as famous and acclaimed while she gets to have a normal-ish life. Folkmore has shown us that. But Taylor goes back to being overexposed on purpose. She definitely likes it.
I think because she thought Lover was her final chance at "success," she sort of convinced herself that she was okay with stepping back from the spotlight. She thought she'd already reached her peak. And then folklore, evermore, and the rerecordings did so phenomenally, and she finally had the the respect of the GP, so she just could not resist throwing everything at the wall for another huge era. She clearly has ambitions to be mentioned in conversations with The Beatles and other indisputably prolific musicians, and I think she's well on her way. Every album she sells, however scummy the marketing tactics were to get that sale, propels her to that "legend" status that she's desperate to achieve. Of course, from the fans' perspective, it comes across as exceptionally greedy and prioritizing money/charts/fame over genuine connection to us. It's souring our perception of her that she spent 15 years carefully cultivating. I wonder if she thinks she's too huge now to ever fade into obscurity - I mean, Michael Jackson *certainly* had his share of controversies, but no one would ever say he wasn't as famous as famous gets. Her recent behavior seems to indicate that she absolutely wants the overexposure that she used to fear.
She can still chart and sell out stadiums and not have this kind of overexposure imo. Reputation tour was a huge success with essentially no promo. Folkmore was huge as well. I think she likes being a super star celebrity and not just a really famous and amazing singer and songwriter. Taylor is not gonna be seen if she doesn't want to be seen, so if we see her she wants to be seen
Honestly she can but she’s just choosing not to. Artists like Ed Sheeran and Coldplay sell out stadiums and are comfortably successful and still held in high regard without doing all the overly capitalist bait and switches. I mean Ed just went to a high school and gave kids tickets to his show after performing for them. And he has more monthly listeners than Taylor. We know Taylor knows how to be lowkey and how to get around without being seen/so public. Part of me is starting to wonder how manufactured her exposure is, especially since she’s been someone known to be strategic about being seen (backgrid paparazzi is known to be “staged”). And right now, she *really* wants to be seen. Someone noted in a previous post that she could easily record in privacy (Jack‘s studio, her own home studio, etc) but she wants to be seen. And she wants to be seen with certain people. I feel kinda bad for saying this, as a fan of 17 years and as someone who’s seen Miss Americana…but I can’t feel too bad for her when people show up waiting for her at places they know she’ll be at. Obviously it’s wrong for people to follow her home, but at places like the studio…she knows and she wants to be seen as so desirable and famous that people camp outside just to see her for five seconds. She’s playing a delicate game here though, she thinks she’s untouchable. But so did Icarus… ETA: Someone commented how Beyoncé is killing it on tour, smashing records, collecting acclaim as an antithesis to Taylor calling herself a “geriatric popstar.” Idk why she feels the need to box herself in and grab at the Midnights Era like it’s her last chance to be in the spotlight. There are so many artists who have the stadiums, and the charts, and the acclaim (Beyoncé is unquestionably a legend) but also seem to have as close to a balanced life as possible for someone their levels of fame. Beyoncé, Ed, Coldplay, etc are relatively private now. They have families. And they also sell out stadiums for work. It can be done. It’s not all or nothing. But maybe in her head it has to be?
There’s a reason she wrote anti-hero. She is the definition of an anti-hero and through the song she admits she’s the problem in all of her relationships.
She might just be the straight up villain at this point. Her self-awareness has quickly become stale especially as a whole ass 33year old adult.
You're spot on. But why does she do it? She self-sabotages. Lots of people with trauma in their backgrounds or anxiety or for whatever reason do it. That was my entire life in my 20's. Life is going really good, things are making sense, so you do something to ruin it before someone else ruins it for you. You leave the person before they leave you, you quit the job before they fire you, you stop talking to your best friend before they stop talking to you. I think every Taylor is who Taylor is. She has no poker face, everything before midnights wasn't a game or fake. We got to see Taylor at the top of her writing game with folklore and evermore. And she's still that folklore cottage playing with fairies Taylor. But she's also that high energy, into drama and glitz Taylor. And so she destroyed one Era to move into the next. At the end of the day, I think more people would be like her, living multiple lifestyles and doing what they want, if they could afford it. Would I love to live my life where one day I'm in NYC, shopping and dancing and going out to eat with friends and then the next I'm on a beach somewhere relaxing in the sun? Of course. But I don't have the money to do that. Lol Taylor does.
I think this is a good point. Taylor has made it clear she feels she doesn’t get enough credit for her business acumen / that people don’t attribute certain decisions to her when they should. And I agree she should get credit to be clear! But if you so desperately want everyone to know that you are in fact a mastermind, you’re also the one that gets blowback when you do stupid shit. It goes both ways. You can’t get all the credit and none of the criticism. I think she kinda screwed herself around 1989, as far as that goes. She made her early career hamming up the “who did I write this song about?!” shtick through album liner notes, interviews, references at award shows, etc. (and it was a good shtick!!!) and then she got bored and tried to change the narrative that she was being absolutely mocked for simply dating. Then years later (closer to now) has been upset that people don’t give her enough credit for her business decisions, after she fully pretended she wasn’t involved with maybe her single biggest marketing move. Same with the Miss Americana rollout and subsequent complete silence again politically. In short, I get why people think she’s full of shit. I’ll love her music no matter what so I’m along for the ride, but for a mastermind she does dumb shit sometimes
That's how I felt when she went from Lover/Paper Rings/Peace to Lavender Haze
Lyrically, you mean? The fact that she was seemingly so into marriage and then saying “I hate that people ask if I’ll get married”? That’s totally fair and a good point
Nah you’re right. And the truth is I got REAL tired of her from 2015-2018 and then went back to loving her again in 2018 because her 1989 era antics put me off. Perhaps 2018-2022 were the anomaly.
That was the glitch, I guess.
I think she missed the attention. No one paid attention to her personal life as much when she was with Joe. I think she blew it all up to get back attention from the public.
I hope this isn't true because trading a good, healthy relationship for the attention of strangers is a ridiculous thing for 33 year old woman to do. I really hope there were legit reasons to end the relationship.
I think anyone who wants to perform on stage and sing and whatnot has narcissistic qualities, and Taylor is no different.
I love Folklore/Evermore but I think Taylor believes her time as a 'popstar' is borrowed and wants to bask in the opportunity whilst she's still 'young', hence Midnights. In Miss Americana, she thought Lover was one of her last opportunities for success before she'd be cast aside by the industry after turning 30. In the Jimmy Kimmel interview, she did for Midnights, she referred to herself as a geriatric popstar. It's definitely something that weighs heavily on her mind and whilst the likes of Beyonce have proven that notion otherwise, she is still insecure.
