It snowed here the last few days, and the city doesn’t handle it very well. My car handles it even worse, so I have been taking the bus and walking most of the week. This has been surprisingly restful, and moreover, it has given me a lot of down time on the commute to listen to this next record and grok it in its fullness.
Disc 1706 is…Midnights
Artist: Taylor Swift
Year of Release: 2022
What’s up with the Cover? Taylor in soft focus, looking very 1970s. Without the big borders on two sides this could be a Giant Head Cover, but there is just too much white space and not enough Giant Head to qualify.
How I Came To Know It: Now that I’ve opened my ears and my heart to Taylor Swift’s music, I tend to buy whatever her latest release is. That’s what happened in 2022 with this album.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Taylor Swift albums. I put “Midnights” in at #4.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
After exploring the world of indie folk-pop on her 2020 pandemic records (“Folklore”, “Evermore”) Taylor Swift returns fully and completely to pop bangers on “Midnights”. I’ll miss her folkier side, but “Midnights” is a worthy entry into Swift’s impressive canon of work.
Like a lot of anthemic radio friendly pop these days, on “Midnights” the production and mixing are as much a star as the vocals and instruments. The record is laden with literal bells, whistles, overdubs, electronic drumbeats and pretty much every trick that pop music has in its considerable arsenal to make your ears feel good.
A big part of pop production’s success is the science of having new sounds appear at clever times that your ear is expecting. A twinkle of bell in one bar, then missing in the next one at the same spot, all so you can revel in knowing just when to make a ring the bell gesture as you sing along, and when to share a smile with others similarly informed and not make the gesture. It lends itself to music that is best when played over and over again, welcoming familiarity.
I knew I was being manipulated by Swift and fellow producer and serial hit-maker Jack Antonoff do it so well I didn’t mind. It avoids all the busyness present in lesser efforts and dresses the songs in the best outfits possible. It also helps that Swift is a generational talent when it comes to writing a pop hook, and a catchy melody. Whether you like her or not, there’s a reason she’s sold this many records; under all the marketing, outfits, concerts and media drama, it’s the quality of the songs that brings me to the party.
The album features the usual Swift fare of relationships remembered with fondness (and a little bitterness where appropriate) and a lot of life-journey type stuff where Swift reflects on how she got here, and just what “here” means. She very much wants her audience to know that being the most famous woman on the planet can still make for hard days.
The best of this theme, and the best song on the record by a good margin is “Anti-Hero”. This song has Taylor exploring whether she is, in fact, still a good person. Hard to know when you enter the rarified air of being surrounded by a team of people whose job is literally you. A place where everyone loves you – which is very much a different thing from being a good person.
In the song, Swift compares herself to various old movie monsters. The song has some grade-A Swift lyrics, none better than:
“It's
me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
“Sometimes
I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed”
Here we have a lot of vampire imagery, which goes well with the song’s opening that suggest insomnia and bad sleeping habits. The hook on “Anti-Hero” is…er…off the hook. It is one of those pop songs you sing along with and after it ends, you want to hear it all over again.
The album has some shortcomings. The production decisions are always brilliant, but that doesn’t mean I love all of them. A thing can work, but still not be how I would do it. I’m sure this criticism does not give Antonoff any sleepless nights.
The low vocals on “Midnight Rain” (either Swift put through a lot of effects, or a dude) made me want to reach into the speaker and throttle said dude. No need, because the singer already sounded like they were being strangled.
Minor quibbles however, on a record that is great stuff. Swift has been doing this for so long now that we expect this level of excellence, and once again she’s delivered.
Best tracks: Anti-Hero, You’re On Your Own Kid, Question…?, Karma
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