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Taylor Swift finally unveiled her Midnights album on Friday (Oct. 21), and to celebrate, Sportsnet anchor Faizal Khamisa challenged himself to reference all 13 tracks of the original album while running through his sports broadcast.
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“Alex Bregman was once baseball’s ‘Anti-Hero,’ but now he’s just plain hero for Houston,” he says at one point, before calling a heated hockey fight some “Vigilante S—.” He flawlessly incorporated all tracks into the broadcast, checking off each song as he went along.
While the broadcast featured the 13 tracks that dropped at midnight, Swift promised a “special very chaotic surprise” in the wee hours following the album’s release, and she didn’t disappoint, dropping a trove of seven extra Midnights tracks.
“Surprise!” she wrote on social media. “I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13.”
The fuller, 20-track version of Midnights is titled Midnights (3am Edition), and includes the previously unannounced songs “The Great War,” “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” “Paris,” “High Infidelity,” “Glitch,” “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”
After a weekend of soaking up those 20 new tunes, Swifties can tune into NBC on Monday for Swift’s previously confirmed appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Then on Tuesday, Oct. 25, a second, unnamed Midnights music video will drop. And next Friday, Oct. 28, Swift will stop by the BBC for The Graham Norton Show in the U.K.
Taylor Swift‘s 10th studio album, Midnights, dropped on Friday (Oct. 21) with a flourish that included a playfully introspective video for “Anti-Hero,” a long-awaited Lana Del Rey collab featuring a sly Janet Jackson shoutout, a Swiftie-spurred suggestion that the lyrics contain a John Mayer diss, the YouTube Shorts #TSAntiHeroChallenge and a Midnights (3am Edition) with seven extra songs, as well as three additional tracks on the deluxe CD (two of the trio are remixes).
The project once again teams Swift with her long-time writing/producing partner Jack Antonoff, who is credited with co-writing 11 of the 13 songs on the traditional version of the album. The roster of songwriters also includes a few unexpected names, including actress Zoë Kravitz on two of the tracks, Del Rey, and yet another pseudonymous contribution from Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn as his alter ego, William Bowery. Bowery/Alwyn also had credits on tracks from Swift’s pandemic albums Folklore and Evermore.
Other collaborators in the mix include producer Jahaan Sweet (Drake, Travis Scott), as well as Antonoff’s Red Hearse band members Sam Dew and Mark Anthony Spears, aka Sounwave (Kendrick Lamar), and Beyoncé collaborator Keanu Torres (aka Keanu Beats).
Midnights is the follow-up to Swift’s 2020 cozy folk double-dip Folklore and Evermore albums, marking a return to her poppier, more synth-oriented sound. “Midnights is a wild ride of an album and I couldn’t be happier that my co pilot on this adventure was Jack Antonoff,” she wrote in a note to fans that accompanied the release, pointing out that it is the first album they’ve done with just the two of them as main collaborators.
In the Friday morning Instagram post, Swift elaborated on the team behind 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.”
She then ran down the list of their collaborators, including Midnights engineer (Laura Sisk) and album photographer Beth Garrabrant. “Midnights is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows. Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely. Just like Midnights,” Swift wrote. And while it initially appeared that Swift’s chief FolkMore collaborator Aaron Dessner was not involved in Midnights, the bonus edition of the collection features four co-writes with the guitarist/composer from moody rock band The National.
Check out our ranking of the Midnights songs, and see who worked on each below.
Billboard’s First Stream serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Taylor Swift turns the clock to Midnights, Arctic Monkeys continue to challenge themselves, and Shakira links up with Ozuna. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Taylor Swift, Midnights
Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights, was introduced to us as an exercise in restlessness. “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night,” Swift wrote in August while announcing the project, “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.”
