Ashui
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift 5)'s tenth studio album "Midnights" was not suddenly airborne. Back in August, she announced the existence of the album, a "journey woven by fear and sweet dreams." In the next time, she announced the names of her new songs on social media one after another, sprinkling text or visual clues along the timeline, igniting expectations little by little. The three-month puzzle game fills the free time of many fans. By the time the album cover was released, the mysterious eye shadow color number of Swift insect beetle-like insects has also become a hot topic of discussion.
"Midnights"
She still maintains her usual high productivity and published two works born during social isolation in 2020. The guitar folk style "Folklore" and "Evermore" have changed from the first person to the third person. Swift intends to distance himself from the narrative object and explore more diverse songwriting skills. Last year, she began to reinterpret and record the first six albums, and has completed two pictures of "Fearless" and "Red".
If a pop singer wants to remain popular, he must understand the art of dancing on a steel cable. It is still the primary stage to use seemingly unique but actually thoughtful marketing methods to sway fans. They also need to maintain the mysterious and advanced impressions in the public's impression, so that the topics about them are always concerned. The hard-to-pleased media is more picky about the music itself. In order to make them have something to say without being forced, pop singers must try to make it difficult to predict while maintaining their personal traits and keep making new attempts.
In all aspects above, Taylor Swift is the best player on the card table. The introduction says: "Midnights return to 13 Swift's sleepless nights." "Thirteen" is her lucky number, the past was the inspiration for all her works, and midnight is her favorite time of the day.
She returns to the first person narrative, the themes of love and revenge coexist. In terms of style, it continues to be popular in synthesizers in "1989" and "Reputation", and is jointly produced with his old partner , Jack Antonoff. For me, the impression points reduced by Taylor Swift's 2020 documentary "Miss Americana" not only lost points by this album, but also by many.
"Miss America" has a serious resentment, which only reinforces my prejudice against Swift: narcissism, good at self-management, and a perfect appearance that is distorted like a wax figure, which makes people resist. The more she wants to express herself sincerely, the more applause she gets, the more it is difficult to avoid being offensive. This is how people's hearts are. They always have a dark mind about people who succeed everywhere, and only feel that they are hypocritical (even if they are talented and hardworking).
, a force of stubbornness and doubt, has long been confronted with Taylor Swift's own resilience, and ultimately internalized into an important part of her personal traits.
Taylor Swift
The first song of "Midnights" "Lavender Haze" appears as a hedgehog. She refused to be stolen by the "old shit pot of the 1950s". Indeed, the duality of female identity of "either a one-night stand or a wife" is too old-fashioned. Write these statements into the song, and in the music of the dream bubble, it is like the plump and juicy razor clam , biting it down in one bite and eating it all over the mud and sand.
This is a concept album composed of 13 songs. The footprints of "Midnight" are everywhere, but the establishment of the concept does not depend on superficial articles. The experience of this midnight trip is like the birth of a pearl. Starting from the crude smell, changes slowly occur. Until the last song, clam shells are opened and crystal pearls are spit out. Each song is short (no more than 4 minutes), but it spans a long time and psychological journey.
She recalls the love of Ji Guang Chiyu, cleverly uses colors to draw the most indelible part of her memory ("Maroon"). Swift has always had such confidence - the scenes that can still touch her after the love is over and can also touch the listener's heartstrings. Red flows in different shades, from cheeks, T-shirts to the heart. The snapshot image leaves a picture of love, and the red wine stains on the T-shirt turn from scarlet to maroon and stop changing.Rust spread across the phone. Her long sentences are neatly advancing to the end point, allowing people to fully experience the pleasure of combining language and rhythm. The low mood is like a river flowing through the desert, and the low-key is to get empathy with in order to set off the next song "Anti-Hero" as the theme song.
Pop singers and superstars have reached a certain stage and have entered the necessary path of self-deprecation, self-deprecation, self-doubt and self-reflection. "Anti-Hero" is the standard work. Taylor Swift came up with a good metaphor and repeated it again and again: "I dare to look directly at the sun, but I don't dare to look at myself in the mirror." In terms of self-loathing, she burned her way and wrote a sentence that "Sometimes I think everyone is a sexy doll, and I am a monster sitting on the top of the mountain." drum machine does not interfere with her voice to the minimum. Vocals are the key to gaining recognition. It needs to be pure, innocent, high-pitched to the point of fragility, making a brake-like sound on a certain pronunciation. In this way, you can only appear sincere when admitting that "it's me, hi, the problem is me."
