While collecting her award for video of the year at the 2022 VMAs, Taylor Swift made a welcome announcement: she would be dropping her next album, Midnights, on 21 October, described as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”. “We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears,” the pop-music mainstay wrote on Instagram. “We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t – right this minute – about to make some fateful life-altering mistake. This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”

Swift also confirmed that there would be 13 songs on the record in total (her lucky number), sharing their titles one by one with the help of a bingo cage over the last few weeks before posting the full track list on 7 October. Among the more personal songs that fans can expect? “Lavender Haze”, which Swift revealed is partially inspired by her long-term relationship with actor Joe Alwyn. “I happened upon the phrase [lavender haze] when I was watching Mad Men,” the Grammy winner clarified. “I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool. It turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would just describe being in love. If you were in the ‘lavender haze’, then that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow. And I thought that was really beautiful… I guess, theoretically, when you’re in the ‘lavender haze’, you’ll do anything to stay there. And not let people bring you down off of that cloud. I think a lot of people have to deal with this now… because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody they’re going to weigh in on it… like my relationship for six years we’ve had to dodge weird rumours, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”

Also of note: “Anti-Hero”, which Swift referred to as one of her favourite songs she has ever written (“I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before”) and “Snow On The Beach”, which will see Swift collaborate with Lana Del Rey. Already sparking wild fan theories, meanwhile? “Karma”, which Swifties believe is a reference to the star’s lost 2016 album of the same name (the existence of which has never actually been confirmed). While Swift has yet to reveal much about what fans can expect sonically from Midnights, she has disclosed that she’s once gain teamed up with producer Jack Antonoff, with whom she first collaborated on 1989. Aesthetically, the 32-year-old has replaced her cosy Folklore cardigans with a ’70s aesthetic, from disco sequins to corduroy flares. And where Taylor goes…

 

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