On Sunday, Taylor Swift prompted a little bit of a frenzy when she introduced that her tenth studio album, Midnights, might be launched on October 21.
The singer dropped the bombshell throughout her “Video of the Yr” acceptance speech at MTV’s Video Music Awards after she received the accolade for “All Too Effectively: The Quick Movie.”
“I had type of made up my thoughts that in the event you have been going to be this beneficiant and provides us this, I assumed it is likely to be a enjoyable second to let you know that my model new album comes out October twenty first,” she instructed the excited crowd on the time.
Extra details about the upcoming report got here through social media, with Taylor sharing the album art work alongside a written assertion about what followers ought to count on.
“We lie awake in love and in concern, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at partitions and drink till they communicate again. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t — proper this minute — about to make some fateful life-altering mistake,” she wrote.
“This can be a assortment of music written in the course of the evening, a journey by way of terrors and candy desires. The flooring we tempo and the demons we face,” Taylor went on. “For all of us who’ve tossed and turned and determined to maintain the lanterns lit and search around — hoping that simply possibly, when the clock strikes twelve … we’ll meet ourselves.”
“The tales of 13 sleepless nights scattered all through my life,” she added within the publish’s caption.
Now, if there’s one factor that Taylor is thought for out of doors of her singing, it’s her dedication to leaving hidden clues and Easter eggs about her upcoming tasks for her followers to find.
Hardcore Swifties usually curate extremely believable theories from the key hints that Taylor has buried in her social media exercise and varied interviews, with many ultimately proving to be true.
Talking to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Present final 12 months, Taylor mentioned of her love of Easter eggs: “It is type of a convention that we began a really very long time in the past. I believe the primary time that I began dropping type of cryptic clues in my music was once I was 14 or 15, placing collectively my first album.”
She admitted that she typically plans her clues as much as three years upfront, and instructed Leisure Weekly that she all the time will get excited by her followers’ theories. She defined: “I’ve educated them to be that approach. I really like that they just like the cryptic hint-dropping. As a result of so long as they prefer it, I am going to preserve doing it. It is enjoyable. It feels mischievous and playful.”
So for sure, as quickly as Swifties had completed screaming, crying, and throwing up over the Midnights announcement, they started working — and right here we’ve laid out among the most compelling theories and fascinating observations that they’ve curated across the upcoming album.
First issues first, it wasn’t misplaced on many individuals that Taylor made her huge announcement on the VMAs; the place Kanye West famously crashed the stage and interrupted her acceptance speech for the Finest Feminine Video Award in 2009.
Taylor was simply 19 years outdated on the time, and later admitted to feeling humiliated as Kanye shouted that Beyoncé was extra deserving of the win. The second ended up triggering a long-running and messy feud between Taylor and the rapper.
Consequently, many have claimed that her resolution to disclose Midnights to the world on the VMAs stage was a aware one on Taylor’s finish, particularly as 13 is her fortunate quantity, which is precisely what number of years have handed because the ‘09 incident.
“Totally consider that nothing this girl does is an accident,” one particular person wrote on a Reddit discussion board on Monday. “In 2009, the present was stolen from her, final evening she stole the present again.”
Including gasoline to the speculation, others famous that Taylor’s VMAs costume was eerily paying homage to an outfit she wore in her 2017 “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, which was already a homage to her 2009 VMAs robe.
In case you’re new right here, “Look What You Made Me Do” was a direct response to the 2016 beef between Taylor and Kanye, after Kanye and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, leaked a telephone dialog with Taylor amid the fallout of his controversial track “Well-known” and it’s accompanying music video.
“THE MOST OBVIOUS EASTER EGG EVER,” one fan tweeted alongside a screenshot of Taylor sporting the costume in her music video, and the singer on the purple carpet on Sunday evening. One other in contrast a photograph of Taylor accepting her VMA in 2009 to her 2022 win and wrote: “13 years later… That is Taylor Swift’s revenge costume.”
