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The lead single, "Anti-Hero", was released on October 21, 2022. In the United States, it became the best-selling song of 2022 and made Swift the first artist to have a number-one song on the Radio Songs chart in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s decades. "Bejeweled" and "Question...?" were released for limited-time digital download exclusively through Swift's website on October 25. Republic Records released "Lavender Haze" to US radio as the second single on November 29, 2022, and "Karma" as the third on May 1, 2023. A remix of "Karma" featuring the rapper Ice Spice was released on May 26, 2023. On the Billboard Hot 100, "Anti-Hero" reached number one, and both "Lavender Haze" and "Karma" peaked at number two.
The promotional rollout of Midnights received media commentary. Unterberger and Slate's Chris Molanphy described it as a middle ground between a traditional album rollout and the surprise-release strategy of Folklore and Evermore. Molanphy argued that Midnights employed an optimal promotion for every consumption metric: the multiple CD and LP offers would boost physical sales, the limited-time download tracks would increase digital sales, and the surprise 3am Edition release would prompt higher streams. The fact that there were no pre-release singles prompted speculation on the album's sound and content, and the TikTok video series prompted Swift's fans to interpret possible Easter eggs, heightening the anticipation for the album.
To support Midnights and her other albums, Swift embarked on the Eras Tour, which she described as retrospective journey through her "musical eras". Running from March 2023 to December 2024, the tour spanned 149 dates and visited five continents. It became the first concert tour to gross over $1 billion, totaling $2 billion, the highest-grossing in history. During the run of the tour, a Til Dawn Edition of Midnights containing the bonus track "Hits Different" was released to digital platforms, and a Late Night Edition containing the bonus track "You're Losing Me" was sold as concert–exclusive merchandise starting from the East Rutherford show on May 26, 2023.
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Release and promotion
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Midnights was a commercial success across all consumption metrics: streaming, digital sales, and physical sales. It broke various records on music streaming platforms. On Spotify, Midnights broke records for the highest single-day streams and the highest single-week streams. It also claimed the highest single-day streams for a pop album and an album released in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music, the highest single-week streams for an album on Amazon Music, and the highest single-day requests on Amazon Alexa. All of its tracks entered the Billboard Global 200 simultaneously; it set the record for the most simultaneous top-10 entries (nine) and made Swift the first artist to occupy the entire top five.
In the United States, Midnights became Swift's record-extending fifth album to sell one million first-week copies after five days of availability. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week units of 1.578 million, consisting of 1.14 million sales and 549.26 million streams, tying her with Barbra Streisand for the most number-one albums for a female artist (11). Midnights was the best-selling album of 2022, the second-best-selling album of 2023, and the second-most-consumed album of both years. Swift became the first artist to have a yearly best-seller six times since Luminate tracked US music sales in 1991. Midnights spent six weeks atop the Billboard 200, and 68 weeks in the top 10, the longest run in the top 10 for Swift. Its songs, led by "Anti-Hero", made Swift the first artist to occupy the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 the same week; all 20 tracks from the 3am Edition charted in the top 45. "Anti-Hero" and Midnights marked the fourth time Swift had a number-one album and song simultaneously. The album was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for surpassing two million US units in November 2022, and it had sold 2.814 million US copies by January 2024.
Midnights debuted at number one on the album charts in at least 14 countries, including Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. It was Swift's first number-one album in Germany and made her the best-selling foreign artist in China of 2022 after selling nearly 250,000 copies within one day. On the Australian charts, Midnights was Swift's 10th consecutive number-one album and its tracks made her the first artist to have nine songs on the top 10 of the singles chart the same week. In the United Kingdom, Midnights sold over 140,000 units in its first three days to become the fastest-selling album of 2022. It debuted atop the UK Albums Chart with 204,000 units, helping Swift achieve the shortest duration (10 years) for a female act to accumulate nine UK number-one albums. Midnights spent five weeks atop the UK Albums Chart. It sold 80,000 vinyl copies in 2022, the highest annual figure for an album in the 21st century, propelling total UK vinyl sales past CD sales for the first time since 1987.
