Global megastar Taylor Swift has released her highly-anticipated new album, Midnights.
Offering rare insight into her personal life and relationship with her boyfriend, Mary Queen of Scots actor Joe Alwyn, the album embraces a new synth-pop, electronica and hip hop-influenced sound.
She is also expected to announce a UK headline tour in support of Midnights, after surprising fans with a pre-sale code announcement earlier this week.
Any Scottish dates as part of the tour will mark her first return to the country after seven years, last taking to the stage at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro in 2015 for the 1989 World Tour.
At the time, fans were stunned when she loudly proclaimed “I am one of you” halfway through the gig, explaining that her father had emailed her ahead of her performance to inform her of the family’s Scottish heritage.
“In the subject line it said ‘Tell Scotland this’ and in the email he said our whole family is from Scotland and you have to tell them that,” she told the packed stadium.
“So I am one of you, and I’m proud because this crowd is amazing.”
The pop megastar, 32, has previously described Midnights as the story of “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life” and “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams”.
It sees her turn away from the intimate songwriting of her two previous records, Folklore and Evermore.
She has once again written the majority of the album with Jack Antonoff, lead singer of Bleachers, opting for much darker sounds and lyrics in comparison.
She is also joined on the writers list by William Bowery, which is Alwyn’s pseudonym. The pair have been together since 2016, and he co-wrote several songs on Folklore and Evermore as Bowery.
The record features tracks with Lana Del Rey, who also worked with Antonoff on a recent album, and Zoe Kravitz.
Swift took fans by surprise when she announced the new album in the closing moments of the 2022 MTV VMAs in August.
In a post on her Instagram to mark the album’s release, she shared a photo of herself with her collaborators, and singling Antonoff out as her “co-pilot”.
She wrote: “He’s my friend for life (presumptuous I know but I stand by it) and we’ve been making music together for nearly a decade HOWEVER… this is our first album we’ve done with just the two of us as main collaborators.
“We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama.
“Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
She continued: “Midnights is a collage of intensity, highs and lows and ebbs and flows.
“Life can be dark, starry, cloudy, terrifying, electrifying, hot, cold, romantic or lonely. Just like Midnights. ”
The musician has been busy in recent months, releasing a stand-alone single titled Carolina for the film Where the Crawdads Sing.
She has also continued to re-record her first six albums, after the master recordings were acquired by talent manager Scooter Braun. By creating new versions of the songs, Swift can regain ownership of the music.
Midnights by Taylor Swift is out now.
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