Taylor Swift - Midnights (October 21, 2022) Album • Page 57

"Least outstanding" is a good way to describe it. Overall I think it's quite good, and I like the sonic palette she and Jack are working with, but I'm not sure the songwriting matches the highs of previous records. But still, there's a lot to like about it.

 

Yeah to me it’s like Lucky Town or better yet, Around the World in a Day. An accomplished and worthy record from a great artist that we’re all kinda hard on because said artist has some of the greatest albums of all time in the back catalog.

 

I like the Tom Breihan review. I agree that the album has a number of very not good lyrics which sometimes add to the fun. but I think evermore has the best lyrics of her career by far and the approach this time around is obviously very very different which I think sometimes works against her strengths in that department.

I am hearing a lot that this album has no bangers. I think Bejeweled and Karma are bangers is my conception of a banger wrong?

 

I fear the day they listen to Blue or Pink Moon or Songs of Leonard Cohen. A veritable banger desert.

What a vapid metric to assess an album by

 

“From the Morning” is a fucking bop.

 

Karma is absolutely a banger imo. Also, sweet like honey karma is a cat purring in my lap cause it loves me is the best bad line of all time. Favorite song on the album and that just puts it over the top.

On the flipside I think the chorus of Question might be one the worst things she’s ever put on a record haha at least for my tastes. I think she’s generally a good lyricist even when awkward, but the all your friends were laughing at you and fifteen seconds later they were clapping too is the most quintessentially awkward Taylor Swift line ever.

wrapping up another run through of of it all right now, You’re On Your Own Kid and Midnight Rain really stuck out to me this time as the high point. That’s the Swift/Antonoff combo at the height of its powers. Also the end run is fantastic, can’t believe there were people calling this frontloaded.

 

Anti-Hero, Midnight Rain, Labyrinth, Sweet Nothings, and You’re On Your Own Kid probably shake out to be my top 5 in no particular order.

 

My wife is my banger litmus test and those 2 are her favorite songs, follow by Midnight Rain.

 

better than when she was cosplaying as a normie who pays bills and works a job haha

 

they're both definitely bangers, the most you can argue it's shit she's explored before but that's kind of her thing haha

 

Listen man, I’m sure you’re big enough.

 

Not that it matters in the end, but I am pretty interested in the bonus tracks and their origins.

We know from Taylor's note that Midnights was done just with Jack as a main collaborator, while their significant others were away shooting movies, etc. So this makes me wonder if Aaron was somehow involved in the beginning, but then she moved toward a Jack solo album, or if the 3 Aaron tracks are actually from earlier sessions around folklore/evermore. I honestly think that at least The Great War and Would've Could've Should've were from the folklore/evermore sessions, thematically they do sound similar. But High Infidelity does feel pretty thematically fitting with Midnights, so who knows... Maybe when evermore was being crafted, and turning out to be more introspective and downtempo, these three songs didn't fit so she held onto them.

And then "Hits Different" honestly just feels cut from a completely different cloth of Midnights or folklore/evermore. It truly feels like something from the better half of Lover and I'm sticking with that theory for now, that it was essentially a Lover b-side that she hasn't done anything with yet. You could also convince me it was a Vault song from Fearless/Red too. Also kinda explains why it would be the sole song not part of Midnights or 3am Midnights, but standing alone for Target

 

While I, like many don’t buy her femme fatale depiction she puts on, I do feel that this succeeds in creating a dark edgy ness where Reputation failed for me.

 

My one big gripe with Tom’s write up is where he talks about there being no bangers on this album and then lists bangers from the discography. My guy, “Back to December” is not a banger.

 

yeah this is partly what made me question whether or not i know the meaning of the word lmao. power ballad maybe?

 

This album is really fucking good.

I have to think that at least some of the talk about it sounding bad or flat or Jack's crappy production had to be coming from people listening to the 128 Kbps leak, because this album sounds scrumptious.

 

I'd like to nominate

Sip quiet by my side in the shade
And not the kind that’s thrown
I mean, the kind under where a tree has grown

for worst lyric of her career

 

#bars

 

I think this is her best album. Lyrics, production, vibes all hitting for me. This and 1975 are neck and neck for AOTY

 

Has her absolutely wild way to hold a pencil been brought up?

 

Yep, for the last 15 years haha, it's insane, there's so many mindbending photos of it if you search