solid 7/10 and the great war is one of my favorite songs of the decade. would have been an 8 if renegade (original version) was on the album. did not deserve aoty though, lana, sza, boygenius and olivia all deserved more

the real conversation to have is that ttpd is taylor's only post-folkmore diva and is kinda a top 5 TS record except that she turned me (and a lot of others, not enough to impact her success duh) off of her during that era for the chart battles she waged against other artists. i get it from a business perspective but it genuinely did change the way i viewed her

Edited February 11Feb 11 by Deactivatedos

It's a good album, probably 7th overall in my Tay album ranking and my 2nd fave pop album of hers after 1989. It's one of those albums that I really appreciate as a whole rather than being that wow'd by any particular songs.

Anti-Hero, Lavender Haze and Maroon are some of my favourites by her. It starts super strong and that flatlines immediately after that 1-2 punch.

2 hours ago, Where are you now? said:

It turned into something bigger
Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed
Your finger on my hair pin triggers
Soldier down on that icy ground
Looked up at me with honor and truth
Broken and blue, so I called off the troops
That was the night I nearly lost you
I really thought I lost you

We can plant a memory garden
Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair
There's no morning glory, it was war, it wasn't fair
And we will never go back

To that bloodshed, crimson clover
Uh-huh, the worst was over
My hand was the one you reached for
All throughout the Great War

This > whole careers.

Midnights is her best album with her two personalities: Pop Taylor and Wood.mp3 Taylor.

Like a 7/10. It's much better than her last 2, but worse than Folklore/Evermore by a considerable margin. I'd say it ranks somewhere in the middle of her discography.

outsold

2 hours ago, Folklore89sm said:

I never associate the 3am songs with the album. If the standard album has one thing going for it, it's that it's tight, sleek, sleepy (not necessarily a bad quality when the execution of the production is pretty flawless even if it's not my thing), dreamscape.

Midnights came at a time when my expectations were massive following folklore and evermore. The artwork and concept looked and sounded like it was going to be the album I'd been/am still waiting for her to put out forever. So when I heard the opening beats of Lavender Haze I was gutted. Not because the song didn't sound good, but because it sounded so different from what I wanted from her.

Looking back on what Midnights was, I actually have to admit that it's a pretty strong record and the production is pretty much perfect for the vision. It will never be in my top half of Taylor albums but there are some great tracks on there. Lavender Haze is a really slick, pounding dark pop sound that genuinely sounds like nothing else in her discography. Maroon is a coming-of-age 80s movie that somehow sounds like it comes from the future. Anti-hero, and particularly the hook, is one of those songs you hear and genuinely think to yourself - how did nobody think of this sooner? SOTB - inspire if its clunky chorus is a shimmery, abstract wintery alt-pop smash. The album starts to lose me with the fan-favourite YOYOK which never goes where it needs to go lyrically and is melodically too repetitive. Something about the narrative doesn't hit the way it should - if you're going to be that autobiographical you need to go somewhere with all the details you're giving. It's very surface level and the song doesn't go off enough to excuse that. Midnight Rain is lyrically middling but the production is pretty cool and original. It does sound like you're sitting in a parked car alone on a rainy night contemplating all of your mistakes.

Then you get to the bad. Question…? Awful. You can't just string random words together and call it a chorus. Vigilante **** is embarrassing. I find Karma - while probably the most explosive song sonically - to just be a bit too cringe.

Then there's the truly "mid" Labyrinth and Sweet Nothing which are just not needed. Again, they sound perfectly pleasant but they're just not interesting.

Mastermind is conceptually interesting and fresh and sonically quite cool but again it just teeters into cringe territory (particularly the last chorus) too far for me to enjoy.

Jack Antonoff's production is exceptional on Midnights despite it also being everything that's been wrong with Taylor's music since 2022. He got her vision and he executed it perfectly. She just had the wrong vision.

If I have to give anything to Midnights, I'd say it's probably Taylor's coolest, quirkiest album. It re-defined her pop sound for the worst but as a standalone album it's a pretty strong 6.5-7/10 that could have been an 8 if she'd trimmed the fat and cut the crap. When there's that few songs on the album they have to all be at least good songs.

This colossal spill. I probably like Midnights more than you, but this was very well stated and I agree with much of it.

it's not

it's the beginning of her creative downfall, and it only got worse

11 minutes ago, zuper said:

This > whole careers.

Preach.

Midnights is her best album with her two personalities: Pop Taylor and Wood.mp3 Taylor.

You mean Pop Taylor and Woodvale.mp3 Taylor

10/10. A contender for my favourite Taylor album.

And my favourite album photoshoot aesthetic

7/10

2 hours ago, Folklore89sm said:

Then you get to the bad. Question…? Awful. You can't just string random words together and call it a chorus. Vigilante **** is embarrassing. I find Karma - while probably the most explosive song sonically - to just be a bit too cringe.

