Taylor Swift shocked fans around the world after abruptly announcing a new studio album, contrary to her recent trend of re-recording previous albums. This album, Midnights, supposedly features 13 entirely new tracks and is set to be released on October 21, 2022. 

   “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve…we’ll meet ourselves,” Swift poetically wrote in her Instagram post announcing the album. 

   Rather than releasing the track titles all at once, Swift has hooked fans by announcing the names one by one in her new TikTok series, “Midnights Mayhem with Me”. So far only tracks 13, 8, 7 and 6 have been publicized, namely “Mastermind”, “Vigilante Sh*t”, “Question”, and “Midnight Rain”. This method contradicts her usual cryptic messages and hidden clues to announce new music.  

   In the past year, Swift has re-recorded and re-released two of her oldest albums, Fearless and Red. Announcing these re-recorded albums as “Taylor’s Version”, she added a few songs that were not on the original tracks and regained ownership of her music. She had previously lost the rights to Scooter Braun, who sold her first six albums for around $300 million to an investor not affiliated with Swift. Fans on various social media networks speculated that her next release would be another re-recording, possibly 1989(Taylor’s Version) or Speak Now(Taylor’s Version), and were surprised to hear that Swift’s next project would be an entirely new album. It is unclear whether she will continue these re-recordings following her upcoming release but until then, fans are excited to listen to Midnights On October 21st.