This explanation for Midnights makes sense in the context of its arrival. Less than two years after the unexpected, two-pronged opus of Folklore and Evermore, and smack in the middle of her extended process of re-recording (and expanding) her first six studio albums, Swift certainly did not need to release an album of original material this year. Yet like any middle-of-the-night rumination, these songs gnawed at her, begging to be expanded upon instead of stored away for another day. Midnights brims with the bleary-eyed doubts, private triumphs, left-field questions and long-term musings that haunt us in the darkness; Swift felt compelled to hoist hers into the light.
Click here for a full review of Taylor Swift’s Midnights, and a track-by-track breakdown of its standard edition.
Arctic Monkeys, The Car
Casual Arctic Monkeys fans might turn their nose up at The Car, the band’s seventh studio album; why, they might wonder, has the wildly successful UK rock band behind hits like “Do I Wanna Know?” and “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” pivoted to highly orchestrated lounge music? But Alex Turner and co. haven’t designed The Car for casuals — these are gorgeous, complicated songs, performed with the intimacy and confidence of a band willing to open themselves up to new ideas and having the panache to pull them off.
Shakira & Ozuna, “Monotonía”
After linking up with Raw Alejandro for “Te Felicito,” Shakira has previewed her forthcoming album with another high-wattage Latin music collaboration, this time with Ozuna joining on the spacious bachata tracks “Monotonía.” With vocalists as skilled as Shakira and Ozuna, the production wisely clears out as the two superstars operate with nuance and passion, finding a charming balance between their two tones.
Roddy Ricch, “Aston Martin Truck”
“I’m trying to make another hundred million / Figure out how I’m gone bring my brothers in,” Roddy Ricch raps on new single “Aston Martin Truck,” which possesses a level of urgency that the hip-hop star injects into all of his most accomplished work. A few years after exploding with “The Box,” Ricch is looking for another single to scale the charts, and “Aston Martin Truck” grabs the listener for the entirety of its running time, in a way that suggests this might be the one to make the leap.
Carly Rae Jepsen, The Loneliest Time
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the “Call Me Maybe” phenomenon — the summer-dominating No. 1 smash that made Carly Rae Jepsen an unlikely pop star following years spent as a successful singer-songwriter in Canada — and while Jepsen is now removed from the hits-chasing discourse, she’s still releasing arresting pop gems that deserve to get stuck in your head as well. The Loneliest Time considers new directions for Jepsen after years of perfecting a shimmering retro-pop aesthetic, with slower tempos and more contemplation mixed in to winning sing-alongs like “Surrender My Heart” and the title track (featuring Rufus Wainwright).
Dear John, Swifties are convinced a bonus track on Taylor Swift‘s new album Midnights is about a certain older, guitar-playing ex-boyfriend from 13 years ago. P.S., the lyrics are not very flattering.
The 32-year-old pop star shocked fans who were already reeling from the 12 a.m. ET release of Midnights Friday (Oct. 21) by announcing at 3 a.m. that she was immediately adding seven bonus tracks to the album’s main 13. True to form, Swifties devoured each new song — before noticing that one of them, “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” tasted a little bitter.
That’s because its lyrics are seasoned with references to an age-gap relationship that went down when Swift was 19 years old. And who did the singer-songwriter publicly date in 2009 when she was that age? John Mayer, who was 32 at the time.
“I damn sure would’ve never danced with the devil at 19,” she sings on the four-minute track. “Now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts / Memories feel like weapons.”
“And if I was some paint, did it splatter on a promising grown man?/ And if I was a child did it matter if you got to wash your hands?” she sings in one of the verses. And then during the bridge, “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.”
Billboard has reached out to Mayer for comment.
The Midnights bonus track isn’t the first time Swifties have thought one of the Grammy winner’s songs might be a scathing report of her relationship with Mayer, which lasted a few months and ended in February of 2010. Her third album, Speak Now, released that year, included a devastating ballad pointedly titled “Dear John,” in which she lamented, “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with? … Don’t you think 19 is too young to be played by your dark twisted games?”