Rounding up the Kimye drama, it was additionally famous that Midnights might be launched on Kim’s forty second birthday, and whereas it’s not identified if that is intentional followers are nonetheless residing for the drama.
“The truth that Taylor Swift is releasing Midnights on Kim Kardashian’s birthday..can I be this dramatic,” one particular person wrote. Another person tweeted: “Taylor sporting an identical costume to the vmas like she did 2009 and asserting a brand new album popping out on Kim’s birthday will endlessly be hilarious to me.”
The truth that Taylor Swift is releasing Midnights on Kim Kardashians birthday..can I be this dramatic
After they’d totally analyzed Taylor’s exercise on the evening, followers began to look retrospectively to see if there have been any hints that Midnights was coming that that they had missed.
And, with Taylor being Taylor, after all there have been — together with a direct reference to her upcoming album’s title again in Could.
If you happen to didn’t know, Taylor is at present within the strategy of rerecording her first six albums in order that she will be able to personal all of her music. The transfer got here after her outdated label, Large Machine Information, bought the masters of her authentic recordings to her nemesis, Scooter Braun.
Taylor vowed to rerecord the entire songs that she launched with them to devalue the originals and stop Scooter from profiting, and in addition in order that she will be able to legally personal them.
Sharing a snippet of her rerecorded model of “This Love,” Taylor wrote on social media on Could 5: “Thanks @jennyhan for debuting my model of This Love within the trailer for @thesummeriturnedpretty!! I’ve all the time been so happy with this track and I’m very ??? about this flip of occasions – This Love (Taylor’s Model) comes out tonight at m i d n i g h t!”
On the time, many thought that this was an indication that she was going to launch her model of her 2014 album 1989. Along with this being the report that “This Love” initially appeared on, the areas between the letters in “midnight” made some consider her 1989 single “Clean Area.”
“She actually teased the album and we have been trying on the clean areas,” one fan tweeted. One other wrote: “M i d n i g h t … we had it in entrance of us since Could fifth.”
She actually teased the album and we have been trying on the clean areas ?
m i d n i g h t
And true to Taylor’s revelation that she plans some Easter eggs years upfront, different eagle-eyed Swifties famous that in 2020 she created a Spotify playlist for her album Folklore that was referred to as: “The sleepless nights chapter,” a direct reference to the theme of her upcoming album.
As for what listeners can count on from Midnights, there’s rising hypothesis that that is truly the sister album of Lover, which was launched in 2019.
Throughout an interview with Ryan Seacrest after the album was launched, Taylor revealed that she very practically referred to as Lover “Daylight,” which is the title of the ultimate track on the album.
Explaining why she ended up altering her thoughts, Taylor mentioned: “I felt like that was a little bit too on the nostril as a result of Fame was such a darkish, like evening-nighttime-city album, and I assumed that calling the following album Daylight can be too apparent and it’s such a love album.”
Much more tellingly, “Daylight” — and thus the album — ends with a voice recording of Taylor saying: “I wanna be outlined by the issues that I really like. Not the issues I hate. Not the issues that I am afraid of, I am afraid of. Not the issues that hang-out me in the course of the evening. I simply assume that you’re what you’re keen on.”
Drawing consideration to each details in a TikTok video, one fan theorized: “Enthusiastic about how Swifties completely forgot about that random concept that Lover had a Aspect B, which was going to be ‘blue’, and the way Taylor mentioned she plans issues three years upfront typically, and the way she ends ‘Daylight’ with ‘…The issues that hang-out me in the course of the evening…’ and now we get Midnights, which is actually an album in regards to the issues that hang-out her in the course of the evening, three years after Lover (which was initially going to be named Daylight) got here out.”
The speculation gained much more traction within the video’s feedback, with one fan stating that Midnights’ art work seems to be way more just like the again of a conventional album because it consists of the tracklist.