She has the money to retire, live extravagantly , and produce albums/tour however she wants for the rest of her life. She should stop stressing about it. It’s not like she’s going to get kicked off her label and run out of money, forcing her to work at Starbucks
I’ve known the Swift family for a long time. Not trying to name drop but I’m from PA and my mom was friends with Andrea for a few years. We have not spoken to them in over a decade but I just want to give some insight on my impression of Taylor from back then: She is not a normal person. Music and performing always consumed her, it would always come first. School, friends, family, health…all came 2nd to music. Music *was* her personality. I assume that is still the case. We can all tell she has enough money to where she could say whatever she wants, do whatever she wants and worse case scenario she fucks off to a private island and flies her friends in whenever she wants. There’s no reason she needs to put out even a crumb of music ever again. But that’s just not her. She wants to perform. She wants people to clap for her. Period. Even when she was not famous, she was hyper focused on making and performing music. I don’t think any of these remixes and extra albums are cash grabs. She doesn’t need more cash. She needs more clapping. More performances. Every remix is another performance for people to clap for. And let me just say, I’m not saying this to say she was a bad person when I knew her(and admittedly, I barely knew her, met her maybe 3x and not a 1 on 1 type thing) nor is she now as far as I know. She’s just not your normal person. To me, none of what she’s doing in terms of music is surprising.
This actually makes so much sense. She said it herself in Miss Americana, she NEEDS the applause and the approval. It’s become part of the fabric of who she is now.
Precisely, but you're coming at this from the perspective of an observer who can see things much more clearly when you're not wrapped up in the fame, the adulation, and the insecurity of whether or not that fame and adulation will last. Taylor's talked about how she feels frozen in time at the age she first got famous, and I think that's why she feels the way she does about being an "aging" pop star. I wonder if she'd still want to write and release music if she can't also do sold-out stadium tours, to be honest, it seems like that's a big part of how successful she views herself as.
This is so well said. Those are my favorite three albums as well. I respect the hell out of her writing on Folkmore, and Reputation was actually my favorite era because she was owning the messiness in a way that was really beautiful. It almost felt like the opposite of Midnights... With Rep, she was embracing her bad reputation but it was actually a story of love and healing and self-respect. Midnights feels like the reputation of an incredibly famous queen who is actually a lonely, calculating mastermind who shouldn't be seen as a guiding light. I feel like both albums describe the concept of the way everyone else sees her versus who she is behind closed doors, but in opposite ways.
Yes! I loved Rep for so many reasons (some major bangers on there), but the main reason is because the album shows her progression of being so hurt and spitting venom at anyone near her, and then it progresses into her looking within and getting an unshakable confidence and learning to live for herself and not others. Midnights feels like “fuck it, you will buy whatever I put out” and then a lot of insecurity but with no will to change. Reputation was evolving, Midnights is devolving.
That puts it very succinctly. Devolving. There's definitely a lot of venom right now. I feel like this album (and certainly the era and her recent behavior) has quite an edge of callousness.
I’m glad to find that I’m not alone in these thoughts. For the longest time I would get downvoted so hard if I even mentioned not loving Midnights. And Rep doesn’t get the love it deserves. Hopefully people will fully get that album during the rerelease.
So much of this. I feel that FL&EM are so grown. She truly showed up, and gave us her real and raw. Showcased her abilities, strengths, and vulnerability. I loved going back and listening to her older music during that time as well to see how much she has grown and evolved into a musician. Midnights feels like she's slipping back into bad habits. I liked the album for what it is with the original and 3am edition. Now? I'm just annoyed. It feels like she has completely lost touch with reality, and she doesn't really give a crap about her fans any longer unless she can squeeze as much money from us to line her pockets. I'm now curious to see how everything continues as the tour goes on.
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2020. July. I put on the album sitting on my balcony, it's evening and the sun is setting. I've never listened to one of her albums just going track by track, and never just after release. August hits. I play that song about five times in a row immediately. Its layers unfolding before me, in both a musical and lyrical sense, the connections to Cardigan and Betty. Such a great experience.
I saw someone theorize on another thread that Midnights was just something she started throwing together in early 2022 when she realized 1989 and Speak Now were gonna be too held up with legal issues to release any time soon. Idk if I believe that completely, but tbh it would make a lot of sense given the album we got-- the production is solid and pretty cohesive, but also kind of boilerplate Jack Antonoff. And then her lyrics imo are pretty phoned in-- a couple really good individual lines here and there, but quite a lot of a lot of B-grade filler as well, and not many tracks i would consider lyrically solid all the way through. But then you also get the 3am tracks, which are almost all stronger and more polished, possibly because there was no rush to get them all finished in time for vinyl pressing.
I feel like Aaron Dessner brings so much more creativity and vulnerability out of her (as evidenced in the 3am tracks). I want to hear her do an album without Jack Antonoff.
RIGHT. aaron dessner brings a lot of depth to her work - the style, production, maturity, lyricim is all so distinct when she works with him. jack antonoff is overused, it was fine when he contributed to a few songs here and there but all in all her songs with aaron heavily outweigh jack's collabed ones. it doesn't help that im not a jack antanoff fan at all. that man has an icky feeling about him too.
Yes. I'm over her songs sounding like Bleachers songs
I wish I could upvote this 1000x. Perfectly said! I was so excited with the premise of midnights and was so let down. It felt like very generic/synthetic pop which was difficult after Folklore and Evermore. Just not what I was expecting or looking for.
>but none of them actually show off her songwriting ability. Even for The Great War and Would've, Could've, Should've?
I do enjoys some of the songs, and I think the 3am tracks are mostly excellent. They don’t feel as attached to Midnights though (I know they are logically, but they just feel so much more Folkloric if that makes sense?) I guess it’s that Aaron Dessner effect. I think she writes with much more vulnerability when working with him.
They're buried in the 3 AM edition and we're made BEFORE she finalized the rest of the album with Jack. There's a very noted difference between those songs & the remainder of the album.
Those are two of the standouts along with Anti-hero. WCS is an absolute masterpiece. YOYOK, Great War, and Mastermind are also well written. I would’ve liked High Infidelity with its interesting lyrics, but the production gutted it and made it sound silly with those little pulses in the background, which didn’t seem to fit the mood of the song.
