midnights
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Taylor Swift’s Midnights logs a fifth week atop the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 10), while a flurry of holiday albums jingles in the top 10. Midnights earned 151,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week ending Dec. 1 in the U.S. (down 15%), according to Luminate. The last Swift album with more weeks at No. 1 is Folklore, which notched eight nonconsecutive weeks atop the list in 2020. Since then, she’s claimed four more chart-topping albums: Evermore (four weeks at No. 1 in 2020-21), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (two weeks, 2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (one week in 2021) and Midnights (five weeks so far).
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Also in the top 10, catalog holiday albums powered by streaming activity make waves as Michael Bublé’s former No. 1 Christmas rises 10-4, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song vaults 18-8 and Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack jumps 17-10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 10, 2022-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Dec. 6). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Midnights’ 151,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units comprise 89,000 (down 24%, equaling 117.93 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks), album sales comprise 60,000 (up 5%) and SEA units comprise 2,000 (down 6%).
Five former No. 1s are Nos. 2-6 on the latest Billboard 200 chart. Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss holds at No. 2 (93,000 equivalent album units earned; down 22%), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is stationary at No. 3 (52,000 units; down 7%), Bublé’s Christmas climbs 10-4 (47,000 units; up 55%), Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me falls 4-5 (43,000 units; down 10%) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album dips 5-6 (40,000 units; down 3%). The Weeknd’s compilation The Highlights descends 6-7 with 40,000 units (up 2%).
Cole’s The Christmas Song rises 18-8 with 36,000 equivalent album units (up 58%). The album, which includes such seasonal favorites like the title track and “O Holy Night,” peaked at No. 6 two holiday seasons ago, on the Jan. 2, 2021-dated chart. Harry Styles’ chart-topping Harry’s House falls 8-9 with 35,000 units (up 5%). Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack jumps 17-10 with 33,000 units (up 45%). The seasonal set peaked at No. 6 nearly a year ago on the Jan. 1, 2022-dated list.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Taylor Swift brought fans a more mature version of “Red” with “Maroon,” off her new album Midnights.
With her 10th studio album, Swift made one of the most historic weeks in the 64-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as she became the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame. “Maroon” came in at No. 3.
If you need a guide to follow along with Taylor Swift’s “Maroon,” find the lyrics below:
When the morning came we were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf‘Cause we lost track of time againLaughing with my feet in your lapLike you were my closest friendHow’d we end up on the floor anyway? You say“Your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé, that’s how”I see you every day now
And I chose youThe one I was dancin’ withIn New York, no shoesLooked up at the sky and it was
The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into meAnd how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it wasThe mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephonesThe lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon
When the silence came, we were shaking blind and hazyHow the hell did we lose sight of us again?Sobbin’ with your head in your handsAin’t that the way shit always ends?You were standing hollow-eyed in the hallwayCarnations you had thought were roses, that’s usI feel you no matter whatThe rubies that I gave up
And I lost youThe one I was dancin’ withIn New York, no shoesLooked up at the sky and it was maroon
The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into meAnd how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was (maroon)The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephonesThe lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was (maroon)
And I wake with your memory over meThat’s a real fucking legacy, legacy (it was maroon)And I wake with your memory over meThat’s a real fucking legacy to leave
The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into meAnd how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet (it was maroon)The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephonesThe lips I used to call home, so scarlet (it was maroon)
It was maroonIt was maroon
Lyrics licensed & provided by LyricFind
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Jack Michael Antonoff, Taylor Alison Swift
Welcome to The Contenders, a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 albums chart dated Nov. 26): Two of the most historic names in rap and rock compete with a solo Directioner, as each of them try to knock Taylor Swift’s Midnights and Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss out of the top two spots.
Louis Tomlinson, Faith in the Future (BMG): Back in early 2020, Louis Tomlinson became the last of the five One Direction alums to release a solo album with the No. 9-peaking Walls. He seems likely to return to the top 10 next week with sophomore set Faith in the Future, released last Friday (Nov. 11), which Tomlinson recently described to Billboard as “the record I always wanted to make.”
Helping Tomlinson’s sales total for the new album will be a wide variety of physical options for sale: 10 vinyl variants (including a signed one), a Newbury Comics-exclusive CD with a signed insert, a Target-exclusive CD, a zine CD deluxe package, and even three cassettes.
