Midnights is about reflection, not reinvention. Taylor Swift has explained that at length, in her own flowery vernacular: These 13 songs are “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.” The thoughts that keep the 32-year-old songwriter up late are the ones she’s spent nine albums excavating: the unpredictable rise and devastating fall of romance; the binary of the “good girl” and the “bad girl,” and the chafing of societal expectation (that “1950s shit”); and the uncomfortable acceptance of her own fallibility. Life, she declares, “is emotionally abusive.” Midnights is Swift’s first album to be recorded entirely with Jack Antonoff, after nearly a decade of ever higher-profile collaborations. In the past, he has accentuated Swift’s ambitiously vivid storytelling with expressive, technicolor synth pop. Here, in accordance with the lateness of the hour, they explore moodier, more subdued hues. Built around vocal effects and vintage synths, it’s an understated sound more interested in setting atmosphere than chasing trends. On the mid-album centerpiece “Midnight Rain,” against a backdrop as crystalline as the titular weather, Swift examines the pursuit of career over partnership.
- Quinn Moreland, Pitchfork

Folklore (stylized in all lowercase) is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was a surprise album, released on July 24, 2020, via Republic Records. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Swift cancelled the concert tour for her seventh studio album Lover (2019). During quarantine, she conceived Folklore as "a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness", and worked with producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff virtually, recording her vocals at an inbuilt studio in her Los Angeles residence, while Dessner and Antonoff operated from Hudson Valley and New York City, respectively.

Folklore (stylized in all lowercase) is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was a surprise album, released on July 24, 2020, via Republic Records. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Swift cancelled the concert tour for her seventh studio album Lover (2019). During quarantine, she conceived Folklore as "a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness", and worked with producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff virtually, recording her vocals at an inbuilt studio in her Los Angeles residence, while Dessner and Antonoff operated from Hudson Valley and New York City, respectively.

Folklore (stylized in all lowercase) is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was a surprise album, released on July 24, 2020, via Republic Records. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Swift cancelled the concert tour for her seventh studio album Lover (2019). During quarantine, she conceived Folklore as "a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness", and worked with producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff virtually, recording her vocals at an inbuilt studio in her Los Angeles residence, while Dessner and Antonoff operated from Hudson Valley and New York City, respectively.

Taylor Swifts Top Tracks in South Africa

* top tracks are updated live!