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Anti-Hero (song)

"Anti-Hero" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the lead single from her tenth studio album, Midnights (2022). Swift wrote and produced the song with Jack Antonoff. It is a pop rock and synth-pop song driven by a 1980s-inspired drum loop generated with a LinnDrum and retro synthesizers such as the Juno 6 and the Prophet 5. Inspired by Swift's insecurities, the lyrics focus on self-loathing and the impact of fame on her wellbeing; the bridge narrates a nightmare where her daughter-in-law murders her for her last will. Republic Records released the song for download and streaming on October 21, 2022.

For the Marlon Roudette song, see Anti Hero (Brave New World).

"Anti-Hero"

October 21, 2022

3:20

  • Taylor Swift
  • Jack Antonoff

Music critics generally praised the catchy production and strong vocals of "Anti-Hero"; they deemed its lyricism candid and honest that showcased Swift at her most self-critical. Many publications ranked the song among the best releases of 2022. The single peaked atop the Billboard Global 200 and broke the record for the most opening-day streams on Spotify.[note 1] In the United States, it was Swift's ninth chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent eight weeks at number one, and made her the first artist to have a number-one single on Radio Songs in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s decades. It peaked in the top 10 on the charts of many territories across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), it was the ninth best-selling global single of 2023, earning 1.3 billion subscription streams equivalents globally.


Swift wrote and directed the song's music video, which depicts her fears, insecurities, and eating disorder, using three different incarnations of her. The video also reenacts the nightmare mentioned in the lyrics, starring Mike Birbiglia, John Early, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Swift's fictional sons and daughter-in-law. "Anti-Hero" won many awards including a People's Choice Award, two iHeartRadio Music Awards, and six MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year, making Swift the first artist to win the award two years in a row. It was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

Background and release[edit]

Amidst the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, Taylor Swift released Folklore and Evermore, indie folk albums that showcased her songwriting by exploring fictitious narratives and characters, deviating from her previous autobiographical songs.[1][2] Folklore and Evermore brought Swift widespread critical acclaim and recognition as a songwriter.[3] From November 2020, Swift began re-recording her first six studio albums as a reaction to the 2019 public dispute involving the sales of her masters of her albums that had been released by Big Machine Records.[4][5] By re-recording the albums, Swift had full ownership of the new masters, which enabled her to control the licensing of her songs for commercial use and therefore substituted the Big Machine–owned masters.[6] She released her first two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version), in 2021.[7][8]


Amidst the re-recording projects, Swift sparked speculation on new music when she appeared as a guest at Haim's One More Haim Tour concert in London in July 2022; it was her first concert performance since 2019.[9][10] At the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, in her acceptance speech for Video of the Year for All Too Well: The Short Film, she announced a new studio album, slated for release on October 21.[11] After the show, Swift revealed the album title Midnights on her social media.[11] Using the video-sharing platform TikTok, from September 21 to October 7, 2022, she released a 13-episode video series called Midnights Mayhem with Me, where she announced the title of each Midnights track in a randomized order per episode.[12] In each episode, Swift rolled a lottery cage containing 13 ping pong balls numbered from 1 to 13, each representing a track of the album, and when a ball dropped out, she disclosed the title of the corresponding track through a telephone.[13][14] In the sixth episode, released on October 3, 2022, Swift announced the title of the third track: "Anti-Hero".[15]


"Anti-Hero" is the lead single from Midnights.[16] On October 21, 2022, it was released for download onto Swift's website, exclusively to American customers,[17] and to Italian radio by Universal Music Group.[18] Republic Records released the song to the US hot adult contemporary radio on October 24,[19] and contemporary hit radio on October 25.[20] A duet remix featuring the band Bleachers was released for limited-time download onto Swift's website on November 7,[21] and for general streaming and download the following day.[22] The single was supported by remixes produced by the DJs Roosevelt, Kungs, Jayda G, and Illenium.[23][24] In total, 10 versions of "Anti-Hero" were released: the original mix, an acoustic version, an instrumental version, the Bleachers versions (explicit and clean), the four remixes, and an extended Kungs remix.[24][25]

Production and music[edit]