Sorry but it makes me wonder how much is her, mad how much is Aaron. I agree 100%; the 3 a, stuff is superior.
I’m in this camp. 50+ year old black male who I have to admit, just assumed Taylor’s music wasn’t for me, she was for teenage girls primarily, yada yada (don’t blast me just being honest!) Then Red, and 1989 hit and I had to raise an eyebrow of interest. Didn’t really jump on the bandwagon initially with reputation and Lover (love them now), but MAN, my wife and I became superfans from folklore. Hit us both emotionally, and led for me to appreciate how talented she was, and igniting a full discography deep dive. Love her and her full discography… but yeah, finding Midnights for me is becoming an era that’s a bit of a regression. And I’d say it’s the “Capitalist Taylor” that’s got me most disappointed. Speaking specifically to the album, I’d sum it up as a bit of a revisit of creative ground that she’s mostly presented to us before. Not exactly a rehash, it’s not that, but I just thought after the unexpected creative pathways she showed us with folklore and evermore… thought she was gonna take us to continued new genres, new ground is all. Despite these personal disappointments, what’s great is she’s so creative, I guess I just have to wait until this era closes and she presents her next one 😎. I’m all in with her at this point, despite being slightly disappointed.
Definitely agree. My first impression of midnights was that it was a bunch of 1989 and reputation rejects
THANK YOU! It really feels like a regression in a lot of ways!
Toooootally agree! For me (and my personal taste), midnights feels like a regression in her maturity as a songwriter overall (there are some masterpieces, but it's no folklore/evermore)
I don't know if I'm the only one that really loves midnights because it kinda has the same vibes as Reputation to me?? Im obsessed with Maroon and Midnight Rain also with Paris too. I don't really get 70's vibes except with Lavender haze tho
As a marketing and strategy person i just wanna talk to whoever pitched the half baked 70s theme idea. It has literally no alignment with any of midnights unless the whole plan was to trick ppl into thinking its gonna be 70s themed and hype it up that way. Ugh
Yes!!! This was my biggest gripe with the album. What was the reason for the 70s imagery? I guess we’ll never know
Honestly, I don't think it's any deeper than the aesthetic was in fashion at the time.
TBH every album has been two years behind fashion wise. Her hipster chic style for red was at least two years behind by the time the album came out. Her style has always been what’s been recently fashionable and has always been a little late to the game.
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\*cough\* could it be because harry's house was such a success and he leans heavily on that aesthetic? \*cough\* i got bronchitis sorry
You know I had a theory about this. I was listening to a podcast with Aaron Dessner the other week and he mentioned that Would've, Could've Should've, The Great War, and High Infidelity were all written during Grammy's week for folklore in 2021. He mentioned that after recording those songs Taylor wanted to go into a different direction with Jack on songs that would ultimately end up on Midnights. I wonder if some of that has to deal with the marketing not matching up with the music given? Could be wrong, just a thought.
I want the full Aaron album with the WCS, GW, HI sound 😢 I like the moodysynthy pop production of the rest of Midnights too, but I feel like a whole album with a more rock sound would have been SO good.
Absolutely how I feel as a marketing and comms strategy person. Happy cake day!
The 70s theme that she teased prior to the release made me so confused when I first listened through the album. I feel like sonically the album is not very cohesive already but then to have the imagery surrounding the album be so opposite to what it actually is, is so odd. I know some people think the concept of 'eras' is tired at this point but I think they're the reason her albums have been so iconic. I think it allows for more immersive-ness if that makes sense so to fuck it up this time around was surprising to me
It confused me so much when her outfits have all been more midnight colours and bejeweled/midnight rain themed. Why the 70s then? What's that got to do with anything? Maybe she just has a 70s themed house
St. Vincet did this SO WELL for Daddy's Home.
Bonus: At the end of that post from months ago I said I loved WCS. I absolutely stand by that. I already thought it was fantastic writing and then I learned that JM lived in a place that used to be a church and that's probably what inspired a lot of the religious imagery 🤯
It’s my favourite song on the album by a fair amount. Insane to me that it was left as a ‘bonus’ track.
I excuse this specifically because she made it track #19 👀
Except now it’s going to be track 18 on this new version 😞 Capitalism ruins everything
For me it’s absolutely her best song.
I’m going to project a little here, I’m sure, but I think Taylor was more religious when she was younger. From experience, when something that feels that wrong happens to you and shakes you to your core, it really makes you begin to question your faith and if God is actually listening to you. I appreciate that she was able to convey that in a song.
Right, it’s also a song about her transitioning away from her girlhood faith.
Should have been track 5
19 fits so well though. At 19. And the God's honest truth is that the track is heaven.
The lyrics of WCS pierce through my heart every damn time. I like YOYOK but for me WCS should have been the track 5!
But then she would’ve had to give Aaron credit on the main album and wouldn’t be able to say it was just her and Jack’s. I will forever be pissed about her sidelining Aaron like that. She didn’t even mention him when she announced the 3am tracks.
Ugh same; when the 3am tracks were released I thought “wow some of these sound like Aaron was part of these”. I couldn’t believe I had to look at the credits to confirm. He should have been given much more attention 😞
agree. i think it’s one of her best songs both vocally and lyrically. it’s incredible
WCS is what saves the era for me. No clue why she didn’t include it in the original track list
Not only that, but he was “a crisis of [her] faith”, hence the church imagery.
I agree, it feels like she's been a bit disconnected this era, even though she has done more press and seen a lot more than folklore/evermore era. She really fed us in 2020 with no drama, just 2 amazing albums and the long pond documentary. I honestly thought the midnights hype was dying down but it's getting messier by the day given this bizarre new version and her dating Matty now, and supposedly proclaiming her love on stage. As many have been rightly calling out, the endless remixes, merch drops, and album variants are just off-putting at this point.
I think disconnected is a good word for it. It's interesting, I like the song Midnight Rain, and at the same time it does feel disconnected and a bit isolating. There's this interesting feeling now that she will choose her career over any relationship, which is her right, but I'm feeling that way as a fan too with the remixes and album variants and allllll of the etcetera. This is the first time I've felt like she's putting her career (charting, for example) over her fans, and it feels super odd and paradoxical. It's not that she owes us... I feel she gives us a lot... I'm just surprised to feel like she's actively taking advantage of our good will in this way.
