stealer of the sky

WELL. SO. I’ve been counting down for months and finally the ‘I Can See You’ video is out. I wrote this video treatment over a year ago and really wanted to play out symbolically how it’s felt for me to have the fans helping me reclaim my music. I had my heart set on Joey King, Taylor Lautner and Presley Cash starring in it. Joey and Presley had been in the video for ‘Mean’ when they were 9 and 13 and they are back and so ridiculously bad ass!! Taytay is INCREDIBLE in this (didn’t have a stunt double!) and shout out to Tay Lautner for being so awesome to hang with on set. The Tale of 3 Taylors 😆 I always wanted to direct fight scenes/a heist storyline and had the most incredible time plotting this out with my amazing DP Jonathan Sela. So proud of this one. 

• my boyfriend

• a god

• the breeze in my hair on the weekend

• a relaxing thought

BY ELISE RYAN

Taylor Swift “Midnights,” (Republic Records)

“All of me changed like midnight,” Taylor Swift confesses halfway through her latest album, the aptly named and moody “Midnights.” It’s a moment on the electric “Midnight Rain” that finds lyricist Swift at her best, reminding you of her unparalleled ability to make any emotion feel universal.

The song’s chorus begins: “He was sunshine, I was midnight rain.” And continues: “He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain. He wanted a bride, I was making my own name. Chasing that fame. He stayed the same.” Then, that lyric: “All of me changed like midnight.” The sound feels experimental for Swift, opening with her own vocals artificially pitched down to an almost-unrecognizable tone. It’s among the album’s most sonically interesting, an indie-pop beat that feels reminiscent of her producer Jack Antonoff’s work on Lorde’s “Melodrama,” but also fresh and captivating.

The song’s words, by Swift and Antonoff, are steady and detailed, but not distracting — allowing you to sink into the rhythm, flowing and feeling it with her.

Midnights is a wild ride of an album and I couldn’t be happier that my co pilot on this adventure was Jack Antonoff. 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. We were so lucky to also work with our brilliant collaborators Sam Dew, Sounwave, Lana Del Rey, Jahaan Sweet, Keanu Beats, William Bowery, and Zoe Kravitz. Laura Sisk was our excellent engineer. The wonderful and wise Beth Garrabrant took the album photographs. 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. Which is out now