Bruce Springsteen, Only the Strong Survive (Columbia): Only a handful of artists in history have visited the top of the Billboard 200 more often than The Boss, who has 11 No. 1 albums ranging from 1980’s The River to 2014’s High Hopes. Can he get there again with a new set of covers? He’ll try with Only the Strong Survive, which honors what Springsteen calls “the great American songbook of the ’60s and ’70s,” including classics made famous by Jerry Butler, Ben E. King and The Temptations.
He almost did once already. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a tribute to folk legend Pete Seeger, peaked at No. 3 in 2006 — and every album of newly recorded studio material released by Springsteen so far this century has reached the chart’s top three.
Nas, King’s Disease III (Mass Appeal): Nas received acclaim for the first two installments of his King’s Disease series, both recorded with producer Hit-Boy — including a pair of top five entries on the Billboard 200 and a Grammy nomination each for best rap album, with the first set even giving the rapper his first Grammy win in 2019.
We’ll need to wait another year to find out if King’s Disease III can make it three-for-three with the Grammy recognition, but next week we’ll see if it can match the chart success of the first two. But unlike the first two sets, which boasted guest appearances from the starry likes of Lil Durk, Eminem and Ms. Lauryn Hill, King’s Disease III includes no big features.
In the Mix
GloRilla, Anyways, Life’s Great… (CMG/Interscope): GloRilla is one of this year’s hip-hop breakout success stories, with a pair of vicious Hot 100 hits in HitKidd collab “F.N.F.” and Cardi B teamup “Tomorrow 2,” and now a Grammy nomination for the former in best rap performance. Both songs are featured on her debut EP, Anyways, Life’s Great…, along with seven other hard-hitting tracks to prime audiences for one of the most-anticipated rap debut albums of the next few years.
Rauw Alejandro, Saturno (Sony Music Latin/Duars): Few Latin pop stars outside of his “Party” collaborator Bad Bunny have been as visible on the Billboard charts recently as Rauw Alejandro, who scored his first Hot 100 top 40 hit last year with “Todo de Ti” and has kept the momentum going in 2022 with hits like “Desperados” and “Lokera.” It’s led to the release of his high-octane third studio album, Saturno, which features Alejandro motoring down the same dark, neon-lit sonic highways as The Weeknd’s last couple efforts.
Wizkid, More Love, Less Ego (Starboy/RCA): It’s been a slow and steady trek to global domination for Afrobeats star Wizkid, who topped the Hot 100 in 2016 as a guest on Drake’s “One Dance” and hit the top 10 as a lead artist in 2021 with the unstoppable “Essence.” The Nigerian star takes another victory lap with this month’s More Love, Less Ego, boosted by an internationally streamed live performance in London this Monday, hosted by Apple Music.
Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion (UMG): Guns N’ Roses‘ dual album set of Use Your Illusion I & II debuted in the top two spots of the Billboard 200 back in October 1991 — with II inching past its counterpart. The two sets are combined on this month’s Use Your Illusion (Super Deluxe) box set of seven CDs and 12 LPs, including two early-’90s live shows, while CD and vinyl reissues of each of the individual UYI sets are also available for purchase.
Taylor Swift played with vocal production on her Midnights track, “Midnight Rain,” a ode to the boy who searched for “comfortable” in the wrong place.
With her 10th studio album, Swift made one of the most historic weeks in the 64-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as she became the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame. “Midnight Rain” came in at No. 5.
If you need a guide to follow along with Taylor Swift’s “Midnight Rain,” find the lyrics below:Rain, he wanted it comfortableI wanted that painHe wanted a brideI was making my own nameChasing that fameHe stayed the sameAll of me changed like midnight
My town was a wastelandFull of cages, full of fencesPageant queens and big pretendersBut for some it was paradise
My boy was a montageA slow-motion love potionJumping off things in the oceanI broke his heart ’cause he was niceHe was sunshine, I was midnight
Rain, he wanted it comfortableI wanted that painHe wanted a brideI was making my own nameChasing that fameHe stayed the sameAll of me changed like midnight
It came like a postcardPicture perfect, shiny familyHoliday peppermint candyBut for him it’s every day
So I peered through a windowA deep portal, time travelAll the love we unraveledAnd the life I gave away‘Cause he was sunshine, I was midnight
Rain, he wanted it comfortableI wanted that painHe wanted a brideI was making my own nameChasing that fameHe stayed the sameAll of me changed like midnight
Rain, he wanted it comfortableI wanted that painHe wanted a brideI was making my own nameChasing that fameHe stayed the sameAll of me changed like midnight
I guess sometimes we all getJust what we wanted, just what we wantedAnd he never thinks of meExcept when I’m on TV
I guess sometimes we all getSome kind of haunted, some kind of hauntedAnd I never think of himExcept on midnights like this(Midnight’s like this, midnight’s like this)
Lyrics licensed & provided by LyricFind
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Jack Michael Antonoff, Taylor Alison Swift
Taylor Swift introduced fans to the world of Midnights with the album’s opening track, “Lavender Haze,” a purple-hued love song.
