Midnights Trivia | 75 facts about the new Taylor Swift album

“Midnights” is the 10th album by the Taylor Swift. After one week of release, it marks one of her most successuful albums to date.

So let’s find out some trivia and facts about the album.

Midnights is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift
The album was released on October 21, 2022, via Republic Record
It was announced at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards
The album marks Swift’s first body of new work since her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore
Midnights is a concept album about nocturnal contemplation
It is written and produced by Swift with Jack Antonoff as the main collaborator
The album was inspired by “13 sleepless nights” of Swift’s life
She adopted a glamorous visual aesthetic for the album, drawing from the 1970s fashion and art
Eschewing the alternative folk sound of Folklore and Evermore, Swift experimented with electronica, synth-pop, dream pop and chill-out music styles in Midnights, employing subtle grooves, vintage synthesizers, drum machine and hip hop rhythms
Its subject matter contains confessional yet cryptic lyrics, discussing self-criticism, self-assurance, insecurity, anxiety, and insomnia
After the limited promotion of her previous studio albums, Swift returned to her traditional album roll-out with Midnights
She unveiled the album’s track list on a TikTok series called Midnights Mayhem with Me from September 21 to October 7, 2022
There Swift revealed a Lana Del Rey feature on the fourth track, “Snow on the Beach”
Seven bonus tracks were surprise released on October 21
They were followed by music videos for “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled”
Midnights was met with widespread acclaim from music critics
They praised its restrained production, candid songwriting, and vocal cadences
The album broke the Spotify record for the most single-day streams for an album
Midnights was also a major commercial success across all formats of music consumption
In the United States, it became 2022’s fastest-selling and best-selling album
Midnights also logged the largest vinyl sales week of the 21st century
Elsewhere, it has so far topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom
According to Swift, the subject matter of Midnights was inspired by five major topics: self-hatred, revenge fantasies, “wondering what might have been”, falling in love, and “falling apart”
Swift enlisted her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, since 2013, to produce Midnights
The duo wrote 11 of the album’s 13 songs together
Of the remaining two, Swift wrote the track “Vigilante Shit” alone and “Sweet Nothing” with her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, who is credited with his pseudonym William Bowery
Some bonus tracks were co-produced by Aaron Dessner, who had collaborated with Swift on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore
She conceived the bonus tracks on their “journey to find that magic 13 [tracks]”
Swift’s love life inspired the lyrics of “Lavender Haze” and “Snow on the Beach”, the former of which takes after the phrase “in the lavender haze” from the period drama series, Mad Men
Swift wrote “Lavender Haze” after she and Alwyn had to protect their relationship from unsolicited scrutiny online (“weird rumors” and “tabloid stuff”)
“Snow on the Beach” is about “falling in love with someone at the same time as they’re falling in love with you”, co-written by American singer Lana Del Rey
The composition of “Lavender Haze” was first conceived by Antonoff when he heard Sounwave, one of his collaborators, press a button accidentally, playing a “small little loop” produced by Jahaan Sweet
Sounwave edited the loop, adding “a bunch of effects”
Sam Dew wrote some melodies to the loop with Zoë Kravitz, who had been working with Antonoff as well
Antonoff then pitched the song to Swift, who wrote its lyrics
“Glitch” was also born from these sessions
Sweet further reached out to Swift via Antonoff with “Karma”, which had also been worked on by Keanu Beats
The next day, Antonoff returned with “Karma” finished with Swift’s vocals on it
In “Anti-Hero”, Swift detailed her insecurities, such as struggling with “not feeling like a person”
Midnights received widespread acclaim from music critics, most of whom praised its subdued production and vocals
On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to ratings from publications, the album received a weighted mean score of 85
Based on 25 reviews
Indicating “universal acclaim”
Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.9 out of 10
Based on their assessment of the critical consensus
Midnights broke the all-time Spotify record for the most streamed album in a single day, garnering 186 million streams in its opening day on the platform
Thus surpassing the previous record of 155 million streams by Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (2021)
Swift also became the most-streamed artist in a single day on Spotify, with 228 million streams across her entire catalog
She became the first artist to cross the 200-million mark
The album further broke the Apple Music record for the most-streamed pop album in a single day
The Amazon Music records for the most-streamed album in a single day and week
And the most single-day Amazon Alexa requests ever
She had the most single-day streams in Spatial Audio on Apple Music
In the United States, Midnights sold over 800,000 pure albums in its first day
Including 400,000 vinyl LPs
Instantly becoming the best-selling album of 2022
It logged the biggest sales week for an album since Swift’s own Reputation (2017)
And the most vinyl records sold in a week since 1991
The album surpassed 1.2 million units within the first three days
And reached 1.4 million units by the fifth day
Consisting of 1.05 million album sales and 423 million streams
It marked the largest opening week of the last five years and Swift’s career-best, surpassing 1989
In the United Kingdom, Midnights sold over 140,000 units in its first three days
Surpassing the opening-week tally of Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (113,000 units) to become the fastest-selling album of 2022
Ultimately, the album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart with 204,000 units
This is Swift’s highest first-week tally in her career
She broke Madonna’s record for the shortest time for a female act to accumulate nine UK number-one albums
And became the first woman since Miley Cyrus in 2013 to simultaneously debut atop both the albums and singles chart, following the number-one debut of “Anti-Hero” as well
In Australia, Midnights became her record-extending tenth consecutive number-one album, with the biggest opening week since Reputation
Midnights also set the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) records for the biggest streaming and vinyl sales weeks for an album
All of the album’s standard tracks entered the ARIA Singles Chart
Occupying the entire top 14 region, except the seventh spot
With the debut of “Anti-Hero” atop the singles chart, Swift earned a record-breaking third Australian “Chart Double” of her career
In China, Midnights sold over 200,000 digital albums in its first day on QQ Music
In Germany, Swift scored her first number-one album on the Top 100 Albums chart with Midnights, garnering the largest streaming week for an album in the country at 20 million