Taylor Swift has shared details of her new album, Midnights, after making a surprise announcement at the MTV VMAs 2022 last night.
The star won three awards at this year’s event, which took place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
While collecting the second award – Video Of The Year for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)”, Swift broke the news to her fans. “My brand new album comes out October 21,” she said on stage. “I will tell you more at midnight.”
True to her word, Swift followed up with the album art and a message about the record, which is called Midnights. Its album art reveals that it has 13 songs, split into Sides A and B, though no song titles have been revealed. In the message, Swift described the record as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”.
Read the full message from Swift below.
“We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t – right this minute – about to make some fateful life-altering mistake.
“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.
“Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight.”
Elsewhere in her VMAs speech, Swift said she was “heartened” by the fact that “for the first time in VMA history, four of the directors nominated in the Video Of The Year category are women”. She also paid tribute to her fans, crediting them with “embolden[ing]” her to re-record her previous albums.
Swift’s most recent album Evermore was released in December 2020 and followed Folklore, which had arrived five months earlier. Since then, she has been releasing re-recorded versions of her past records, first with her second album Fearless, and most recently with her 2012 LP Red.
The star also won the award for Best Longform Video and Best Direction at this year’s MTV VMAs. Other winners on the night included Bad Bunny, who took home Artist Of The Year, Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow, who collected multiple awards for their collab “Industry Baby”, and Billie Eilish, who was awarded Song Of The Year for “Happier Than Ever”. See all of the winners from the MTV VMAs here.
Harlow, Lil Nas X and Kendrick Lamar led the nominations going into the night, with seven each. Doja Cat and Harry Styles followed behind on six nods, while Swift was in the running for five awards.