With her 10th studio album, Swift made one of the most historic weeks in the 64-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as she became the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame. “Lavender Haze” clocked in at No. 2, just behind lead single “Anti-Hero.”
If you need a guide to follow along with Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze,” find the lyrics below:
Meet me at midnight(Ooh, ooh, ooh, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa)
Staring at the ceiling with youOh, you don’t ever say too muchAnd you don’t really read intoMy melancholia
I’ve been under scrutiny (yeah, oh yeah)You handle it beautifully (yeah, oh yeah)All this sh– is new to me (yeah, oh yeah)
I feel a lavender haze creeping up on meSo real, I’m damned if I do give a damn what people sayNo deal, the 1950s sh– they want from meI just wanna stay in that lavender haze(Ooh, ooh, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa)
All they keep asking me (all they keep asking me)Is if I’m gonna be your brideThe only kind of girl they see (the only kind of girl they see)Is a one night or a wife
I find it dizzying (yeah, oh yeah)They’re bringing up my history (yeah, oh yeah)But you aren’t even listening (yeah, oh yeah)
I feel a lavender haze creeping up on meSo real, I’m damned if I do give a damn what people sayNo deal, the 1950s sh– they want from meI just wanna stay in that lavender haze (ooh, ooh, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa)That lavender haze
Talk your talk and go viralI just need this love spiralGet it off your chestGet it off my desk (get it off my desk)Talk your talk and go viralI just need this love spiralGet it off your chestGet it off my desk
I feel (I feel) a lavender haze creeping up on meSo real, I’m damned if I do give a damn what people sayNo deal (no deal), the 1950s sh– they want from meI just wanna stay in that lavender haze(Ooh, ooh, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa)
Get it off your chestGet it off my deskThat lavender hazeI just wanna stayI just wanna stayIn that lavender haze
Lyrics licensed & provided by LyricFind
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Jack Michael Antonoff, Jahaan Akil Sweet, Mark Anthony Spears, Samuel Joseph Dew, Taylor Alison Swift, Zoe I. Kravitz
Taylor Swift is allowing fans to dance through their sorrows by unveiling not one, but two more remixes of her Midnights track, “Anti-Hero.”
“Take your self loathing to the dancefloor,” Swift tweeted on Thursday (Nov. 10) to announce the new spins on the song by DJs Kungs and Jayda G.
The song is currently only available as a digital single for purchase on Swift’s website. However, the previously released Bleachers collaborative version of the track was made available on streaming services the day after release.
Just a day before releasing the two new remixes, Swift unveiled Roosevelt’s breezy take on the track, posting it along with a clip from the “Anti-Hero” music video, in which her future children and daughter-in-law battle it out while laying the Grammy winning superstar to rest.
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The vulnerable “Anti-Hero” is continuing its groundbreaking success as it spends a second week this week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. A week earlier, it debuted at the summit, as Swift made history as the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame.
The single also posts a second week atop the Streaming Songs chart; jumps 9-4 on Digital Song Sales; and dips 13-14 on Radio Songs. (As previously reported, this week’s Billboard airplay charts are the first using Mediabase-monitored data; this week’s Radio Songs chart incorporates data from former monitoring service BDS for Oct. 28-30 and from Mediabase for Oct. 31-Nov. 3, with Mediabase data to power the survey going forward).
Taylor Swift is continuing to treat fans when it comes to Midnights lead single “Anti-Hero,” and the star unveiled a new version of the track, a remix by Roosevelt, on Wednesday (Nov. 9).
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“The anti hero (Roosevelt remix) makes me feel hyped enough for an imaginary funeral brawl,” Swift wrote on Twitter, along with a clip from her “Anti-Hero” music video, in which her future children and daughter-in-law battle it out while laying the Grammy winning superstar to rest.
The song is currently only available as a digital single for purchase on Swift’s website. However, the previously released Bleachers collaborative version of the track was made available on streaming services the day after release.
“Anti-Hero” spends a second week this week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. A week earlier, it debuted at the summit, as Swift made history as the first artist to claim the survey’s entire top 10 in a single frame.