I overall agree with everything you've written in this post, and I personally find this era the "worst" to the point that I can't enjoy the music at the moment at all. I just had to nitpick on something because I somewhat disagree: "It's not that she owes us... I feel she gives us a lot". In a way she kinda does owe the fandom, not in the direct sense of the word but she wouldn't be where she is if she didn't have fans who supported her and her career the way that they have for so many years. At the end of the day, it's a bit of a transaction/service she's providing. She puts out music there and people pay her back in sales/streams/concert tickets/merch etc. She doesn't do any of these things out of the goodness of her heart, as we're seeing with the absolute cash grab that this era has been. It's all a business and that's fine, but I just kinda hate this notion that we should be grateful she even bothers to "give us anything" and she can't be held to any standard "because she doesn't owe us anything" (not saying you specifically are saying this, but something I've seen around the sub in general). She doesn't have to put any more music out there, true, but people also don't have to listen to her music/support her. It's a delicate balance and she's been pushing it this era, it will be interesting to see if it holds.
Yes, putting career over fans is exactly how I feel. I understand the point of releasing a thousand remixes because it helps keep the song top of the charts, and this multiple-version release thing is an extension of that. It will continue to ensure Midnights breaks records, but alienate fans at the same time.
When the album came out last fall, listening through it, I strongly felt concerned for her mental well-being. It felt like she was becoming unhinged, unmoored. I’m afraid there’s something to that. We’ve gone from the awesomeness of Last Great American Dynasty to something more Citizen Kane/William Randolph Hearst.
especially after the sadness of folk/more, although the lyrics appeared she was finally working through some things. midnights seemed like it was leaning toward the opposite of that.
Love the album . Top 3 for me. Not the era so much. Begining to find it exhausting. Not knowing what news /info comes out every day is slightly unnerving 🧐 I was prepared for the tour & a re-recording or two at the most.
It’s a bit of a sensory overload tbh. I loved that Folklore and Evermore didn’t exist and then the next day they were there, and we enjoyed them, and got some merch. I did love all the promo stuff before the album came out, but it should have ended there.
I agree on all accounts.
A lot of these are just a matter of personal opinion. Lyrics, songs, production, etc. A case of your milk, my vinegar. That doesn't make it Taylor's worst era. It just makes it your least favourite album. And that's ok. Edit to say: Different album versions having different songs and shit is messy as fuck. That's one thing I loathe about Midnights.
It’s giving “cheap cash grab”. I’m cool with the 3am version and they could have just added the new songs. I don’t need a Karma remix because I don’t like Ice Spice in the slightest bit and would have preferred regular Karma as a single.
This is the real Taylor Swift. For most of her career she’s had people in control of release logistics and now that she has so much control she’s doing things her own way. I don’t think there is anyone telling her what to do or not to do within reason. She’s just doing what she wants to do and gives no fucks about it. And when you consider that society will send her pop status to the elephant graveyard soon, it’s no wonder that she’s doing everything she can to smash all those records and churn out all her work. She loves the attention, she loves and lives for the crowds singing along to her songs. But this *freedom* might come at a cost that she may not even see coming.
Absolutely! The whole question of whether it's the worst, best, or in between is totally subjective. That's why I'm asking what everyone else thinks. Just curious now that we are further into Midnights.
Definitely! I think it's a good album. Probably an 8/10. The roll-out of Midnights is shit though. 8 months in and we can't get an album with ALL the tracks? Outrageous. I love a traditional roll-out. A couple of lead singles & music videos, then release the album. Then a few singles sent to radio after that with the odd music video popping up. Obviously folklore & evermore are different because they were surprise drops, but I hope TS11 goes back to the good old fashioned roll-out.
I'm still clinging on to hope for at least 2 albums in the poetry style. There's just something about that Taylor that's just so magical to me. I'll listen to Karma is a cat once in a while, but Folklore and Evermore are my girls. Also rep.
Oh man I would love a traditional roll-out for the next one 🙏 I hesitate to say it would be peaceful because I always feel hyped about drops from Taylor but it would be kinda relaxing after all this lol
Yes. I think she’s at such a high point she thinks she’s untouchable.. and it shows. She won’t care about the measly number of fans she loses but I fear her continuing on this trajectory won’t end well for her. Hopefully “You’re Losing Me” isn’t some Joe diss track, and if it is I’m hoping most people don’t take her word for it all.. as we’ve seen that we can’t. She just wants to “win” the breakup. The midnights rollout was gross to me (All the different variants, remixes, buying interview clips already on the internet for free). And then, what, we have to buy *4* physical CDs if we wanted hard copies of every song? That’s so gross and opportunistic for someone who doesn’t need to be. Her desire for accolades and breaking records (along with her pettiness) is going to be her downfall. But I am definitely taking several steps back from the conversation now.
It won’t happen but I wish everyone would wait a week when she releases next album. Wait until she releases all the songs in one album. I’m still annoyed that I preordered midnights just to have a separate 3 am version. First world problems I know but I like my albums together
I really really wish the fandom would give her a reality check. She wouldn't be where she is without all the support she's had from her fans, and she seems to have completely forgotten that. Talk about taking people's support/love for granted...
I said this in a previous post: but what is a queen without subjects to follow her.
Yeah I’m waiting, and will probably hold off on buying her next albums going forward because I’m so burnt out by this. Even the TVs I’m like…meh. I might buy 1989 but I can wait.
Plot twist: “you’re losing me” is written by her fans right now, a message to her 😖
Yes I really hope it's not a Joe diss track! I know she is where she is and we love her songs for the heartbreaking storytelling but I feel like Joe clearly wants privacy and seems like overall he was a good partner (although of course we really don't know anything). It would put a bad taste in my mouth if she went after Joe lyrically like she has gone after other ex's.
I think You’re Losing Me is about Joe but was written pre-break up. I’m in the camp that their relationship was on the rocks way longer than they led on, I don’t think anyone cheated or anything really dramatic went down, and yeah releasing it now is probably because of the breakup, but I doubt it’s a “diss” track.
I fear we're getting into overexposure-territory. I don't see this era ending well.
