Sometimes it feels good to take a break from being yourself — even when you’re the biggest star in the world.
Midnights, the juggernaut latest album from Taylor Swift, is the superstar’s fastest selling megahit to date. It features stellar songwriting and maybe-too-personal lyrics typical of her work. It also isn’t a Taylor Swift album. This is intentional. I’ll explain.
To understand Midnights, you need to understand the level of success that Swift has reached in the entertainment industry. Midnights is Swift’s fastest selling album — moving more than 1.58 million units in its first week. Among albums that have sold more than one million units in their first week, it ranks sixth in terms of success. Adele’s 25 (2015) holds the top spot on this list with an incredible 3.38 million units, according to Luminate Data (formerly Neilsen SoundScan and the source of Billboard’s rankings).
While Midnights is Swift ‘s fastest selling record to date, it is by no means an outlier. She is the first recording artist to have five albums move a million units in their first week. The next-closest artist on the list is Eminem with three.
So yes, Midnights is a massive success, but keep in mind that this is just what Taylor Swift does. She is a megastar. She is her own empire. But why doesn’t she seem to be as big of a celebrity as she really is?
My guess is that compared to the level of chaotic ugliness we generally expect from massive celebrities, Swift seems rather mundane by comparison. Yes, she’s always been what is best described as “messy” when it comes to talking about her famous exes, but Swift doesn’t really carry the dysfunction that usually leads to the many downfalls of most artists.
She doesn’t have an ugly backstory. Her parents worked in finance. She grew up on a Christmas tree farm her dad bought from a client. This isn’t going to make for a compelling biopic down the road is all I’m saying. No one gets sliced in half by a saw blade or convinces their lover to get matching plastic surgeries. Swift just learns to play guitar from a computer repairman.
Another thing to keep in mind is that for the past few years, Swift has been re-recording her early albums due to an ugly music rights situation that left ownership of the original masters in someone else’s hands. Swift has literally been playing the role of “Taylor Swift” while she worked on Midnights — a darkwave album that presents the artist as if she was some troubled fuck-up who just can’t get her shit together but also you better not cross her.
“Cussing with all the edge of a teenager having her picture taken with a cigarette she found.”
On “Anti-Hero,” Swift opens with “I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser. Midnights become my afternoons.”
On “Vigilante Shit” — in addition to cussing with all the edge of a teenager having her picture taken with a cigarette she found — Swift boasts “I don’t start shit, but I can tell you how it ends.”
It ends with a strongly worded complaint to your manager. That is how it ends.
Jokes aside, Midnights is a good album that isn’t necessarily harmed by its occasional lack of authenticity. Because Swift is just trying on a different skin. Often on the album, her voice is modulated to where it is no longer recognizable. She just wants to take a moment and step outside of the brand that she is and be a person with serious faults that’s not holding up a business enterprise. And we’ve seen this before.
In 1999, Garth Brooks was more than the biggest name in country music. He was one of the biggest names in music. The previous year Brooks released Double Live, which sits three spots ahead of Swift’s Speak Now on the list of fastest selling albums. But Brooks didn’t want to be Garth Brooks.
Despite being a clean-cut country pop star, Brooks grew up idolizing Kiss. That’s why he was always swinging his cowboy-hatted ass around the stage on wires. So in 1999 he took the opportunity to make a change.
This brings us to Chris Gaines.
Gaines was a fictitious rock star that Brooks embodied for a short while — even releasing a greatest hits compilation. He had messy bangs and eyeliner. He had a dark backstory. He had all the things that Brooks wasn’t and could never be. And honestly, none of us knew what the hell to do with this at the time. We thought all the computers were about to stop working and now Garth Brooks is dressing up like The Crow.
But it’s good to see Swift take a chance and release her own Chris Gaines album. Funnily, Midnights and … the Life of Chris Gaines both feature songs about out-of-place snowfall: “Snow on the Beach” and “Snow in July.” I’m not sure both artists intentionally mention snow — something that often represents purity, but also another term for cocaine — to make a point about their altered personas, but it’s an interesting coincidence.
” I’m not sure both artists intentionally mention snow — something that often represents purity, but also another term for cocaine — to make a point about their altered personas, but it’s an interesting coincidence.
As with most major albums these days, Midnights’ massive success is more a feat of marketing than a profound artistic accomplishment. But at the same time, it’s interesting to see a mega star be vulnerable enough to want to be someone else in a way that doesn’t reek of appropriation or trend chasing. Midnights is simply a long-married couple checking into a hotel under different names, just so one can pick up the other later at the bar. It’s fun and awkward and exciting. But they still remember to check in on the babysitter.