The single also posts a second week atop the Streaming Songs chart; jumps 9-4 on Digital Song Sales; and dips 13-14 on Radio Songs. (As previously reported, this week’s Billboard airplay charts are the first using Mediabase-monitored data; this week’s Radio Songs chart incorporates data from former monitoring service BDS for Oct. 28-30 and from Mediabase for Oct. 31-Nov. 3, with Mediabase data to power the survey going forward).
Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff took their history of musical collaboration to a new level on Monday (Nov. 7) when they unveiled a new version of the Midnights track “Anti-Hero,” featuring Antonoff’s solo project Bleachers.
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In the new version, Antonoff takes over the second verse, changing the viral “sexy baby” lyric to “art bro.” He sings, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is an art bro lately / And I just judge them on the hill / To hard to hang out talking s— about your famous baby / Pierce through the heart of 90s guilt.”
A sweet moment in the pre-chorus finds Swift singing, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman,” before Antonoff assures her, “Taylor, you’ll be fine.”
In a post shared to Instagram announcing the new collaboration, Swift captioned a photo of the Grammy winning duo, “Jack’s version of ‘sexy baby’ is ‘art bro’ and we sincerely hope it confuses just as many people.”
Antonoff is credited with co-writing 11 of the 13 songs on the traditional version of Swift’s freshly released 10th studio album, Midnights, including the original version of “Anti-Hero.” In an Instagram post, Swift elaborated on the duo working on the project. “We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama,” she wrote. “Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
See Swift’s “Anti-Hero (featuring Bleachers)” announcement below.
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Over a decade and a half into her career as a Billboard hitmaker, Taylor Swift is currently enjoying her best week ever on the charts.
Her Midnights album makes history this week, officially moving 1.578 million equivalent album units in its debut frame — the best opening bow not just for any Swift album, but for any album released in the past 20 years outside of Adele’s 25. And over on the Hot 100, Midnights becomes the first album (and Swift the first artist) to occupy all 10 spots in the Hot 100’s top 10 simultaneously, led by lead single “Anti-Hero” at No. 1.
Why is Taylor Swift posting these jaw-dropping numbers this deep into her career? And will Midnights be remembered by fans as a career high for her? Billboard writers answer these questions and more below.
1. Taylor Swift makes a historic showing on both the albums and songs fronts this week, moving 1.5 million units of her Midnights album — most of her career and most for any non-Adele artist of the last 20 years — while also becoming the first artist ever to occupy all 10 spots in the Hot 100’s top 10 simultaneously. Which, in your mind, is the more impressive achievement of the two?
Katie Atkinson: They’re both massive, but I’m going to have to go with occupying the full Hot 100 top 10. Drake’s come close, holding nine of the 10 spots, but all 10 is a special kind of domination. It’s obviously a symptom of the way we consume music and the way we track listening these days – it’s a fun game to think about what other artists might have held those top 10 spots at once if streaming were around in earlier eras – but being able to plant her flag as the first artist to ever achieve the feat is something no one can take away from her.
Hannah Dailey: The simultaneous top 10 spots. As mind-bogglingly impressive as her sales record is, there’s something about the recognition that the Hot 100 gives an artist that feels even more special. The 1.5 million units shows that Swifties are showing out for their favorite artist, but the chart proves that she pretty much has the whole world listening, too.
Jason Lipshutz: Somehow, becoming the first artist to occupy all 10 spots in the Hot 100’s top 10 — a singular feat in the chart’s 64-year history — is only the second most impressive chart achievement by Taylor Swift this week. Moving 1.5 million units of an album in a single week didn’t seem like something that could ever happen again, especially after Adele’s 30 fell short of the seven-figure mark last fall. Not only did Swift score the biggest album debut in nearly seven years, she also set a new career best with Midnights — mind-boggling stuff, considering how many enormous eras already precede her.
Joe Lynch: A cogent point could be made either way, but I’m gonna say the 1.5 milli first week. At this point in this music industry, it’s not so much “who can sell a million copies in one week?” but “can anyone sell a million copies in one week?”. I might be overstating it (obviously, Adele exists) but even coming close to the 1M mark is something 99% of pop stars simply cannot do in 2022. The fact that Taylor sailed past it – and in physical sales, too – is a massive accomplishment.
Andrew Unterberger: The Hot 100 record is more historic — and very literally unbeatable — but the album units are more impressive. I mean, we just had Drake secure nine of the top 10 a year ago; we haven’t seen anyone else even get within half a million of that first-week number this decade. Hell, not long ago some of us at Billboard wondered if we would ever see another million-unit first week, with digital sales numbers so down, ticket/merch bundles no longer contributing to sales totals, and streaming volume more spread out among different artists and genres every year. And then Midnights motors past the one million mark in only a couple days and just keeps going. It’s Adele-esque, really.
