It’s one of the weirder aspects of 21st century pop that every major new album feels like a puzzle to be solved. Nothing is ever just announced, promoted, then released. Instead, breadcrumbs of mysterious hints and visual clues are very gradually dropped via the artist’s social media channels. Fans pore over them and formulate excitable theories as to what’s about to happen. Articles are written collating said fans’ theories and weighing up their potential veracity. Sometimes, it goes on longer than the actual album’s stay in the charts. It has certainly happened with Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights. Everything has been pored over for potential information about its contents, up to and including the kind of eye shadow she wears on the album cover. Conspiracy theories have abounded. Space precludes exploring them here, as does concern for your welfare: reading about them makes one’s head hurt a bit.
Still, perhaps it’s inevitable that people are intrigued as to Swift’s next move. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the willingness of big stars to service their fans with more of the same: building an immediately recognisable brand in a world where tens of thousands of new tracks are added to streaming services every day. It’s an approach that Midnights’ one marquee-name guest, Lana Del Rey, knows a lot about, but not one to which Swift has adhered. Instead, she has continually pivoted: from Nashville to New York, pedal steel guitars to fizzing synthesisers, Springsteen-like heartland rock to dubstep-infused pop. Last time she broke cover with new material, she released Folklore and Evermore, two pandemic-fuelled albums of tasteful folk-rock produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner. But that’s no guarantee of her future direction.
