Taylor Swifthas revealed her “special very chaotic surprise.”
Afterhyping up the early-morning announcementon her social media earlier this week, the 11-time Grammy winner announced Friday that she is releasing seven extra songs on hernewMidnightsalbumunder the titleMidnights (3am Edition).
The new songs are listed as “The Great War,” “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” “Paris,” “High Infidelity,” “Glitch,” “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” and “Dear Reader.”
“Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour,” Swift posted on Instagram, early Friday. “However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I’m calling them 3am tracks.”
“Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks,” she added. “So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.”
Swift’s announcement followed the arrival of her 10th studio album as the clock struck 12 on Friday morning.
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Taylor Swift.Beth Garrabrant
Sonically, the new record — with its woozy synths, trap beats and drum machines — is most similar to the industrial pop deep cuts of her underrated 2017 LPreputation, with some of the more exciting, experimental moments fromLoverandevermore.
And this collection of songs is versatile enough — it could soundtrack a party, a rendezvous with a lover or just a solo night in with a bottle of Malbec.
Thematically,Midnightsexplores some familiar topics for Swift: love, revenge and public image. On the fantastic album opener “Lavender Haze,” the star sings of hersix-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwynand the endless engagement rumors and scrutiny they’ve weathered (“All they keep asking me / Is if I’m gonna be your bride / The only kind of girl they see / Is a one night or a wife”).
With the contemplative love song “Sweet Nothing,” Alwyn (under his pen name William Bowery) receives his sixth songwriting credit on a Swift project.
He’s not the only collaborator on the album, either: Longtime creative partner Jack Antonoff returns as a cowriter and producer. And Lana Del Rey, who has long inspired Swift (see: “Wildest Dreams,” “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince”), joined her to cowrite and deliver vocals on “Snow on the Beach,” a poetic, sweeping rumination on romance with an incredible Janet Jackson shoutout: “It’s like snow at the beach / Weird but f—ing beautiful … Now I’m all for you like Janet.”
In a separate Instagram post ahead of her 3 a.m. revelation, Swift revealed more about the album’s creation.
Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and Lana De Rey.Taylor Swift Instagram
“We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama,” she added. “Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.
“We were so lucky to also work with our brilliant collaborators@sam_dew,@sounwave, Lana Del Rey,@jahaansweet,@keanubeats, William Bowery, and@zoeisabellakravitz.@sharp_stickwas our excellent engineer. The wonderful and wise@bethgarrabranttook the album photographs. Midnights is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows. Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely. Just like Midnights. Which is out now.”
source: people.com
