Ever since Taylor Swift announced her newest album, Midnights, releasing on October 21st, my friends have been telling me I look like the meme of Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, while he’s explaining his conspiracy theory. No one will let me talk about all of my theories about the upcoming album anymore, so I thought I would share them here.
With six track titles now released, there are quite a few clues about the possibilities of what the album could be. My personal favorite, and the one I believe the most as of right now, is that Midnights is a sister album to Taylor’s 2016 album, Reputation. I know what you’re thinking right now – isn’t it a sister album to Lover? When the album was first announced, I was totally on board with the Lover sister album theory, but as more track names have been released, this theory does not hold up as well as the Reputation theory.
Now if you’re like me, you’ve been pretty far into Taylor Swift-Tok for a while now, so most of my thoughts come from different creators’ takes on the album. I first heard the Reputation theory from @calla_theswiftie on TikTok and I highly recommend watching some of her videos. In the particular one I referenced, she brought up many different points proving Midnights will not be a Lover sister album. Despite being marketed as a fun and happy album, Lover already shows the two sides of the story. We have happy pop songs like “Paper Rings” and “Me!” but we also have heartbreakingly sad songs like “The Archer” and “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” From Taylor’s announcement, it is clear we are going to get a different side of her story than we have before. She tells us that the album will tell the story of “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout [her] life.” In the announcement, she also talks about lying awake “in love and in fear” and how the album is a “journey through terrors and sweet dreams.” Through this description, we see that this album is going to show us the anxious, unsure, confused, and hurt Taylor more than we ever have before. And what album shows a confident, guilt-free, rebellious Taylor who does not think about consequences? That’s right, Reputation.
Unlike Lover, Reputation only shows one side of the story. While this is a fantastic album that showed a new side of Taylor, we also know that this album came after a very hard period of time in her life. If you remember, Reputation was a response to the Kim and Kanye drama, which led to the world attacking Taylor, causing her to vanish from the public eye for almost a year. In that moment, Reputation was the perfect comeback. With it, Taylor told the world she didn’t care about what they thought of her or what was said about her. She was going to keep doing what she was doing no matter who told her to stop. However, this was only one side of the story. This period of time was definitely full of sleepless nights where she really struggled, despite what Reputation leads us to believe.
As for solid evidence of this theory, from the tracklist so far, there are parallels between the Midnights song titles and the Reputation titles. The most notable of these is “Question…?” From Midnights and “…Ready for it?” from Reputation. The formatting of these two titles is very similar, almost as if they are meant to go together as one full phrase. The “question” is “are you ready for it?” As in, are we ready to see the real Taylor? The one who is not putting on a brave face to prove the world wrong. The one who has regrets and has been kept up at night thinking about situations from the past she cannot change.
My favorite piece of evidence for this theory is the first one I thought of, the symbolism of the phone. In the very first Midnights Mayhem, as soon as I saw her pick up the phone I gasped. In the Rep era, more specifically the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, Taylor picks up the phone and says the iconic line “I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? ‘Cause she’s dead.” In the Rep era, this sent the clear message that with the new album, Taylor was a new person who no longer cared about the Kanye situation or, really, about anything. By picking up the phone to tell us the Midnights track list, she is showing us that the “old Taylor” is back and is ready to tell us the full story that she could not give us before. Another idea from @calla_theswiftie is that this is a callback to the faked phone call with Kanye where Taylor “approved” the line in Famous because this was one of the sleepless nights for her.
My final point on this (for now) is based on the outfits she’s worn lately. In all of her public appearances, Taylor’s outfits are very extravagant, elegant, and almost a callback to Old Hollywood. The first one being her sparkly diamond dress she wore for the VMAs. I love this dress because it is very reminiscent of the bathtub scene in the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video where she says the iconic aforementioned line, as well as the dress she wore to the VMAs 13 (Taylor’s favorite number) years earlier when Kanye took the mic from her. However, these outfits do not seem to match up with the ones she is wearing on the album covers or in the Midnight’s Mayhem videos. These outfits are more neutral-toned and casual and more like what we usually see from Taylor. This opposition between her public persona and her more personal persona may be a hint about Midnights telling the more personal, real story of the time period of Reputation when she put on a very extravagant public persona.
Honestly, with the amount of easter eggs and clues Taylor constantly uses, I could go on for days and in the end, end up being totally wrong about everything. With what information we have now, for me, this theory is the most believable for now– and secretly I’m really hoping that it is true. But even if none of it is, I still cannot wait for the release of the album. No matter what, it’s sure to be amazing because after all, it is a Taylor Swift album.