One other referenced the 2 albums she launched between Lover and Midnights, which she wrote in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. They mentioned: “We actually neglect folklore and evermore weren’t deliberate however only a product of the pandemic,, midnights could have been deliberate for ages.”
One fan even shared their hope that Midnights will start the place “Daylight” left off in Taylor’s voice recording, commenting: “‘Daylight’ ends with the voicemail sort outro think about if observe 1 picks up the place it left off omg.”
Another person echoed: “Watch the primary observe be half two of ‘daylight’,” to which the OP replied: “I gotta take heed to ‘daylight’ after which the primary observe of Midnights when it comes out fr.. i rlly really feel just like the audio clip is a [segue].”
And although the titles of Midnights’ songs are but to be revealed, merely listed on the album art work as tracks 1-13 throughout sides A and B, the followers nonetheless have some theories about them.
One claimed that the written assertion Taylor shared alongside her album art work on social media was key, with the assertion divided into two distinct paragraphs. In a TikTok video, the fan claimed that every paragraph represented both sides of the album, and the track titles have been hidden inside them.
“For instance, they may very well be ‘We Lie Awake,’ ‘In Love’ … so on and so forth,” they mentioned. “I don’t assume she simply wrote this to announce it.”
And the speculation was extremely well-received, with one viewer stating: “If you happen to take a look at the best way the phrases are damaged up, there’s 13 of them.”
Another person wrote: “I’m so glad I’m not the one one who learn that and was like these phrases are approach too particular to not imply one thing?”
Others picked up on the truth that Taylor’s art work on Spotify had been changed with an animation of a ticking clock after Midnights was introduced — with the clock’s numbers quite a lot of totally different colours.
omg!!!! verify your spotify swiftie sisters!!!! the midnight clock is there!!!! taylor swift your thoughts!!!!
One social media consumer identified that the colours needed to imply one thing, and theorized that every one correlated to the interval in time that its corresponding observe was about — particularly as the colours match among the themes seen in Taylor’s previous album art work.
“She mentioned that the songs have been written at totally different occasions in her life,” the Swiftie tweeted. “Every shade represents an period. inexperienced for debut, blue for 1989, purple for purple, yellow for fearless. Corresponding numbers are songs written from particular period, observe 1 & 2 from 1989 period.”
my dumb concept:
she mentioned that the songs have been written at totally different occasions in her life
every shade represents an period. inexperienced for debut, blue for 1989, purple for purple, yellow for fearless.
corresponding numbers are songs written from particular period, observe 1 & 2 from 1989 period
Lastly, a fan pieced collectively the entire above info and unlocked a concern that there’s sufficient proof to counsel that Midnights might be Taylor’s ultimate album — not less than for some time — as they admitted that they have been “completely petrified” in a TikTok.
Within the video, they wrote: “Midnight is just like the ending of a day. It was 13 tracks about nights ‘scattered all through my life,’ she broadcasts if 13 YEARS after the 2009 VMAs incident sporting a costume paying homage to the LWYMMD video however showing in public with confidence and pleasure and pleasure.”
“It simply appears like she’s cleanly wrapping up,” they went on. “Like a closing ceremony of all of the ups and downs of her profession. I can’t mentally deal with the idea of Taylor Swift not having an lively profession.”
Whereas the video has racked up over 90,000 likes, many shut down the speculation within the remark part. One referenced Taylor’s fortunate quantity as they wrote: “There’s completely no approach we aren’t getting not less than 13 albums.”
Another person mentioned: “She launched 2 albums in quarantine b/c she was bored, releasing TS10 whereas doing the rerecords only for the hell of it. She ain’t goin wherever.”
A 3rd particular person referenced Taylor’s Netflix documentary as they claimed: “In Miss Americana there was an entire rant about how ladies in music are deserted previous 30. She’s gonna cling on til 109 out of spite ?”
And I believe I communicate for all of us once I say that that is one concept that we positively hope to be true.