If the song’s title isn’t damning enough, the “Your Body Is a Wonderland” singer himself felt sure “Dear John” was written about him. Mayer told Rolling Stone in 2012 that he was “really humiliated” by the song — which he deemed “cheap songwriting” — something Swift then addressed in an interview with Glamour.
“How presumptuous!” she said. “I never disclose who my songs are about.”
Ever protective of their favorite star, Swifties have jumped on Twitter to share their theories about and reactions to the message of “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.” “Taylor really put Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, a song directly about her relationship with John Mayer when she was just 19, as TRACK 19 ON THE ALBUM,” pointed out one fan. “SHOTS WERE FIRED.”
“I cant stop laughing taylor really said actually i don’t want to wait for speak now taylors version to be released to drag john mayer i need him to suffer NOW,” joked another.
See more of the best Swiftie reactions to Taylor Swift’s “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” below:
john mayer was sleeping peacefully but was awoken at 3am with a chill down his spine— mars (midnights version✨) (@midnightsmars) October 21, 2022
Taylor really put Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, a song directly about her relationship with John Mayer when she was just 19, as TRACK 19 ON THE ALBUM. SHOTS WERE FIRED— mr. perfectly chaotic ✨ (@moftherosa) October 21, 2022
i cant stop laughing taylor really said actually i don’t want to wait for speak now taylors version to be released to drag john mayer i need him to suffer NOW— lately i’ve been dressing for revenge. (@rippedpromdress) October 21, 2022
“Give me back my girlhood” JOHN MAYER YOU ARE GOING TO HELL— You’re On Your Own, Exquisite (@ExquisiteWill) October 21, 2022
“if i was some paint did it splatter, on a promising grown man… and if i was a child, did it matter if you got to wash your hands?” john mayer you better start running— Kristin🍀 (@kristinsaysvote) October 21, 2022
okay i feel like rerecording all her albums has her reflecting on past relationships because tell me wouldve couldve shouldve isnt about john mayer— maddie tv (@worththedrive_) October 21, 2022
“give me back my girlhood, it was mine first” I want a sword and John Mayer’s home address— sophie’s not so scary halloween horror night party (@littlesophiebug) October 21, 2022
would’ve, could’ve, should’ve makes dear john seem like the nicest, gentlest song of all time— jaimastermind (@tay13bae) October 21, 2022
Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve is the darkest song Taylor has ever written. I’m literally nauseous, it was grooming point blank. And Taylor called him out on it— Cristina 🍣 (@TheBookofTaylor) October 21, 2022
Two queens certainly deserve a third. Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey tip their tiaras to another music superstar in the lyrics to “Snow on the Beach” from Swift’s new Midnights album. The fourth track on the collection gives a sly shout-out to Janet Jackson courtesy of Del Rey, whose spare vocal interjections on the gauzy ballad mostly serve as harmonic support to Taylor.
Midway through the song about the ins-and-outs of falling in love the pair team up on a run that pays homage to Ms. Jackson’s 2001 hit “All For You” from the album of the same name. “I can’t speak, afraid to jinx it/ I don’t even dare to wish it/ But your eyes are flying saucers from another planet,” they sing, adding, “Now I’m all for you like Janet/ Can this be a real thing, can it?”
In advance of the album’s release, Swift described the inspiration for the song, explaining, “The song is about falling in love with someone at the same time as they’re falling in love with you, in this sort of in this cataclysmic, faded moment where you realize someone feels exactly the same way that you feel, at the same moment. And you’re kind of looking around going, “Wait, is this real? Is this a dream? Is this for real? Is it really happening? Kinda like it would be if you were to see snow falling on a beach.”
At press time it did not appear that Jackson had responded to the tribute, but it’s worth noting that in 2009 Swift revealed that Jackson sent her flowers after Kanye West (who now goes by Ye) famously crashed Taylor’s VMAs acceptance speech. “Artists that I didn’t even assume knew who I was [have supported me],” a then 19-year-old Swift told radio veteran Elvis Duran in an interview. “I woke up the next day and I had flowers in my hotel room from Janet Jackson.”
