Have you been keeping a close eye on the time? We are now only days and hours away from Taylor Swift releasing her newest album Midnights on Friday. Swift is taking a break from her rerecording and rereleasing her old albums, in a bid to gain control of her masters, and giving us a whole record’s worth of new material to enjoy for the first time since the release of Evermore in December 2020.
First announced on Aug. 29, the album will tell the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout Swift’s life, with one track set to feature one of her own favorite artists, Lana del Rey. Songs are all written by Swift, with additional writing credits going to established collaborators Jack Antonoff and William Bowery (otherwise known as her partner Joe Alwyn) and new writing partner Zoe Kravitz.
Over the past few weeks, Swift has been revealing the track names from the album via a series of TikTok skits she’s called “Midnights Mayhem With Me.” The standard version of Midnights will feature 13 tracks, but the deluxe version will include three bonus tracks — two remixes and one original song.
Swift is now working with Spotify to reveal individual lyrics from the album on billboards around the world. The first, which appeared in New York on Monday, said: “I should not be left to my own devices.” Later that day, another lyric appeared in London, saying: “I polish up real nice.”
Where to stream Midnights
Just like Swift’s last two albums, Folklore and Evermore, Midnights is bound to be a cultural phenomenon that will have the entire music world talking. If you want to be among the first to know what all the fuss is about, you’ll be able to listen from midnight ET and 5 a.m. BST on Friday, or 9 p.m. PT on Thursday.
You’ll be able to stream the album on all major platforms and can be among the first to get your hands on the lavender deluxe edition of Midnights from Target.
Pre-order and pre-save the new album now.
Midnights music videos
During her pre-pandemic album rollouts, Swift put out lead singles such as Shake It Off, Look What You Made Me Do and ME! before the album dropped. This isn’t the case with Midnights. Instead, she’s following the same strategy as with Folklore and Evermore, where she released a video for one of the album tracks at the same time the album comes out.
The first of these videos will be for track three, Anti-Hero and will premiere on YouTube at 8 a.m. ET on Friday (5 a.m. PT, 1 p.m. BST). In a video posted to Instagram, Swift described Anti-Hero as one of her favorite tracks she’s ever written. “I don’t think I’ve ever delved this deep into my insecurities in this detail before,” she said.
Lyric videos for all tracks will follow later the same day at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT, 1 a.m. BST on Saturday). A further music video for a currently unconfirmed track will then be available at midnight on Oct. 25.
A ‘chaotic surprise’ and other important Midnights events
As part of the Midnights album rollout, Swift has some other treats up her sleeves for avid fans. The first will come in the form of a teaser trailer for the album during the third quarter of the NFL game on Thursday on Prime Video. Next up will be what Swift has described as “a chaotic surprise” at 3 a.m. ET (midnight PT, 8 a.m. BST) on Friday. Then along with the Anti-Hero video release will be something she’s describing as the #TSAntiHeroChallenge on YouTube Shorts.
Swift is also set to make several talk show appearances, including the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Oct. 25 and the Graham Norton show on Oct. 28.
It looks like a packed schedule for Taylor and Swifties everywhere — best get some sleep while you can.