2. For Midnights to make such a resounding bow in 2022, a full 16 years into Swift’s career as a recording artist (and nearly as many as a global superstar), is pretty remarkable. What do you think the biggest reason is for Swift experiencing this current commercial renaissance?
Katie Atkinson: There are so many factors, but I think if you look at her last four releases – 2020’s Folklore and Evermore followed by the first two Taylor’s Version re-records, of Fearless and Red, in 2021 – that quartet of albums created an excitement around her that can only come from an artist with a decade-and-a-half of history with fans. She started by taking a musical and narrative left turn with her folky, more fictional pandemic albums, then reminded everyone how incomparable her back-catalog is (with some bonus and expanded tracks from those eras to boot), only to announce a brand-new album with a month-and-a-half heads-up but zero pre-release singles or videos. What would it sound like? What would it be about? What exactly is “Vigilante S–t”? Swift is a master of building buzz, and the last two years set the table for one of her buzziest albums yet.
Hannah Dailey: The most important gift Taylor brings to the table has always been her songwriting. When an artist is best-known for their vocals or performance abilities, there’s a lot less space to stay fresh or adapt to the times — there’s only so much one can do to elevate an already great voice, for example. But because Taylor’s greatest talent lies in something as infinite as language and story telling, she will always be able to find opportunities to write in ways that are new, fresh and reflective of the changing appetites of listeners.
As long as she stays as self aware as she is in regards to her strengths, a commercial renaissance will never be out of the question for Taylor. I think she could just as likely experience unprecedented levels of success with her next album, and her next album after that, and so on.
Jason Lipshutz: Pinpointing one reason for this unprecedented run is difficult, considering the amount of fan engagement, marketing acumen, collaborator savvy and attention to detail that Swift has demonstrated. Yet at the center of it all is the music, which remains as fresh, exciting and musically adventurous as any diehard fan could hope for this far into Swift’s career. Different eras speak to different listeners, but none of them are stale, and as such, they’re going to keep being rapturously received.
Joe Lynch: This is a great question *he said, buying himself time as he puzzles this out*. I think Taylor is soaring even by her standards because of the (Taylor’s Version) train. Each release brings with it a wave of nostalgia for her past eras and particularly in the case of Red (TV), paints a fuller picture in screaming color. You couple that with her pandemic reinvention as an introspective folkie and you end with an artist who is simultaneously relevant and nostalgia-inducing. That’s a winning combo.
Andrew Unterberger: For me, it’s the cash-in on years of build up from the FolkMore era of 2020 and the Taylor’s Versions duo of 2021 — none of which were really primed to pull in these kinds of numbers, but all of which were big successes on their own terms, and beloved by fans. Taylor has gone through periods with bigger pop hits and where she’s been more central to popular music in general, but her overall approval rating has arguably never been higher. She was due for an album like this to drop — with full advance warning this time — and just steamroll over everything.
3. “Anti-Hero” becomes Swift’s fourth single of the decade to debut at No. 1, all the same week as the debut of their respective parent albums on the Billboard 200. Each of the first three lasted just the one week on top — do you think “Anti-Hero” will also fall off, or do you anticipate a longer run there?
Katie Atkinson: I think it will have a longer run, but I’m only giving it two weeks up top — and maybe not even consecutive. With Rihanna’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever track dropping last Friday and Drake and 21 Savage’s joint album dropping this week, she has some real competition — not to mention Mariah Carey’s looming Christmas domination. But the way “Anti-Hero” has harnessed the power of TikTok and social media in general with its very meme-able chorus and the fact that airplay will no doubt keep growing for the song, it could have another week (or weeks) at No. 1.
Hannah Dailey: I can see “Anti-Hero” falling off the top spot. It has the same ambiguous quality of the singles from her past three albums in that it feels more like a part belonging to a greater body (its parent album) rather than a stand-alone body itself. It’s a good tune, but I don’t predict people will continue listening to it any more than they listen to the other 12 tracks on Midnights.
Jason Lipshutz: Buckle up, because “Anti-Hero” is about to enjoy a prolonged run atop the Hot 100, if early streaming and radio numbers (and the song’s catchiness) are any indication. Top 40 radio has been ready to embrace a new Swift pop single, listeners are gobbling up on the song on streaming services, and by the time you’ve finished reading this sentence, a new TikTok has been created with “Anti-Hero” as its soundtrack. If the over-under is 10 weeks at No. 1 for “Anti-Hero,” I’m taking the over.