Listen to “Snow on the Beach” below (Jackson shout-out at 2:50 mark).
It’s new music Friday, but it’s also a very special — and long-awaited one — for Swifties. Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated 10th studio album, Midnights, at the stroke of midnight ET on Oct. 21 and unveiled a glimmering set of 13 new songs. But when the clock stuck twelve on the West Coast, fans received an unexpected treat.
“Surprise!” Swift exclaimed on social media. “I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13.”
She continued, “Lately, I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.”
While the original album includes “Anti-Hero,” the Lana Del Rey collaboration “Snow on the Beach” and other tracks such as “Midnight Rain,” “Karma” and the fan hyped “Vigilante Shit,” the “3 a.m.” songs consists of seven previously unannounced offerings: “The Great War,” “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” “Paris,” “High Infidelity,” “Glitch,” “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” and “Dear Reader.”
Swift, who worked on the album largely with Jack Antonoff, shared her thoughts on the album process shortly after the album’s release. “This is our first album we’ve done with just the two of us as main collaborators,” she explained.
All that said, now with 20 songs to choose from on Midnights, which one are you loving the most? Vote in our poll below.
Taylor Swift gets vulnerable about some of her insecurities in the video for “Anti-Hero” from her new Midnights album. But now she wants Swifties to do the same. In conjunction with the album’s release, Swift joined YouTube Shorts to launch the #TSAntiHeroChallenge on Friday morning (Oct. 21), inviting her fans to “share their anti-heroic traits” to the strains of the pop tune about looking in the mirror and seeing the real you.
“The #TSAntiHeroChallenge is all about acknowledging and celebrating the traits that make each of us truly unique and showcasing one’s true self in a FUN way,” reads a prompt for the viral challenge.” An anti-heroic trait could be as simple as always grabbing the last slice of pizza, clapping at the end of movies, always putting your feet on the car dashboard, using the same word to start your daily Wordle, leaving your clean laundry in the basket until the next time you do it, pretending you didn’t already watch the next episode of the series you watch with your pals, or even treating your cat like a human. Anything goes!”
The rules are pretty simple: watch the “Anti-Hero” video — written and directed by Swift and featuring some classic comedic cameos — then think about which anti-heroic traits you have, go to YouTube Shorts, create a short, add sound from “Anti-Hero,” then the #TSAntiHeroChallenge tag and publish.
Taylor primed the pump with a pair of Shorts video, including one in which she pokes fun at her anti-social, cat mom tendencies.
Check out the shorts below.
To celebrate the release of her highly anticipated 10th studio album Midnights, Taylor Swift dropped her first music video of the album era on Friday (Oct. 21) and Swifties will be dissecting this one for a while.
The super dramatic clip for “Anti-Hero” features Swift attending her own funeral, Tom Sawyer-style, doing shots and drinking wine straight from the bottle with her party hard doppelgänger and blowing up to 50-foot giant Tay size for a trippy Alice in Wonderland-style dinner party crash.
“Track three, ‘Anti-Hero,’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written,” Swift previously said of the song. “I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before.” The singer/songwriter directed and wrote the treatment for the five-minute clip that dropped on Friday morning. It opens with Taylor seated at a 1970s breakfast table in a kitschy home haunted by ghosts wearing sunglasses before she opens the door to find party Taylor waiting outside, reciting the instant classic line, “It’s me, hi/ I’m the problem, it’s me.”
The dynamic duo then down some shots as bad Tay smashes a guitar before oversized Swift crawls into a dinner scene and has her heart pierced by Cupid’s arrow, drawing purple glitter blood. Then it’s back to double Taylor bouncing on a bed and throwing back more shots (followed by purple glitter puke) before a dramatic interlude at her own funeral.
The reading of the will dramedy that unfolds amid the song/video that takes on insecurity and self-consciousness is heightened with cameos from comedians Mike Birbiglia (Don’t Think Twice) and John Early (Search Party), who battle over not-dead Taylor’s earthly possession with entitled daughter-in-law Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia). “Watch my nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts play out in real time,” Swift tweeted about the theme of the clip.
