Nowadays, everything is in excess. We buy in excess. We consume information in excess and we listen to music in excess.
There was a time when musicians did not rush in producing albums for their audiences. It was deliberate, calculated and planned.
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, an artist who usually takes her time in creating projects, released her latest album “Midnights” on Friday, one year after her rerelease of “Red (Taylor’s Version).”
Swift is rerecording her previous albums after a dispute with her previous record label Big Machine Records according to a March 25, 2021 Time magazine article.
“Midnights” is produced by Jack Antonoff, singer-songwriter and record producer, who has helped produce several of Swift’s albums including her 2020 sister records “evermore” and “folklore.”
Antonoff is a highly sought-after producer who has worked with pop artists including Lorde and Lana Del Rey.
His production is synth-heavy and relies on distorted audio samples. It’s nothing new or exciting and is generic because synths are pretty much used in every popular pop song on the Billboard Global 200.
It’s easy to listen to and works well with sparse and more hardcore instrumentation.
While it is versatile, Antonoff’s production style significantly dims down Swift’s musicianship.
On “evermore” and “folklore,” Swift also collaborated with Aaron Dessner of indie rock band The National, where he clearly balanced out the inclination that Antonoff and Swift have to use synths.
In “evermore” and “folklore,” Dessner added an acoustic touch that played to Swift’s excellent lyricism, which painted extremely vivid stories.
Swift sang in hushed tones as if she was telling the listener a secret and the music softened to elevate those secrets.
“Midnights” musically misses the melancholy that Swift excels with in her writing. Her lyrics are corny, messy stories that are filled with revenge and anger.
On “Anti-Hero,” Swift sings about her insecurities and the negative cycle of self-doubt that fills her mind.
In what could have been a fantastic song describing a relatable feeling many young people have, Swift instead writes confusing lyrics that may be some of the worst ones she has ever written.
She sings, “Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby.”
What is a sexy baby and why are we all one?
But there are some genuinely good songs on “Midnights” including “Mastermind,” which includes those annoying synths but Swift’s lyrics save the song.
She sings, “What if I told you I'm a mastermind? / And now you're mine / It was all by dеsign.”
Her vocals drift over the quieter beats and the subtle orchestra during the chorus. Her lyrics are clever and reminiscent of the vivid stories she painted in her 2020 sister albums.
Comparing love to a game of chess, she gets what she wants through carefully-planned out steps. “Mastermind” allows the listener to curate their own meaning with lyrics that are not obvious like her other tracks.
The reason why her 2020 albums were so successful was because they had a cohesive narrative: one with a beginning, middle and end. All the while, the production was soft.
It’s easy to hide behind layers of production and loud lyrics but very few have mastered the art of quietness like Swift.
Swift isn’t perfect and not every album will be phenomenal. “Midnights” was too much too soon. She disappointingly gives into generic pop sounds.
People may love it because of its listenability, especially her fans, but I want to see more. I don’t want to hear about revenge.
I want to see the version of Swift who has broken boundaries by normalizing sparse production and intricate, made-up stories in music.
She excels the most when her music feels like she is telling her listeners a bedtime story, lulling them to sleep into a world where make-believe characters become real.
“Folklore” won album of the year at the 2021 Grammy Awards as listeners found solace in the calming sounds of the album.
I don’t want Swift’s midnights because they are simply too loud.
Her “folklore” scenery of quiet, enchanted forests is far more interesting.
