In the past three years, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has blessed fans with six studio albums, two of which are re-recordings of previous works. On August 28th at the Video Music Awards, Swift announced her 10th studio album in her acceptance speech for the “Video of the Year,” “Best Long-Form Video,” and “Best Direction” awards. In the speech, she stated how it is about “thirteen sleepless nights of [her] life.” She left fans waiting for the release of Midnights until October 21st, almost two months later. 

Swift appeared at the VMAs in a silver dress which reminded many fans of a scene in the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video off her 6th album Reputation. Every time she enters a new ‘era,’ she drastically changes her entire aesthetic, so the jump from the ‘cottagecore’ aesthetic of the folklore and evermore albums, to the sparkly Hollywood look exposed the possibility of a new album. That led fans to think she was announcing Reputation (Taylor’s Version), but they came to learn the truth shortly after. The VMAs, sparkly dresses and all, marked the beginning of her “Midnights era”. 

The “Midnights era” began with a plethora of content throughout the weeks leading up to the album’s release.  About a month before the release, Swift would post a track name on her Instagram every few days. The track reveals started off with track 13, which was announced to be named “Mastermind.” Fans across the world united every night through social media to see if a title name would be released. Through the song titles, fans came up with theories about the possible genre of this album, as Swift is known to bounce from genre to genre. 

Swift made the switch from country to pop in 2014 with her album 1989, but has also dabbled in indie, folk, and alternative rock on her albums folklore and evermore. Midnights lean towards a pop sound, with nods to alternative, rock, and more indie sounds.The shifts are  likely due to the varying subject matter of the songs. Despite the genre shift, Billboard has reported that “Midnights [had] the largest week for any album since Adele’s 25 debuted”. 

Four days before release Taylor Nation, Swift’s team, released a calendar showing off a week of scheduled Midnights events. She was going to be releasing two music videos, one for “Anti-hero” and one that was a surprise. Fans eventually learned that it would be a music video for “Bejeweled.” Like typical Taylor Swift music videos, there were many easter eggs. There were a lot of 3’s and 13’s in the music video right next to the color purple. Speak Now is Swift’s third album and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) would be her thirteenth album. The color purple also means a lot, Swift and fans assigned colors to each one of her albums and purple is the color of Speak Now.  It is suspected that the next album coming is Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), based on the easter eggs in the “Bejeweled” music video. 

On November 1st, Swift announced “The Eras Tour.” She will be playing songs from all of her albums, including Midnights and the tickets go on presale November 15 through Ticketmaster. She hasn’t toured since her “Reputation Stadium Tour” in 2018 due to the cancellation of her 2020 tour, “Loverfest,” therefore this tour is expected to be very popular following the great success of Midnights.