TAYLOR SWIFT

SWIFTY fans are counting down the days until the pop star’s 10th studio album, Midnights, drops on 21 October. Taylor announced the news unexpectedly at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, sending her fans into a frenzy.

“I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you all that my brand-new album comes out 21 October. Meet me at midnight,” she quipped. At midnight her official website crashed as she shared the album’s cover.

Sharing her inspiration behind it in a social-media post, she wrote, “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life. 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 12 . . . we’ll meet ourselves.”

It is the 32-year-old old’s first album of new songs in almost two years and contains 13 tracks (13 is said to be her lucky number). Last year she put out two rerecordings of previous albums, Fearless and Red, as part of her project to re-release her first six albums.

She started the project to regain ownership of her work after music mogul Scooter Braun bought her former label, Big Machine, in 2019 and with it the master recordings of her back catalogue. It remains to be seen what direction the singer will be going in on Midnights.

She’s moved from country to pop and her last two albums, 2020’s Folklore and Evermore, signalled a move towards folk and alternative music. Did you know? Last year Taylor broke a record set by the Beatles between 1965 and 1966 for the fastest accumulation of three No 1 albums, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Folklore and Evermore, in the UK.