Bonus tracks, new video, a Spotify crash: Swift’s ‘Midnights’ is full of surprises
Swift’s Midnights has already had a wild journey through the world of music (it’s gone more than six weeks in total on the Billboard charts; it has been a Billboard #1, a #1 on the iTunes singles charts; a No. 1 on the iTunes singles charts; and a featured song and video on the New York Times’ Tastemaker list), but a new video for the album’s new single, “A Long Engagement,” sees Swift in an even wilder, even more unpredictable, even more surreal environment — her face on the cover of the Vogue.com is a different Swift than the Swift we’ve ever seen before, and in the new vid, she puts that face right in front of the camera, in what looks like the act of self-mutilation, as she puts one hand through the face on the cover of the magazine.
Swift also told Billboard that “Midnights” is the most bizarre album she’s ever put out, in terms of style, content, production, and themes (it’s got a bunch of metaphors, lots of them directed at women, and it’s also a story about trying to find one’s self in the eyes of the world). And while the most interesting thing about the new album is that it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve ever heard before — it’s got the swells and the soul, but it’s also a completely different thing — the most interesting thing about the album might be how much we’re hearing the first sound bites from a different side of the world.
“It’s not like ‘Midnights’ is the first music of mine to be out on radio and all of this stuff, because a lot of music I put out was for us for us,” Swift said, via email. “But because of ‘Midnights,’ we’re hearing that more and more people seem to be able to listen to all the music we put out.