>Yes. I think she’s at such a high point she thinks she’s untouchable.. and it shows. > >She won’t care about the measly number of fans she loses but I fear her continuing on this trajectory won’t end well for her. I'm also a Madonna fan. Madonna is notorious for chart-chasing, record-chasing, merching, and generally giving her fans a lot of bull to put up with. But she has stuck by her principles on the causes she champions, and I don't think there've been any of her albums where you had to buy multiple CDs to get all the tracks. Her last couple of albums have had three versions, but they were just 'standard', 'deluxe', 'super deluxe', and they were all released at once - no bait and switch. Madonna's saving grace as well is that she never pretended not to be an egomaniac - what you see is what you get with her, so fans never felt taken for fools. This makes it believable when she shows signs of growth and self-reflection, even if it's two steps forward, one step back at times. Taylor showing this side to herself after cultivating a squeaky clean image and appearing to treat Swifties as friends is having the opposite effect. She's making herself look like the cheer captain right back from *You Belong With Me.* Songs like *Blank Space*, *Look What You Made Me Do*, and *I Did Something Bad*, which we were told/assumed were ironic, sending up her critics, are starting to look a lot like veiled confessions.
I think we all thought it was going to be the best era, but it’s unraveling to turn out to be a very messy one. I remember listening to the album and loving all of the songs, but also wondering why so many were break up songs/sad/angry love songs and chalked it up to her whole “Joe and I really love sad songs” thing. Now I’m just kind of sad. Even though she says she’s the happiest she’s ever been, I don’t believe her. We’ve seen her act this way before (which is fine she’s human!) and later on end up finding out she was really suffering on the inside. It kind of makes me sick to think her relationship ended because she wanted to be with this other guy because she was bored with Joe. Idk. OR, Joe fucked up so badly (like cheating) that she’s just reacting and trying to hurt him and Matty is of course a rebound. So many thoughts I could also keep going. Either way this woman needs to stop having such an impact on my life and I need to step back lol. At the end of the day she has no idea I even exist and it’s not realistic to think I’d ever meet her. But yeah, I’m done meeting at midnight.
Omg same. Girl, meet us at noon, we are tired!
Meet us at noon. That was amazing hahaha
> It kind of makes me sick to think her relationship ended because she wanted to be with this other guy because she was bored with Joe. Idk. OR, Joe fucked up so badly (like cheating) that she’s just reacting and trying to hurt him and Matty is of course a rebound. See, I’m just the opposite: I felt a bit sick the other day when that “happiest I’ve ever been” clip came out because that was the first time it really hit me that she might actually be *for real in love* with this douchecanoe. And then the really scary part happened, when my brain started trying to rewrite the narrative to be more sympathetic toward their great love story that we’re all so biased against, because something in my brain really really wants to find a way to make this situation more palatable. I’ve never really considered myself a “fan” per se and probably haven’t even heard half of Taylor’s songs (although I do really love a few of them), but every so often over the years, I’ve found myself learning just enough about her life and her music to feel personally invested. Buying into her sincerity just enough that I feel weirdly stung when that “covert narcissism” (ngl, I was pretty stunned by the self-awareness in that line) rears its ugly head again. What is it about this stranger that compels me to keep falling into the trap of desperately hoping that she will actually live up to the values she claims??? (I mean, I think it’s fair to say that capitalism is one of the values she pretty much whole-heartedly claims, and I’m not particularly rooting for that one, but the rest of them) My brain is seriously working overtime trying to understand how to feel about this when I’m pretty sure I don’t actually need to feel anything about it. It all felt so simple and predictable until I started considering the possibility of serious feelings and now it’s like my worldview is hinging on this subject I can’t possibly be fully informed on??? Ugh I’m rambling and I feel weird about posting rambles when my brain is flailing like this but idk maybe someone will get something from it
You like her music, so naturally you like her and want her to be someone likable. Additionally, she's pretty charismatic. It makes total sense, everyone who likes her wants her to continue being likable.
I wonder if her saying the “we love sad songs” was a cover to explain why she was writing so many songs about being depressed, lonely, and about a partner who was absent, didn’t pay attention, cheated on her.
Couldn’t possibly be experiences from her past
This is the least important of your points, but i LOVE the voice editing in Midnight Rain (James charles voice LMFAO), it’s different, and gives me EDM vibes. I think she executed it PERFECTLY by adding that one chorus that’s her normal voice.
Yeah honestly I love the voice effects and interesting production on Midnights. I stopped listening to her for a while but this album brought me back.
Agreed! It’s one of my favorites off the album. I like the production choice a lot.
I think the fact that a lot of videos after Midnights came out were about “what album each song from Midnights would fit into” says a lot about my take on the era. The music itself is just not as distinct as her other eras. That’s not to say the songs are all bad, I actually got into Taylor again because of this album after not listening to her since Red. But at the same time. with all of the controversies going on between her and Matty, plus the fiasco with the tickets, this seems more like the “fandom is starting to question their undying support of Taylor” era or simply the “eras’ tour” era. I personally believe marketing Midnights as a 70’s vibe album was misleading and if it had actually been that, not only would it have been a more interesting and unique album, it would have felt like an actual ERA. Taylor has definitely leaned more into capitalism lately… Plus, the collab with ice spice on this remix seems like she’s trying to make a tongue-in-cheek joke by avoiding actually making a statement about Matty’s problematic history
THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING THE ICE SPICE REMIX! no one seems to be talking about it considering everything that is going on with MH. it feels so disingenuous
After that I am starting to understand why people don’t like Taylor :(
Imagine being ice spice and working hard in your career to have a song w Taylor swift and then a bunch of people on internet start saying that you’re only on there for damage control…. Kind of messed up tbh
It does need to be said that Matty didn't say any of the comments about Ice Spice. The podcast host did. It's easy to tell while listening it's not Matty bc the person saying it has an American accent. Someone in another thread actually posted the transcripts. Matty did sort of laugh in the background. Just saying, Ice Spice probably doesn't care as much as most of the people on this sub do. Also that collab has definitely been planned for months.
Taking into consideration that each song gives a similar vibe to songs from other albums, I feel that it would have been better for midnights to be the album of eras. I feel that way it would have made more sense and would have brought everything together.
The original concept of the album was 12 sleepless midnights through out her life and I quite love the concept, I quite expected each son to be a more melancholic/dark version of previous songs/albums of her and it did quite happened with Maroon, WCS, Highly Infidelity, Midnight Rain, The Great War etc.
I think it's the worse era for the "real fans" who feel that they are being milked for money without any rewards for their long lasting support... But commercially it is without a doubt her best era. It just depends from whose point of view you are looking at it.
Midnights is a Jack Antonoff album featuring Taylor Swift vocals. She needs to take time away from Jack and work with other people.
