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Oct 20, 2022The subtle melodies of Midnights take time to sink their claws in. But Swift’s feline vocal stealth and assured lyrical control ensures she keeps your attention.
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Oct 20, 2022Her tenth album returns to the dazzling synth-pop of albums like '1989' and 'Reputation,' with lyrics caught between a love story and a revenge plot.
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Oct 20, 2022That confidence is the thing that binds Midnights together. There’s a sure-footedness about Swift’s songwriting, filled with subtle, brilliant touches.
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Oct 24, 2022“Midnights” doesn’t venture as far into other fields as some of her more openly ambitious albums have. This seems like a feature, not a flaw, even if “Folklore” and “Evermore” still feel like her masterpieces to date. The new album benefits from its relative modesty, length-wise and streamlining-wise. ... She’s able to maintain a tighter focus on alternately dark and light nights of the soul, in matters of love, redemption and minor vengeance.
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Nov 4, 2022It allows Swift to do what she has always wanted: make an album for its own sake that is received primarily as a work of art instead of a commercial entity or tabloid fodder.
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Oct 21, 2022The songwriting and the vocal performances here are so strong — she’s playing with cadence and emphasizing the grain of her voice like never before — that eventually you stop caring what’s drawn directly from Swift’s real life and what’s not. It’s just a pleasure to get lost in tunes like “Labyrinth,” in which the singer explores her fear of falling in love again, and “Snow on the Beach,” a gorgeous duet with Lana Del Rey with some of the album’s most affecting imagery.
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Oct 21, 2022It’s an album of expertly crafted dark-pop confessions with flecks of glitter and aspiration — a purposefully fitful project mimicking her racing thoughts. The high-gloss pop production marks Midnights as a sullen sister to Lover, her honey-dipped 2019 effort, rather than a successor to 2020’s heartstrung Folklore and Evermore.
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Oct 21, 2022The result was a rich listening experience, as Swift flew past the mark she set for herself with ease, daring to look further inward than ever before.
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Oct 27, 2022Taken at face value it’s undoubtedly a beautifully crafted album of minimalist ambient electronic pop imbued with subtle elegance, replete with remarkably frank lyrics. ... Whilst lyrically Midnights doesn’t quite match the poetic grandeur of folklore and evermore, there’s plenty of fun to be had, even Swift’s less elegant rhymes don’t jar, served up as they are, with a knowing wink and delivered in an engaging, relatable conversational tone.
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Oct 21, 2022Still, if the songs on Midnights aren't her stickiest, it doesn't much matter while they're playing, given how effectively they generate a mood and paint effective pictures.
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Oct 21, 2022Midnights marks Swift’s self-assured return to her comfort zone: delivering sweeping crowdpleasers and nuanced hard-hitters.
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Nov 2, 2022It is very good. ... There are no major missteps within the album, although not everything works as well as the album’s brightest spots.
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Oct 31, 2022While her 10th album doesn’t make instant classic status like 1989, and Evermore and Folklore remain her masterpieces, it is still an understated, beguiling look into the mind of one of the biggest pop stars of our age.
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Oct 26, 2022Although this monochromatic palette tends to highlight the limits of co-producer Jack Antonoff's bag of tricks -- nothing here feels surprising, even when he's playing with textures and teasing out the music's dream-pop elements -- the narrow focus is the main attributes of Midnights, as it plays to Swift's sense of control and craft: she may be singing about messy emotions but she sculpts those tangled feelings into shimmering, resonant songs.
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Oct 24, 2022Despite beats, synths and a signature “old Taylor” shout (“Nice!”), this is a return to pop that’s content to remain relatively subdued. In this smudged, low-lit headspace, Swift’s perspectives carousel round like a zoetrope.
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Oct 21, 2022As a diary entry, defined by dark nights of the soul and cast in the same bluish-purple hues, ‘Midnights’ offers little of revelatory purpose to those who have yet to succumb to Swift’s charms. For those already swayed by her craft, however, it may reasonably go on to be recognised as her best album to date.
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Oct 20, 2022Jack Antonoff’s fingerprints are easy to spot. The producer layers Taylor’s intimate stories with electronic drums that push certain moments to understated crescendos.
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Oct 20, 2022Midnights represents Swift at a turning point. I am not sure if it is the sign of a curtain falling on her imperial phase or a new pop dawn.
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Oct 20, 2022After a foray into a different sonic world, on Swift’s return to pure pop she still shimmers.
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Oct 24, 2022It’s clear that every listener will read Midnights in their own way – the record is simply too rich to function as background soundtrack. It’s a blistering experience that demands commitment, concentration and deep engagement – it’s an artist banishing their demons.
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Oct 20, 2022Swift’s lyrics can still cut like glass or cast a spell. No matter what era she’s in, it’s the stories—more than anything else—that will always work the hardest. That’s why Taylor Swift is pop royalty. When she tells you she’s a mastermind, believe her.
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Oct 21, 2022Midnights is a record best enjoyed as its own work. It’s an undeniably rich listen, the kind of pop music that feels increasingly rewarding with each pass, and it’s an album that reminds us that Swift has countless stories left to tell.
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Oct 24, 2022Midnights is a slow-burning journey through the labyrinth of Swift's history, groping around in the dim light for the way forward. Sometimes, in the hush of nightfall, catharsis comes quietly.
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Oct 24, 2022Built around vocal effects and vintage synths, it’s an understated sound more interested in setting atmosphere than chasing trends.
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Oct 24, 2022Folklore and Evermore felt innovative in how they rebuilt Swift’s sound from the ground up, but despite its own idiosyncratic delights, Midnights ultimately feels too indebted to her past efforts to truly push her forward. If nothing else, the album proves she’s unwilling to operate on anyone’s terms other than her own.
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Oct 20, 2022Like the best pop stars moving far from their imperial phase, she remains uneven but always fascinating.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2,467 out of 3039
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Mixed: 155 out of 3039
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Negative: 417 out of 3039
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Oct 21, 2022She has done it again. Taylor Swift can do no wrong. This is why so many fade but she’s still here.
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Oct 21, 2022The best album of 2022, Taylor proved once again that she is the artist of our generation.
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Oct 21, 2022