Taylor Swift struck a chord with some members of the University of the Philippines community because of her song “Maroon” in her latest album “Midnights.”
Taylor released her 10th studio album on Friday, October 21 on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming platforms.
Here’s the teaser trailer for the videos I’ve made for Midnights 🌌 Thank you @amazonmusic for premiering this, the first video for Anti-Hero will be out tomorrow at 8am ET. And Midnights will be here SO SOON!!!https://t.co/jjqUNkpPke pic.twitter.com/xzmqXa5Cqy
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 21, 2022
It comprises the following 13 tracks:
- Lavender Haze
- Maroon
- Anti-Hero
- Snow on the Beach
- You’re On Your Own Kid
- Midnight Rain
- Question…?
- Vigilante Sh*t
- Bejeweled
- Labyrinth
- Karma
- Sweet Nothing
- Mastermind
Taylor’s fans, collectively called Swifties, gushed over the songs on social media as they held different listening parties following the release.
Filipino Swifties also made Taylor’s song titles trend on Twitter Philippines.
“Maroon,” the second song in the album, was mentioned by some UP members as it also happened to be the prestigious university’s official color.
It is also in the name of UP’s collegiate varsity teams, the UP Fighting Maroons.
Some of them quipped that the acclaimed singer-songwriter should be the next UP president.
“Our next #UPPrexy,” one user said.
“My #UPPrexy,” another user tweeted.
Other online users also referenced UP’s recent drop in global rankings.
“UP may have dropped in univ rankings but at least we have Taylor releasing a song called Maroon,” one user said.
The Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University overtook UP for the first time as the top Philippine university at the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, an annual release of university rankings across 104 countries in the world.
AdMU was given an overall score of 45.0-46.9, while UP only got 29.8-33.9.
In a statement in response to this, UP congratulated its fellow institution for the accomplishment.
“UP congratulates the students, faculty, staff and alumni of the Ateneo de Manila University on ADMU’s placing in the 351-400 bracket in the latest Times Higher Education-World University Rankings (THE-WUR),” its statement reads.
“Such accomplishments by Philippine HEIs [Higher Educational Institutions] are a net gain for the honor and prestige of the country and an inspiration for all Filipino scholars and academics,” it added.
READ: No hard feelings: Outpaced in world rankings, UP commends Ateneo
On ‘Midnights’
Meanwhile, when she first announced the album, Taylor described it as “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.”
The 32-year-old singer said that the album talked about “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.”
Hours after “Midnights” was dropped, Taylor surprised her fans and released seven bonus tracks which she called “3 a.m. tracks.”
“I’m calling them 3 am tracks. Lately, I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3 am and I’m giving them to you now,” she said.
Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13.https://t.co/jjqUNkpPke pic.twitter.com/LKI3GmpPRF
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 21, 2022
In a separate post, Taylor thanked award-winning producer Jack Antonoff for being her “co-pilot” and main collaborator in this album.
Taylor have also expressed her gratitude to her other collaborators, including award-winning singer-songwriter Lana del Rey, actress Zoe Kravitz and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
RELATED: Taylor Swift reveals late-night musings on pop album ‘Midnights’