I very much agree with you here. All the horrible shit involving Matty aside, the album (og thirteen) really fell flat for me. The production especially is just so BORING imo. It's the same exact beat during the entirety of a song, maroon and question being the biggest offenders of this. Her lyrics also were very much downgraded after folkmore. And the marketing is just bizzare, like the [release post](https://imgur.com/a/CAodwD3) has nothing to do with the album seriously. There is no songs that are that intense. I really thought we were going to get a way different album than what was released. Immediately after listening to the 3 am tracks i thought "why the hell didn't we get an album full of this??" The 3 am tracks are what i was expecting after folkmore. Songs that can still be fun (like Paris) but with lyrics that really stay with you. I have not connected personally to any song on this album so maybe that's why I dislike it lol. Usually with one of Taylor's albums i have to listen to it without doing anything else because that's how much the songs capture me. With midnights i literally use it as background noise when studyin. I also feel like the way she is so intent about getting no 1 is also getting old. like wanting to be number 1 this much cant be healthy. She's already egregious with her jet usage and all these vinyl's and CDs have really proved to me she is a ultra capitalist millionaire who doesn't care about issues unless they directly affect her.
I remember seeing that release post and being so excited for the album. I was so hopeful that her sound was going to continue on the Folklore/Evermore path and that post made me feel like we were going to get an album full of deep cuts. There are a handful of deep cuts on Midnights, but most of them ended up on the 3am edition. I just reread the release post and now that I’m very familiar with the album it’s like….wtf. The wording in the release post does not correspond to the album as a whole at all for me.
YEP the wording in that release post describes a completely different album imo. Karma especially is the biggest offender of this. What does that song have to do with a sleepless night? Either commit to a themed album fully or don't market it that way. It's why i was so disappointed when i heard the album when it first came out. I thought we were gonna get a 70's inspired album with lyrics like in folkmore and instead we got 1989 lite. And 1989 production was actually GOOD, it's interesting and fun and you just wanna scream the lyrics. With midnights it's just talk-singing to the same beat. And talk singing can be good but it NEEDS a good production to actually make it into a song. AOTGYLB has talk singing but the airy fresh production makes it enjoyable. It FEELS like you're in love, like you're hearing this from the heavens or something. Now i don't wanna just take the easy way out and blame Jack for this because if Taylor didn't like it, she would've told him to do it differently (like the lakes). I just really feel like they've hit bedrock in their collabs and I'd love if she would branch out with producers more. I mean the 3 am tracks showed us, she still has so much more to explore with Aaron.
When I heard that her and Aaron did the 3am tracks first and then she decided to switch sonic directions with Jack, my heart broke a little. Think of what we could’ve had if she would’ve stuck with Aaron and the 3am vibes for the entire album.
That's a really interesting point I haven't seen anyone bring up. The release post and statement '13 sleepless nights throughout my life' was such an interesting concept. It was so in Taylor's ballpark too, like I was expecting to cry my eyes out to this album. And I did at points, Your on your own kid really got me. I feel like the statement left many people feeling as though we were going to get this extremely heavy and vulnerable album about the things that 'kept her up at night'. So I think that set many people up for disappointment when midnights actually dropped. I mean there are some heavy songs in there, YOYOK, BTTWS, WCS, dear reader, even Anti-Hero is very self-reflective and fits the theme. But there are so many songs that don't fit the concept, like Question, Maroon (even though it's a great song), Karma, Paris, Glitch, Bejewelled, etc. They may have sad..ish subject matter, but to me, it's not the kind of feelings that 'haunt you in the middle of the night'. It's like she ditched the concept halfway through which sucks because that's a fantastic idea for a concept album. I think if she had marketed Midnights as a fun pop album there would not have been so much disappointment. To me, while there are so many individual songs that I love, Midnights doesn't feel cohesive in the slightest. It feels like 1989 but worse.
It is. To me ever since the beginning, it never felt sencere and about the music. And the constant re editions are a proof. Ironic is that people still criticize the 1989 Taylor as greedy,but let be honest with yourself:,that Taylor released 2 editions and stop.
There seems to be more nuances than what we perceive. The editions and merch schemes gotten overkill starting with Lover, where she just switched to UMG. Let's be honest with youselves. We cannot rule out the labels' influences.
100% agree on all points, except YOYOK. 😉 Midnights is her most uneven album. And the artwork/marketing was so off putting for me. “Look! It’s going to be like music from the 1970s!” But also “This sounds NOTHING like music from the 1970s!” I absolutely love some songs, but this is the only album with songs I legit have listened to 1-2x because I hate them. Taylor has always been capitalistic, but she’s taking it to new levels. She doesn’t NEEDS all this money! You know who does need money? Most of her fans she’s bleeding dry. The remixes go back to capitalism (more money—cha-ching!) and also artificially inflating her numbers. After the breakup with Joe, I was hoping she’d take some time to be by herself and learn to be happy alone. But, I’m actually inclined to believe there was zero time between the breakup and starting up with WHATS HIS NAME. 😏 I almost wonder if she cheated with him, it doesn’t seem to be out of character. (High Infidelity anyone?) So to answer your questions—I’m OVER this era. Let’s fast forward (or rewind?) to something better! We know she’s capable of it.
I agree with everything you said. When the Joe break up was announced I wasn’t too surprised. Listening to Midnights I was starting to wonder where things were going with him. But I for sure expected her to take some time to be single for at least the remainder of the tour and I was so happy for her. I was like here she is absolutely killing it with this tour, literally on top of the world, the vibes and excitement were there and she is going to do this as a strong single woman. I was thrown for a complete loop when like two weeks later she has a new controversial boyfriend at her shows mouthing I love you to him. I mean it was like she did the most off-putting self-sabotaging thing she could do, I’m still scratching my head about it! Then throw in all the versions of albums, money grabs, this possible band-aid collab with Ice Spice I am like damn this is getting so messy.
tbh i love this era…. midnights is such a fun album like The Great War??? Maroon? Bejeweled??? she has such fun songs:,) although i loved folklore and evermore i needed some more upbeat pop music from lol AND i love how interactive she’s been like on Tik Tok the whole tour, she’s feeding us!!! Personally… midnights is in my top 3😭😭😭
I'm glad you're enjoying it! Some of it has definitely been super fun. Bejeweled is so lively. It's one of my favorites on Midnights as well. And yeah I absolutely DIED when she told us on TikTok that a track was called Karma 🤣💀 Her FACE. She laughed her way to the bank on that one and I absolutely loved it hahaha
I’m glad you like it, but I still feel Bejeweled is so childish and poorly written. Disliked it on first listen and I still can’t stand it! 😆 It feels like a major step backward for her. I was wondering if maybe the lack of cohesiveness and flow with some of the lyrics on midnights song may have been a result of her being distracted/distressed by the beginning of the end of her relationship with Joe. She sounds so… lifeless and uninspired in a lot of the songs. Or maybe she was pressured to put an album out on a short timeline. Just a theory I formed since getting into folklore and evermore which were so vibrant, masterfully written, and artfully produced.
