Description
COLOUR: Blood Moon, Moonstone Blue & Jade Green EXTRAS: Limited
With its confident songwriting and understated synth-pop, Swift’s sophisticated 10th album indicates that she no longer feels she has to compete with her peers.
Midnights delivers her firmly from what she called the “folklorian woods” of her last two albums back to electronic pop. There are filtered synth tones, swoops of dubstep-influenced bass, trap and house-inspired beats and effects that warp her voice to a point of androgyny on Midnight Rain and Labyrinth, the latter a leading choice given the preponderance of lyrics that protest gender stereotyping, or “that 1950s shit they want from me”, as Lavender Haze puts it.
Equally, something of Folklore and Evermore’s understated nature hangs around Midnights. It’s an album that steadfastly declines to deal in the kind of neon-hued bangers that pop stars usually return with, music brash enough to cut through the hubbub. The sound is misty, atmospheric and tastefully subdued.