'Midnights' by Taylor Swift and how it turned out to be the biggest album release success yet.
- Julia Sut
- Dec 13, 2022
- 5 min read
On the 21st of October, Taylor Swift released her 10th studio album. It was expected to be a hit even before the release, and all of the critics had rated it very high before it officially came out. Moreover, the singer's actions, like 'Midnights Mayhem With Me', which was a countdown on TikTok to the release date, where Swift would randomly reveal the title of one song, only built up the tension in fans and made them look forward to the album even more.
No one, not even Taylor herself expected that the album would be so warmly welcomed by the fans since after all, it was her 10th album, and as she said, usually music industry tries to erase and remove stars from the spotlight as soon as they turn the age of 25. As it has been proven, Swift is definitely not a case of this example.
Here are some examples of the records Swift has broken and the number of people the album reached within hours and first days:
Taylor Swift became the first artist in the 64-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 song chart to occupy every single spot in the top 10 at once. Moreover, that marked the first time male artists have ever been absent from the Top 10.
She sold over 1.2 million album units in the US within 3 days alone, marking her as the first artist to ever do so.
'Midnights' broke the record of the most streamed album in 24 hours with almost 190 million streams and the most streamed on Spotify with almost 230 million.
'Midnights' also broke the record for the biggest pop album of all time on Apple Music by first-day streams.
Currently, the album has been out for about 3 weeks, and still, 18 tracks out of 20 are still on the Billboard Hot 100.
Taylor Swift also became the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify for the first time ever.
The most popular tracks so far are 'Anti-Hero' with almost 240 million streams on Spotify and 'Lavender Haze' with almost 145 million streams.
Swift also recorded two music videos for 'Anti Hero' and 'Bejeweled' and they both reached 61 million and 30 million views respectively.
Taylor broke the record for most tickets sold for an artist on Ticketmaster in a single day with pre-sale (2 million).
Though, Taylor Swift's fans were not the only ones who were looking forward to this album. Ever since her revealing her collaboration on the song - 'Snow On The Beach' with Lana Del Rey, many of Lana's fans were also equally as excited. Unfortunately, many of them were disappointed since Lana did not really sing many lines, and her voice was only present in the background, which also led to lots of discussion and even arguments on social media platforms between fans.
As it was mentioned before, even though Swift had revealed the names of the main tracks of the album, to fans' surprise at 5 am she released 'Midnights (3 am Edition)' with 7 more songs, that were not mentioned in her countdowns either. Obviously, criticisms could not have been omitted though. A lot of fans were upset because they bought vinyl, but those 7 extra songs were not present on them, as well as the ones who bought CDs. Yet, CDs were actually better, because they had songs neither vinyl nor the official album had on them, which also made a lot of fans irritated since those CDs were only available at Target.
Furthermore, on the 1st of November 2022, Taylor Swift announced her US tour that will start as soon as this March of 2023. It is officially called 'THE ERAS TOUR' and it will combine all the eras of Taylor's career, as the title suggests. There are over 50 dates on the tour throughout the US. Taylor gave the 'verified' fans the chance to get tickets first by sending them a special code for a pre-sale of her tickets on TicketMaster. Yet, the entire thing still went south. The website crashed very fast because so many people wanted to get the tickets at the same time, especially because an average fan got as many as three tickets per one code. Even though Taylor had announced the prices of tickets before the pre-sale to many fans' surprise they were not what she promised, and some tickets for the Chicago show roared to prices like $90k, which inevitably led to a wave of anger and criticism towards both Taylor, and the app. Although many fans got the tickets, most of them felt like they went through the biggest fight and storm of their lives to get them. Many of them went online speaking up about how they do not even feel good or satisfied after getting them, but rather empty. It is not a surprise that so many people did not get the tickets, after all, Taylor is at the peak of her popularity, but it is the fact that they were supposed to be in the range between $49-$899 that made the fans so furious, and overall how the Ticketmaster did not prepare well for the huge demand.
As a result, because of the unknown amount of tickets left, and problems with pre-sale, Ticketmaster decided to cancel the general sale that so many fans were waiting for. With some fans waiting as much as a few years just to see their favorite artist since the last time Swift went on a tour was after 'Reputation' came out.
As of November 19th, 2022, both the situation and Ticketmaster went under investigation for using their power and monopoly over the live music industry. This news made many fans extremely happy since this fact was known for years by people who use the platform, and sometimes the fees of tickets you have to pay are 80% of the price you pay at the end, and the ticket alone actually costs $100, while the rest are fees. Swift also let out a statement saying how sorry she is, and saying that she is hoping to see fans who did not get the tickets another time, as well as stating how disappointed she is with the entire situation. Some fun facts are that it was officially calculated that if Taylor wanted to perform in front of all the people who signed up for pre-sale alone, she would have to perform for almost three years straight and on 900 stadiums. As well as, it is more probable that you will get into Harvard University with a 5% acceptance rate rather than get a ticket for Swift's show, which is at about 2%. That really puts into perspective, how many people try to buy the star's tickets and listen to her. It is impossible to ever play so many shows.
To sum up, all the things mentioned here prove someone's words that Taylor Swift is the music industry. This album although different from her most recent ones written in 2020 and 2021 - 'Folklore' and 'Evermore', and more similar to '1989' did not disappoint fans like some people thought it would, but I think as everyone can tell by statistics fans were very much here for it, adore it and always find a song or a few to connect to, because there is a big range to choose from.
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