Joe Lynch: I could see a couple weeks. I imagine it will build at radio – and that her second-week streaming numbers will still be massive – but I don’t see it being a long-haul Hot 100 topper.
Andrew Unterberger: Katie’s right that the upcoming competition this song is going to face will be fierce — starting this week with Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” — but I still think all signs point to this being a long-lasting No. 1, even if it its run gets interrupted once or twice. We could see it become the new “As It Was,” where for months, whenever there isn’t an obvious challenger to its top-dog status, it’s almost No. 1 by default. I’d currently bet on a nine-week run, but that may ultimately end up looking like a pretty conservative estimate.
4. While the commercial impact of Midnights is unquestionable, the legacy of the album within her catalog — particularly among fans — still remains to be seen. It’s still extremely early to call, but after about a week and a half with the album, how do you anticipate Midnights generally being remembered a decade or two down the line?
Katie Atkinson: I think a big portion of the massive commercial impact of the album is the positive word-of-mouth around it. But if we’re talking about ranking the album amidst her peerless catalog, it gets a bit dicier. I would place it above Lover for sure, but would I rank it above reputation? (Midnights and reputation almost feel like sister albums to me in some respects, so it’s tough to say.) And I definitely can’t rank it above 1989 or Red, and I think the pandemic pair are superior for me too – so it might be right smack-dab in the middle.
Hannah Dailey: Midnights will go down in history as an epic return to form. In the years leading up to its release, Taylor spent so much time trying on different hats, from experimenting with new sounds and fiction-based songwriting on Folklore and Evermore (which, in spite of their popularity, will always feel like temporary sidesteps off her charted path) to trying her hand at rerecording her old albums, Fearless and Red. With Midnights, Taylor re-embraced the hat that fits her best: writing best-selling, autobiographical songs about love, identity, growing up and heartbreak.
Jason Lipshutz: That’s the most interesting piece of this Midnights commercial bonanza to me — on paper, this is a minor work from Swift, shorter than most of her other opuses and arriving in the middle of her re-recording project. But Midnights is no stopgap, based on the response to her return to pop following the Folklore/Evermore era; if I were to guess, I’d say Midnights will be remembered as a more appealingly rhythmic version of her Reputation/Lover sound, highlighted by “Anti-Hero,” one of the biggest hits of Swift’s career.
Joe Lynch: It really is too early to tell, but I think it will live as a fan favorite — but certainly not any fans’ absolute favorite Taylor Swift album. One thing working in its favor, imo, is that of the many Swifties I’ve spoken to about it, everyone seems to have a different top 3 from Midnights. Unlike a hit album where everyone tends to agree that the same 3-4 tunes are the best, Midnights seems to connect with her listeners in a way that invites a little more fan ownership of the project.
Andrew Unterberger: I think it’s going to join reputation as the two Taylor albums whose actual musical content tends to get overshadowed in discussion by their, well, reputations. But reputation is one of my personal favorites of her catalog, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Midnights ends up falling in not too far behind it.
5. Is Taylor Swift the biggest pop star in the world right now?
Katie Atkinson: There’s a case to be made for three other artists who’ve released albums this year – Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and Beyoncé – but I think this chart command, and honestly overall command of the pop culture conversation, places the crown squarely back on Taylor Swift’s head.
Hannah Dailey: Unquestionably. Whether it’s sales, relevancy, or ability to inspire discourse, debate and conspiracy theories, she’s unmatched. Her pop stardom is especially heightened when you compare her staying power to the artists who, for many years, shared the league with her. Katy Perry hasn’t had a top 10 hit since 2017, and Gaga has spent the past few years splitting her focus across jazz, film scoring, acting and beauty products. That’s not to downplay how majorly successful those women are in their own rights; Taylor is just unique in that her continuous success has always revolved around the one thing she’s been doing from the very beginning: songwriting.
Jason Lipshutz: It’s her, hi, she’s the biggest, it’s her. Place the song and album numbers, which exist in a class of their own, to the side for a second — no one is dominating the cultural conversation quite like Swift upon a new album release, which remains a singular event in popular music. Swift is at the top, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Joe Lynch: If the operative words here are “biggest” and “pop star,” I don’t see how anyone could reasonably argue with that assertion unless they just get off on being contrarian. Kinda hard to argue with her ongoing numbers lately.
Andrew Unterberger: Yes.