While accepting the award for Best Longform Video for her “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)(Taylor’s Version)(From The Vault)” short film in August 2022, Taylor Swift announced her twelfth album, Midnights, and gave the date of release, October 21. Midnights is Swift’s first completely new album since she started re-recording and releasing music sold from her ownership without her permission. When announcing the album online, Swift wrote “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.” She later said, “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight.”

The build up to Midnights has been exciting and tiresome as fans have been staying up until midnight when the “Taylor Nation” social media team were especially active. The hope was that they would be awake if Swift released a single or glimpse into the album. This insomniatic behavior paid off eventually, as Taylor began posting TikTok videos on a schedule to reveal the names, at random, of the 13 songs on the tracklist.  With titles like “Karma” and a feature from popular artist Lana Del Rey, fans have been anxiously awaiting the final #meetmeatmidnight before the release. The “meet me at midnight” hashtag has been used since the album announcement when information about the album is being revealed through social media.

The long wait is finally over as of 12 AM this morning and it was well worth the restless nights. It is safe to say fans of Swift, the recipient of the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award, were left sleepless and speechless after their initial listen, both in awe of the masterful tracks they had just listened to for the first time, but also in waiting for the “special very chaotic surprise” to come at 3 AM. This “special very chaotic surprise” turned out to be, as some fans had speculated, a deluxe “3 AM Edition” album with 7 bonus tracks. The anxious buzz settled in during the fourth quarter of the Cardinals vs Saints game airing on Amazon Prime Video when the teaser trailer for the albums music videos was revealed during a commercial break. 

The album was written by Swift with help from long time collaborator Jack Antanoff as well as other friends and songwriters penning lyrics with the duo for select tracks. Track 12, “Sweet Nothing,” lends a writing credit to William Bowery, which is the pen-name of Swift’s long term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn as well as crediting Dylan O’Brien, Seifts “All Too Well Short Film” co-star as the drummer on “Snow On The Beach.” Fans have been sharing their raving reviews of the album, some even comparing it to albums of the past as is seen in this quote by Twitter user @swiftbunnies, “Midnights has the unwavering boppiness of 1989, the depth of folklore and evermore, the heart of Lover and the middle finger of Reputation” 

A mere 9 hours after the release of the album, the regular and extended versions of “Midnights” are at the number one and the number two spots on the iTunes album charts as well as becoming the most-streamed album in a single day on Spotify. Individual songs are climbing their way up to top chart spots all over the world and the “Anti-Hero” music video, released at 8 AM has 1.2 million views after just over an hour since its release. 

The next projects expected from Swift are the Midnights music videos, described as “music movies” who’s release dates are yet to be announced to the public and the tour that has been confirmed by the UK online  merch store which was giving concert ticket presale codes to fans who purchased merchandise through the merch website.