According to Universal Music Group, the album crossed three million album-equivalent units in its first week and six million in two months. Bloomberg News reported that the album generated $230 million in sales for Universal in 2022, accounting for 3% of their annual revenue—the highest from any artist. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) recognized Midnights as the second-most-consumed album of 2022; it ranked third in pure sales (first in vinyl sales) and fifth in streams; they named Swift the Global Recording Artist of 2022, which made her the first act to win the accolade three times (after 2014 and 2019). In the IFPI's 2023 report, Midnights was the year's fourth-most-consumed album (third in both streams and vinyl sales). The album received platinum or higher certifications in many countries, including triple-platinum in Poland, the United Kingdom and Australia, five-times-platinum in New Zealand, and six-times platinum in Canada.
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Commercial performance
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Upon release, Midnights was met with widespread acclaim from music critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to ratings from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted mean score of 85 based on 28 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The review aggregator site AnyDecentMusic? compiled 29 reviews and gave Midnights an average of 8.0 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Swift's songwriting was a subject of praise. Alex Hopper in American Songwriter said Midnights displayed complex songwriting, and Alexis Petridis in The Guardian found it to be "confident" and contain a "sure-footedness". Ken Tucker of NPR complimented Swift's composition using rhymes "so tightly, so rigorously, that [...] you wonder if she did it on purpose to mess with your mind". Some reviewers commented that her lyrics were more refined and inward. According to NME's Hannah Mylrea, Spin's Bobby Olivier, and The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick, the album featured Swift's intimate personal narratives that delved deep into her state of mind. Hirsh commented that while the themes were a continuation of what Swift had explored, the album showcased a newfound maturity with "serene acceptance". Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times admired the storytelling lyrics and argued that they blurred the distinction between "what's drawn directly from Swift's real life and what's not." Hopper and Light considered the narrative-driven songwriting on Midnights an influence of Folklore and Evermore; the latter complimented Swift's ability to address a "broad canvas" of emotions that highlighted her mature perspective. For Clash's Matthew Neale, Midnights was a culmination of Swift's songcraft throughout past albums.
Reactions to the production were somewhat polarized; most were complimentary and deemed the sound tasteful. In laudatory reviews, Sheffield, Brittany Spanos from Rolling Stone, and Bilmes dubbed Midnights an "instant classic"; the lattermost called it "the pop album of the year". Ryan and Quinn said the album was a demonstration of masterful musical structures and experimentation; the former wrote that Swift effortlessly combined her sharp lyricism with new musical elements. Under the Radar's Andy Von Pip described the subdued production as elegant, while Johnston and Petridis regarded the sound as nuanced and restrained compared to the mainstream pop sound. McCormick dubbed the album a collection of "clever pop songs" but said it suggested Swift's uncertainty about whether to proceed with "intimate songcraft" or "a commercial juggernaut".
Less enthusiastic reviews complained that Swift and Antonoff's collaboration led to conformity. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, Chris Richards of The Washington Post and Paul Attard of Slant Magazine deemed Midnights uninventive and too similar to Swift's past music. Moreland, Erlewine, and The Line of Best Fit's Paul Bridgewater agreed, but they complimented the album as cohesive. Powers appreciated some sonic experimentation that attempted to innovate Swift's first-person songwriting but felt that it sometimes had a "half-finished quality". For Carl Wilson of Slate and Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic, Midnights at first seemed dull but revealed texture and substance after multiple plays; Robert Christgau believed that this "textural" approach made it less tunefully defined than Swift's previous albums. Helen Brown of The Independent wrote that the "subtle melodies" took time to "sink their claws in" and brought a rich listening experience with "feline vocal stealth and assured lyrical control". Will Hodgkinson of The Times said that despite some "off-putting" vocal treatments, Midnights was an appealing "old-fashioned singer-songwriter album" with resonant songs.
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Critical reception
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Midnights appeared on publications' lists of the best albums of 2022. It was featured in the top five by Rolling Stone, Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, People, PopMatters, and USA Today, and the top 10 by Hot Press, The Independent, musicOMH, and The Times. Publications that featured Midnights in the top 50 of their lists include BrooklynVegan, Clash, Consequence, Gaffa, The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, NME, Paste, Slant Magazine, and Under the Radar. It was also included in unranked lists by AllMusic, British GQ, the Alternative Press, and Uproxx. On individual critics' lists, Midnights was ranked first by Willman and second by Sheffield.