Next is the past of the town girl. One song is not enough, two songs are too few, and three songs are just the same. The heartbeat and ambition of the girl in the town, the heartbreaking boy, the forgetful tacit understanding of each other and the symmetry of "You only think of me when you watch TV, I only think of you at midnight", touched the remains of love after being corroded. "You get the life you want", but some memories are still in lingering.
Swift occasionally breaks through the fourth wall and looks straight into the audience's eyes when he recalls the past in immersively. I will also travel through time in the statement and suddenly tell myself as an adult: "Child, you can only rely on yourself."
memories are not controlled by the brain. It can take out any fragment at any time according to its own wishes. "Question...?" is moving backwards rapidly along the river of time, and finally staying in a crowded room, a kiss for 15 seconds in full view of everyone. She repeated the scene in various tones without getting tired of it, looking up at her face and longing for an answer, her fingers tightly clasped and chattered endlessly. The story begins as crystal clear as crystal, and the subsequent things are in the wind, and the unwilling and unnecessary problems are still restless at midnight.
This nervous and arrogant love type knocks on each relationship and creates a beautiful melody like luxurious clothing. The gloom and paranoia she showed were exactly what we wanted to say but had nowhere to tell.
is more flashy, lighter and more dramatic. Because memories are always limited, stories are those stories that you can’t sing again after the moment you sing them once. As a storyteller, Swift can only hone his skills. This time she uses multiple personalities to directly narrate the audience, switching between immersion and jumping; the arrangement gives clues, and the melody grabs the soul, making people wander in the crystallization of honey, and suddenly encounter "Vigilante Shit". A song of revenge with a knife hidden in honey reminds people of Billie Eilish when he first debuted. This sexy kitten's style is now very popular.
Taylor Swift has only a few enemies. Vigilante Shit gives clear clues to Scooter Braun. It doesn’t matter who the partner is. What fans always love is only her determination to avenge her revenge. When the first person "I dress up for revenge" turns to the third person, "she" and "they" rise up in the ghostly sing, brilliant. She imitates the form of a musical, switching between the narrator, heroine and supporting role as she pleases.
Taylor Swift
The two songs "Karma" is the theme of revenge again. Swift grinds the sound into a slightly rough texture, seeking another fierce revenge. Why is she so confident? "Karma is God, my boyfriend, and the wind blowing between my hair on weekends." Because this sentence is embedded: "Karma is a relaxing thought", it resolves the arrogance of being scattered and shows cunning sobriety.
For mainstream works, no matter how they travel in the dark, they will eventually return to the harbor of love. Just like countless blockbusters, people can die, but love cannot be buried with them. "Labyrinth" and "Sweet Nothing" return to the era of friendship. You can tell at first that it is a work that has been read by thousands of sails.
playful phrases that flashed through the back of the ears, the strange harmony in the voice, repeatedly confirming the joy of "I am in love again" ("Labyrinth"). If you still have a feeling of anxiety, "Sweet Nothing" can also be resolved. The crystal-clear sound of the piano echoes the pebble in the song. I secretly opened a crack in my eyes and saw a small stone lying deep in my pocket. It was a souvenir from last July. The first paragraph is the most beautiful, like a rolling poem, which makes the world boring afterwards divided into "our small world" and "the big world of chaos". Perhaps what she is most sincere is the last sentence: "What you want from me is always just a sweet nothingness."
The 13th song "Mastermind" uses electronic sound as light as bubbles to create a cosmic atmosphere. The destined love at first sight is the most popular form of quantum entanglement. Swift's self-report cleverly covers up inferiority with conceit and leaves the scorpion tail for the end. She changed the subject, "Your expression tells me that you always knew that I was the mastermind behind the scenes." She is really a narcissistic person, no matter what love she sings, she is only herself. It seems that just treating yourself as a mirror is enough, and there is no need to bother to describe the object of keeping love. All objects are vague shadows that exist to echo her. Only when passing by her mirror can you leave a shocking glance.
But this is Taylor Swift, who loves himself wholeheartedly, carefully records his past at midnight, and carefully cares to prevent the feeling of the time from being lost. She cherishes herself, and is so righteous and gives people strength. On the 10th studio album, I started to have a bit of love for Taylor Swift.
This issue's senior editor Zhou Yuhua