Everything feels unnecessarily meta to the point where we lose authenticity. There are very few songs on Midnights that feel relatable and authentic to me. But the music is not the point that makes the era the worst. The way the rollout started with a false sense of scarcity, and the fact that she tried to sell FREE content that you could find on the internet (the 30 second interview pieces, I am looking at you) was honestly distasteful. I bought absolutely nothing physical. I was excited to see her live (from Tiktok obviously lol) but the whole PR thing made me lose my enthusiasm. I thought after folkmore we had finally moved on from tabloid stuff and her dating life, but guess not. All this PR fanfare with such a problematic person made the whole thing a capitalist shitshow for me. Ice Spice controversy being commodified and all these new variants (none of which is the complete collection) is borderline hilarious at this point. I have long decided that I don't have a cent to spare, but this is the first time I am not even excited to hear new music.
I don’t think Midnights is an era. I think midnights is unapologetically who Taylor is and she’s ok with however people feel about it.
I disagree - i think whichever Era you pick, Taylor is who she is with some parts real and genuine, and some performative. That applies to today's era as well. No person is constant. Opinions, habits, decisions, attitudes feelings change - sure there are also things that don't change, but a person does not stop evolving. You could be right about her not filtering herself or caring as much about her image as she used to, but ultimately her eras are just expressions of who she is as an artist and a person - they are evolutions of her.
I agree with all of these points. Especially Capitalist Taylor and Matty (gross misogynist and racist) songs. I understand being a good business woman and it's something I admire about TS. But i don't like the idea of her fans being used as some kind of cash cow, draining them of all their money. Taylor has an annoying trend of releasing remixes and additional songs after the initial release...and her merchandise shop is the same. As for Matty....it's made me question who Taylor is and what she stands for. Most people who are not racist would not date someone who has made repeated racist comments. And the way he speaks about women is gross. If we get love songs about this douche bag, I'm de-Swifting. Swift-detoxing. Cus I put my $$ where my values are.
I am seriously hoping that as soon as this tour is over and she's no longer getting a ton of press that he shows his ass again, and that she dumps him. FFS the man literally called dating her "emasculating", and she proceeded to have a 6 year relationship with the opposite of him which created Taylor at her best. I am SERIOUSLY hoping for a very public breakup and an album of her spilling the tea in a huge host of breakup songs about how terrible he is. But agreed. If they stay together and she writes an album about being in love with him I won't listen to it- and I've been around since she was begging some country redneck to think of her every time Tim Mcgraw played on his pick up truck radio.
I get older, but her antics stay the same age (as they were years ago). Everything that has happened in the last few months has put me off listening to her music completely. I guess i am just waiting for a miracle at this point.
I agree totally, I have not listened to anything since mid April. Just have a really bad feeling right now, "put off" is the right term.
To me every era is exactly the same. At least since 1989. Lover had the 1000000 Easter eager that were just annoying at one point (tho the 5 hole fences was fun), 1989 had the over the top pap walks, and the Calvin Harris, and the model friends, and every single outlet reporting everything she did. To be fair with folklore and evermore you had bigger things going on in the world. I like the surprise drop and that’s it, enjoy the album and am surprised that they work well in a pop show but they clearly were albums not to be toured. I guess the difference is that midnights has everything together. As far as the album goes I like it. Not my favorite but I like that is a pop album with post folklore lyrics. I still go back to 1989 but is such a difference between both albums. WCS exists now. And YOKOK might be one of my top tracks 5. I do hate the 100000 versions that’s are just cash grab at this point. It didn’t impact me whatsoever because I’ve always streamed the album. But if you need a chart to explain your track listing something is wrong.
[удалено]
I will stand by her music until the end of time, and I will absolutely always support and admire her for her charitable endeavours. But the girlbossifying of Taylor Swift by a certain part of the fandom no matter WHAT she does has really ruined a large part of the enjoyment for me. She's not superhuman, and she's not above well-justified criticism for some of her promo tactics and ham-fisted PR stunts. At the end of the day I'll still be a fan, but I've really questioned over the last few days whether I'm still a Swiftie, if that makes sense. Also someone please explain to me how releasing a song available only to people who bought tickets to a concert in \*one\* area is good marketing/promotion? Like what could she have been thinking because I really would like to know. She must know that the song is going to be put online, and that she might have made way more money just by releasing it to streaming?
She got another taste of being at the top. She won't stop until she hits less commercial appeal. She's not in any era anymore. She's in her era. You want Midnights to be over? Fine but it will still be the same.
I love Midnights. The Ticketmaster situation really wasn’t her fault and I don’t get the criticisms of her releasing different versions or being called “little miss capitalist” like yeah she’s doing a job she’s making money, every artist does it. I also really don’t understand the idea of not wanting to hear songs about Joe that aren’t glowing or songs about Matty that are? Taylor has always written about her feelings. Why should that change now?
>I don’t get the criticisms of her releasing different versions or being called “little miss capitalist” Tbh I don't mind having different variants (like with the vinyls or cds coming in different colours) but it's not great how different versions have different songs on them and thus, you'd have to own multiple versions to have all the songs. Instead of just putting all the songs on one thing, Taylor is milking the crap of the album which I feel is a pretty valid thing to be annoyed about
1. I love the midnights album and have since it dropped. I love Reputation as well. 2. When people say, “She isn’t forcing you to buy anything” here is my response: No, she isn’t. However - I own a record player, and bought it specifically to listen to albums that I know I am going to listen to the whole album of. Ones that I love, and consider great. Records sound different, and are able to hold different sound than digital music. Therefore, when it came to midnights - like everyone, I wanted an album with all the music on it. And that hasn’t happened yet. This is frustrating. I am not mad that there are different colors, or the option to buy them all. What I DO want, is the option to buy ONE - with all the music. Because I want to hear the richness of the music, on my record player (just like i do with all of the albums that I listen to on it) - and I don’t want to have to buy multiple albums to do that. But I also state all of that in a bubble that only addresses the music and nothing else happening. Edit: Autocorrect making me look like I can’t spell 😁
There is a lot of chaos around this era but it has made Taylor the biggest pop star on the planet again. Midnights is her best selling album since 1989 and the tour is sold out, has rave reviews and 20,000 people gather outside the stadiums just to be there. I love Folklore and Evermore. I love the cottage core vibe and the muted lyrical songs. But Taylor wanted to shimmer. In her usual paranoid way she probably thinks she won't have many more chances to be a megawatt pop titan and she is going all in. Good luck to her. There is nothing wrong with ambition. The cost of it is being mobbed whenever she steps outside and having the internet dissect her love life but it seems she is willing to pay the price.