Sorry kids, there are no secret encoded messages or Easter eggs, the disappointed heirs find out as Taylor peeks at their misery from inside her coffin — which sits next to a classic Easter egg picture of aged-up cat lady Taylor cradling two armloads of kitties. After the room erupts into grief chaos, the clip ends with the two Taylors meeting up with Giant Taylor for a swig of bottled wine on a rooftop at night.
“I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized,” Swift continued in the video previewing the visual, aptly posted at midnight. “Not to sound too dark, but I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person — don’t feel bad for me, you don’t need to. But this song really is a real guided tour through all the things I tend to hate about myself; we all hate things about ourselves.”
Watch the “Anti-Hero” music video below.
Taylor Swift promised a “special very chaotic surprise” in the wee hours and she didn’t disappoint, by dropping a trove of extra Midnights tracks, seven in total.
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As the clock struck 3am ET, or midnight on the west coast, Swift dropped what she’s calling her “3am tracks.”
“Surprise!,” she writes on social media. “I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13.”
The fuller, 20-track version of Midnights is titled Midnights (3am Edition), and includes the previously-unannounced numbers “The Great War,” “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” “Paris,” High Infidelity,” “Glitch,” “Would’ve, “Could’ve, Should’ve.’
“Lately,” she continues, “I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.”
Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13.https://t.co/jjqUNkpPke pic.twitter.com/LKI3GmpPRF— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 21, 2022
Earlier in the evening, Swift shared her recollections of the writing and recording process with Jack Antonoff. “This is our first album we’ve done with just the two of us as main collaborators,” she explained.
Swift had teased an early morning “chaotic surprise” when she revealed her busy diary for the Midnights release, including promotions and several TV appearances.
The action doesn’t end there. This morning at 8 a.m. ET sees premiere of the “Anti-Hero” music video, based on her diary entries, and a #TSAntiHeroChallenge on YouTube Shorts. Midnights lyric videos will roll out at 8 p.m.
After a weekend of soaking up those 20 new tunes, Swifties can tune into NBC on Monday, for Swift’s previously confirmed appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Then on Tuesday, Oct. 25, a second, unnamed Midnights music video will drop. And next Friday, Oct. 28, Swift will stop by the BBC for The Graham Norton Show in the U.K.
Stream Midnights (3am Edition) below.
After months of teases and ballgames, the journey to Taylor Swift’s Midnights has reached its conclusion.
Now, another trip begins, as Swifties everywhere drop everything, absorb the new record and share their thoughts online. TayTay herself has entered the discussion.
In the small hours, as the album trended on social media, the pop superstar reflected on her latest LP, her 10th studio effort, and first since her Billboard 200 chart-leader Evermore from 2020.
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“Midnights is a wild ride of an album and I couldn’t be happier that my co pilot on this adventure was Jack Antonoff,” she writes, thanking her buddy, years-long collaborator and producer.
“He’s my friend for life (presumptuous I know but I stand by it) and we’ve been making music together for nearly a decade.”
However, she adds, “this is our first album we’ve done with just the two of us as main collaborators.”
Swift’s post captures good times along the way. Friends, laughter, candid moments, empty bottles of wine.
The new release, she continues in the social post, “really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama. Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
Paying tribute to those who inspired the latest set, including Zoe Kravitz and Australian producer Keanu beats, the result “is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows. Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely,” Swift concludes. “Just like Midnights. Which is out now.”
History beckons for Taylor. If Midnights goes to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, she would tie Barbra Streisand for the most No. 1 albums by a female artist. Midnights would be Swift’s 11th album to top the survey, which would put her in a tie for third place all-time with Streisand, Bruce Springsteen and Drake for the most No. 1s since the chart originated in 1956. Only the Beatles (19 No. 1 albums) and Jay-Z (14) have amassed more than 11 leaders.
Swifties will want to play a part in that history.