Then there's the truly "mid" Labyrinth and Sweet Nothing which are just not needed. Again, they sound perfectly pleasant but they're just not interesting.

This was all a spill. With Question...? it's like girl we have no idea what you're talking about.

1 minute ago, Where are you now? said:

This was all a spill. With Question...? it's like girl we have no idea what you're talking about.

Who cares about the lyrics. It's a bop (especially the last chorus)

I actually like it. Especially considering it's her last listenable album. But SOS still deserved AOTY over it.

its absolutely background music coded, the haters were kinda right in that and we need to stop lying about it, its so understated in production and sound. But don't get it twisted its a good album! Did it deserve AOTY? Absolutely not. not when SOS and GUTS sat alongside it. Sweet Nothing and Midnights Rain are lyrical standouts. Melody-wise, Anti-Hero, YOYOK and Mastermind are standouts. I did like the theme's of insecurity and late night thoughts because it absolutely was present throughout the record, a very well-thoughtout conceptual album.

But when SOS has something as central as Open Arms or as catchy as Snooze, when GUTS is so much more conceptually thick and sonically consistent (with way more catchy bops) and emotionally powerful ballads, its clear Midnights was a win awarded to Taylormania, not the album itself.

I do think Taylor deserves 4 AOTYs, but I think it should've been Fearless, RED, 1989, and Folklore.

Edited February 12Feb 12 by Swiftienator13

I said "more highs than lows" but it's like 13 tracks on the standard so that's like… 7 highs and 6 lows lol (I'm not actually looking at the tracklist right now so my exact ratio of good to mid might be off, but y'all get what I mean). I do think that You're on Your Own, Kid is a top 15 Taylor song and proves that when she branches out from just writing about love, she can create more uniquely beautiful work. some of the bonus tracks are really incredible, like The Great War and Hits Different

I mean it has:

Wouldve couldve shouldve

The great war

High infidelity

Maroon

Snow on the beach

Midnight Rain

Im afraid it was AOTY worthy based on those tracks alone!

42 minutes ago, TayDuaStan said:

Who cares about the lyrics. It's a bop (especially the last chorus)

I'd normally agree but I don't think it's that much of a bop 😆

All in all it's an alright song. I still listen.

Definition of MID. The highs aren't very high, the lows aren't that low, it's just there, boring

Honestly one of my fave Taylor albums

6.5/7-10

The bonus tracks as a collective bump it up considerably to like an 8 from 6.5-7 for standard, but I find the standard to be a bit samey sonically and not as engaging as her other pop efforts, which set a high benchmark. Pleasant with some great highs (YOYOK, Midnight Rain, Sweet Nothing,) but some lows that I find grating (Karma, Bejeweled, Labyrinth.)

I think my tepidness comes from the fact that the visuals had me perched for a 70's Fleetwood Mac soft rock sonic palette, which would have been perfect as a bridge from Folklore and the TVs to a later pure pop era, so it was disappointing as a longtime fan for her to retread ground I felt was well covered by Lover and Reputation. I also use it the least out of her pop albums sans TLOAS, it even caused Loser to grow on me in comparison

Edited February 12Feb 12 by Veckatimest

It's a good mix of her pop and alternative/indie styles. Lots of replayability.

Still, it's nowhere her Top 5 best albums tho

37 minutes ago, Veckatimest said:

The bonus tracks as a collective bump it up considerably to like an 8 from 6.5-7 for standard, but I find the standard to be a bit samey sonically and not as engaging as her other pop efforts, which set a high benchmark. Pleasant with some great highs (YOYOK, Midnight Rain, Sweet Nothing,) but some lows that I find grating (Karma, Bejeweled, Labyrinth.)

I think my tepidness comes from the fact that the visuals had me perched for a 70's Fleetwood Mac soft rock sonic palette, which would have been perfect as a bridge from Folklore and the TVs to a later pure pop era, so it was disappointing as a longtime fan for her to retread ground I felt was well covered by Lover and Reputation. I also use it the least out of her pop albums sans TLOAS, it even caused Loser to grow on me in comparison

This. I remember hyping it up online as her answer to a The 1975/Arctic Monkeys type record her fans have been wanting her to do for so long. Instead she's doing a lullaby lo-fi soft synthpop return to pop music that just... Was a whole lot of bleh.

I think what hurt Midnights too was that it still had too much of a similarity to Folklore/Evermore in terms of how soft/gentle it was as a record that it sort of bled into this 'samey-same' vibe that was going on for most of Taylor's career post-2020. I was expecting more I Can See You/State of Grace, not Karma is my boyfriend nnnn

What Midnights/TTPD/Showgirl really shows is that Taylor will only really break the mold of what is expected of her once the numbers start drying up and if anything, its only gotten bigger for her.

Edited February 12Feb 12 by Swiftienator13

It was her last ok album

Like that should have been her last pop album while she said goodbye to pop with the eras tour and move on to evolve artistically

Everything after it went downhill