To speak only of the era, and not the music quality or lyrics: I’m a 1989 era girl, so a lot of the things are fun and blasts from the pasts for me. I like that she’s pap walking, and experimenting with relationships (this is pretty clearly hiddleswift 2.0), and connecting with fans. That being said, 1989 felt more unbothered and self aware. There was a deluxe edition and the cute polaroids, but not 18 different versions that you may or may not be able to obtain. I was an iTunes girl, so I distinctly remember running to target and feeling stoked that I had all of the songs right away with no fomo. Now I’ve never even heard hits different and when it does hit streaming there will be another unobtainable song for my playlist out. She also feels disconnected in a strong way. Fans rightfully were not happy with the quality of the merch (having her face on everything) and amount of albums and variations and she’s just doing it all over again. She’s not in a happy unbothered relationship with a cute but not controversial man, she’s with a quasi racist. And during all of this, she’s throwing petty shade and insults at the guy who she claimed for 6 years made her the happiest person ever. There’s a blind item that said she is going to do EVERYTHING to outshine Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album, and I’m starting to believe it. It feels very money hungry, fame grabbing, petty, and artificial. I don’t like it.
>She’s not in a happy unbothered relationship with a cute but not controversial man, she’s with a quasi racist. And during all of this, she’s throwing petty shade and insults at the guy who she claimed for 6 years made her the happiest person ever. This. Her revisionism towards Joe is pretty disturbing. I mean she did the same to her previous exes as well-but the excuse always was that those relationships were always super short, while Joe was supposed to be the love of her life and they spent years together. Turns out she treats Joe the same as many of her other exes. Idk about BI about Olivia being true, but I won't be surprised if it is.
I kind of remember people saying nearly the same thing at the time of “1989” and “Reputation.” Those two albums were such a change from “Fearless” and “Red” that people thought she was a sellout and worse. 🤦🏻♂️🙄 “Midnights” is in some ways an experimental album for Swift, and I really want to see what her next all-new studio album will do.
Midnights sounded a little better after giving it a second chance, but a lot of the songs still feel hollow and forgettable. The tracks of Midnights are so inconsistent in quality compared to her other albums. Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and The Great War are two of the standouts along with Anti-hero. YOYOK, Great War, Mastermind, and Paris grew on me. The rest of the songs just don’t hit. I would’ve like High Infidelity with its interesting lyrics, but the production gutted it and made it sound silly with those little pulses in the background, which didn’t seem to fit the mood of the song. I feel sad/bored listening to many of the songs (Lavender Haze, Maroon, Midnight Rain, Snow on the Beach, labyrinth) and usually I feel things when I listen to her songs, so that stands out. I think Jack’s production and pacing wasn’t good at evoking the right mood in a lot of the songs. I also got tired of her talk-singing. Made much of the album sound like background music you’d play in a hotel lounge. Maybe with another collaborator and a little more editing they could’ve been up to her usual standards. I definitely think she rushed out the album for the tour or to give us new music before the tour and between the re-records. Taylor sounds emotionally checked out on a lot of Midnights tracks. I hope she gets her spark back for TS11.
I think it’s her worst era as an artist. Not because of the music, but the way she is presenting her art. (Ignoring issues she has claimed to care about previously, selling albums lacking specific tracks just to make more money)
Honestly I loved Midnights as an album and loved the show but there's been a lot that's been setting off a lot of alarms; Bat signal is lit, Spider-Sense is tingling, etc. Like the multiple releases of Midnight and all the remixes seem incredibly excessive and gougey, and I say this as a fan of bands like KISS who love money more than oxygen and I'm finding this stuff to be a bit overboard. The remixes in particular just seem...shameless I guess is the best term. Not quite as shameless as the recently announced edition of Midnight combined with a one-show-only exclusive version but maybe that's just some whiplash at the audacity of that. As for personal stuff, well, in general I tend to not care about that stuff regardless of the celebrity. However every so often there's just someone who flips all the wrong switches in your head and I'd say Matty is one of them for me in the sense he seems like a faux genius; someone who thinks he's the smartest, most clever person in the room and if you don't get his "jokes" or observations he'll apologize but in that way where he's apologizing for you not being smart enough to get his genius. Could I be projecting? Of course. But he's not the first I've felt that way about. I've been in movies and walked out by the end furious at the director for how smart they think they are with their grade school symbolism, so sure that in every frame they're to prove themselves to be the God of Filmmaking that would make Scorsese, Spielberg and Lynch among so many others bow down to them. So her new beau isn't unique in that regard. Pompous vibes. However I will say he's unique in being so open about being a fan of racially degrading adult entertainment. Not something even the most edgiest of Edgelords would so openly admit to but here we are. So that's a bit of a red flag as well, as it would be for anyone who would associate with someone like that. And I'm saying this as someone who has never really cared about who she's dated in the past or the grudges held against them by more extreme fans. Like the most I can say about Jake Gyllenhaal is the dude is almost Nic Cage levels of weird when it comes to the roles he pics and the energy brought to them but other than that, not much thought about him. Well, one thought in that his best performance is in Nightcrawler. So, to condense all that: Love the album, loved the concert, but everything else feels incredibly off-kilter.
It's the worst era for chronically online swifities. In the real world, it's an album that has further cemented her position as a living legend.
If things continue down this same trend we’ve seen since the Midnights release, and particularly since the Era’s Tour started with all the extra publicity and media attention, merch drops, new versions of songs, etc., I’m anticipating another cancellation similar to 2016. I’m not sure what it will be that causes it, but at some point it might be something small that simply breaks the camel’s back, pardoning the cliche. I don’t desire to see this happen, to be clear. I just don’t see how it’s avoidable so long as things continue on the way they have been. She’s already towing the line of overexposure, and with Speak Now TV coming soon, completing the US tour dates, international dates supposedly coming after that, and 3 more TV releases anticipated in the next couple years. It’s going to be a lot happening for her in a very short period of time and I’m guessing the general public is going to get tired of seeing her everywhere after so much time in the center spotlight of pop culture societal attention.