Two Years Later, Taylor Swift’s Midnights Is Still Keeping Us Awake and Overthinking

The album that dominated the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. One of the largest vinyl record sales weeks in over thirty years. 2024 GRAMMY Album of the Year. These are just some of the highlighted accolades of Taylor Swift‘s tenth studio album, Midnights. Now two years out from its release, few albums have changed music like Midnights did.  

Midnights was written as a concept album of “thirteen sleepless nights,” categorized by the themes of wondering what might have been, revenge, self-loathing, falling in love, and falling apart.  While this may seem like a vague concept, when coupled with immersive production and illustrative lyrical precision, the concept shines in such a way that Midnights has kept us pondering and overthinking about its content, even two years after its release.

The album opens with the pounding synth bass and sultry “meet me at midnight” of ‘Lavender Haze.’  After taking a break from electro-pop for every album since 2017’s reputation, ‘Lavender Haze’ served as an ear-catching reminder that Taylor is the master of any genre.  While ‘Lavender Haze’ may fall into the category of a sleepless night thinking about falling in love, track two, ‘Maroon,’ is one of those nights spent falling apart. Something of an anti-’Cornelia Street’ from 2019’s Lover, this is Taylor Swift’s captivating storytelling at its very finest. 

While the dramatic and crackly self-loathing of the megahit ‘Anti-Hero’ almost laughs at solitary scrutiny, infamous-Track Five ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ wanders through years of memories of feelings of solitude, loneliness, and self-discovery in almost a fantasy-like lens. Solo-written ‘Vigilante Shit’ holds down the category of sleepless nights thinking about revenge all on its own.  It has pared-back production but remains effective in being sultry, conniving, and wickedly clever.  This one teaches the lesson that if you cross Miss Swift, Tayvoodoo is coming for you because she “doesn’t start shit but [she] can tell you how it ends.”

Midnights holds some of the most influential and controversial tracks of Taylor’s songwriting career: ‘Bejeweled’ – the brilliant, sparkly pop smash hit with impeccable production and whip-smart lyrics, ‘Labyrinth’ – the soft and captivating ode to falling in love again, ‘Karma’ – the cheeky, carefree, and addictive smash with the chorus that we’ve all come to know: “Karma is a god/Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend/Karma’s a relaxing thought/Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?“, ‘Question…?’ – the continuation of story started back on 1989 in which a certain GRAMMY-winning ex-boyband member may have ended what they both considered a cataclysmic “meteor strike” of a relationship by involving another woman without offering a whole lot of closure.  

The standard Midnights album closes with ‘Mastermind,’ a mesmerizing tale of manipulating fate.  From being “cryptic and Machiavellian because [she] care[s]” to the understated genius of planning each calculated move, ‘Mastermind’ on the surface is viewed through the lens of the beginnings of a relationship.  However, under the surface, ‘Mastermind’ is a tumultuous look into the carefully strategized mind of an exceptionally smart tour de force we all know as Taylor Swift.

Now two years later, we’ve seen the late-night release of Midnights (3am Edition), the roll-out of ‘You’re Losing Me (From the Vault)’ through CDs at the MetLife Stadium stop of The Eras Tour, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs,” the ‘Bejeweled’ TikTok dance, and last but certainly not least the millions of friendship bracelets traded around the world thanks to a single lyric from ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid.’ Be sure to let us know your favorite tracks and memories from Midnights by tweeting us at @thehoneypop or visiting us on Facebook and Instagram.

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