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Rankings
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In the United States, Midnights won Album of the Year at the 2022 People's Choice Awards, Favorite Album at the 2023 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, Pop Album of the Year at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards, and Album of the Year at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, where the Midnights songs and videos helped Swift win eight other awards, including Artist of the Year. At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in 2024, Midnights won Best Pop Vocal Album and Album of the Year. It was Swift's fourth win for Album of the Year, making her the artist with the most wins in history. It also marked Swift's sixth nomination in that category and an all-time record for a female artist, tied with Barbra Streisand.
Midnights won album awards at the NetEase Cloud Music Awards in China, the RTHK International Pop Poll Awards in Hong Kong, the Gold Disc Awards in Japan, the Fonogram Awards in Hungary, the Los 40 Music Awards in Spain, and the Danish Music Awards in Denmark. At the 2023 ARIA Music Awards in Australia, it helped Swift win Most Popular International Artist. It earned nominations at the Capricho Awards in Brazil, the Juno Awards in Canada, and the Gaffa Awards in Denmark.
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Awards
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Midnights received extensive press attention around its release. The Guardian's Laura Snapes commented that the album was "likely to hang around longer" than other "superstar releases" by Swift's contemporaries. She attributed this to Swift's popularity on streaming services and how she overturned the negative press to curate a positive public image since her 2017 album Reputation. In Fortune, Ashley Lutz argued that Swift's marketing strategy for Midnights proved she was a "business and marketing genius" akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero franchise. For Snapes and Billboard's Katie Atkinson, Midnights came at a point when the public became invested in Swift's music after the critical success and reevaluation she received with the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and the 2021 re-recordings of Fearless and Red.
Publications said the album's commercial success attested to Swift's longevity in the music industry. According to Billboard, it was the only album in 2022 that succeeded "evenly" across every consumption metric, namely streaming, album sales, and song downloads. Five Billboard journalists collectively agreed that Swift, upon Midnights' release, was "the biggest pop star in the world right now", and Yahr deemed 2022 a year of "all-Taylor all the time". Molanphy argued that by employing savvy business tactics that tackled the constantly evolving chart rules, she broke previously "unthinkable" records by the likes of the Beatles and Drake, which was "mind-blowing" for a musician in the "17th year" of her career. For The Guardian economics journalist Greg Jericho, it was an "amazing" feat that Swift remained culturally relevant "18 years into a recording career", a mark that surpassed the peak popularity of such musicians as the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and U2.
Unterberger said the physical sales of Midnights were "not seen in decades", and Anna Nicolaou in the Financial Times said they were unseen since the "1990s boy bands" era, labeling Swift "the last pop superstar". The music publisher Matt Pincus called Swift "basically an intellectual property franchise [... like] a DC movie". Noting a 2021 article from The New York Times that asked "if Adele couldn't sell more than a million albums in a single week, could any artist?" after her album 30 missed the mark, Rolling Stone's Ethan Millman responded that Swift "has once again moved the goalposts regarding what the music industry can see as possible from a major pop star". Swift shared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that she was astounded by the success: "I'm feeling very overwhelmed by the fans love for the record. I'm 32, so we're considered geriatric pop stars."
Billboard commented in November 2022 that although the commercial success of Midnights was undisputable, "the legacy of the album within [Swift's] catalog [...] remains to be seen". Molanphy observed that when the initial reviews were out, "few seem to think Midnights is Swift's very best album" and "nobody seems to agree on what [its] best or worst songs are". Within one year of its release, on the rankings of Swift's 10 studio albums, Midnights appeared fifth on NME and Entertainment Weekly and sixth on Paste, Spin, and Slant Magazine. In an October 2023 article for The Guardian, Snapes dubbed the album Swift's "first consolidation effort" that signaled "a more sustainable, experimental, adult kind of music career".
|
wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Impact
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^[a] signifies an additional producer
^[b] signifies a co-producer
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wikipedia
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Midnights
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnights
| 71,625,250 |
Track listing
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