Swift wrote and produced "Anti-Hero" with Jack Antonoff, who had produced songs for all of Swift's past albums starting from 1989 in 2014.[26] Antonoff recorded the song with the engineer Laura Sisk, assisted by Megan Searl, Jon Sher, and John Rooney, at Rough Customer Studio in Brooklyn and Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Bobby Hawk played additional violin, and his performance was recorded by John Gautier at Sound Hound Studios in Lakeland, Florida. "Anti-Hero" was mixed by Serban Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and mastered by Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, New Jersey.[27]


According to the liner notes of Midnights, Antonoff programmed the track and played instruments including percussions, drums, acoustic guitars, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, and modular synths including the Juno 6 and the Prophet-5.[27] Speaking with Time, Antonoff said that he built upon "Out of the Woods", which he produced for 1989. For the synth sounds, he used an OB-8, which created a sound that he compared to "an old organ in a baseball stadium".[28] He created the drum sounds by applying a tremolo onto a LinnDrum beat.[28] The end product is a pop rock[29][30] and synth-pop song.[16][31] It is driven by a 1980s rock-influenced drum loop[16][32][33] that is coated in dense reverb.[34] Critics described the synths as "simmering"[16] and "buzzing".[33]

Commercial performance[edit]

Upon the release of Midnights, "Anti-Hero" earned over 17.4 million plays in its first 24 hours on Spotify globally, becoming the biggest opening day for a song in the platform's history.[88] The single debuted atop the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. US charts, marking Swift's second number-one song on both the charts since their inception in 2020.[89]


In the United States, "Anti-Hero" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 as Swift's ninth number-one song in the country, with 59.7 million streams, 13,500 digital downloads sold, and an airplay audience of 32 million. Swift became the first artist to simultaneously occupy the top 10 spots of the Billboard Hot 100 chart; the first artist to debut atop the Hot 100 with solo songs five times;[note 2] the female artist with the most top-10 entries (40), surpassing Madonna (38); the first artist to debut atop both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously as many as four times;[note 3] and the first artist to occupy the entire top-ten of the Hot 100, Streaming Songs, and Digital Songs charts simultaneously.[90] The single spent a total of eight weeks at the top spot of the Hot 100, surpassing "Blank Space" (2014) as Swift's longest-running number-one song. It remained atop the Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks, paving way for Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (1994) to top the chart for the next four weeks during the holiday season, and returned to the top spot for two additional weeks in January 2023.[91][92] "Anti-Hero" is the 10th song in Hot 100 history to spend its first six weeks at number one,[24][93] and sold 327,000 digital downloads in its third week in the US, achieving the biggest digital downloads week for any song since her own "Look What You Made Me Do" (2017) sold 353,000 in its first week.[25] The song finished 2022 as the best-selling song of the year, with a total 436,000 digital downloads sold.[94] "Anti-Hero" spent 28 weeks in the Hot 100 top ten, surpassing "Shake It Off" as Swift's longest-running top-ten single.[95]


The single was also Swift's first wide success on US radio formats since "Delicate" (2018), topping several airplay charts. "Anti-Hero" debuted at number 13 on the Radio Songs chart, a personal best for Swift,[90] and eventually became her seventh number-one on the chart, making Swift the first artist to score a chart-topper in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s decades separately.[96] It peaked atop the Pop Airplay chart for three non-consecutive weeks and became her 10th number one on the chart and her first since "Delicate";[97] marked her ninth number-one on the Adult Top 40 chart, which it ruled for nine consecutive weeks to surpass "Shake It Off" as Swift's longest-running number-one single; and topped the Adult Contemporary chart dated March 25, 2023, to mark Swift's eighth number-one on the chart—the most for any artist in the 21st-century.[98]


In Australia, "Anti-Hero" charted at number one on both the ARIA Singles and Airplay charts.[99] It marked Swift's ninth number-one song in Australia,[100] and became the first song ever to debut atop the airplay chart.[101] It has spent six consecutive weeks atop the singles chart, with its first five weeks alongside Midnights' number-one run atop the albums chart—a record "Chart Double" streak.[102][103] "Anti-Hero" debuted atop New Zealand's singles chart as well,[88] and spent nine consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Philippines Songs chart, the longest for an international artist.[104]


In the United Kingdom, "Anti-Hero" marked Swift's second number-one single in the UK after "Look What You Made Me Do"; both debuted atop the UK Singles Chart. Swift became the first woman since Miley Cyrus in 2013 (Bangerz and "Wrecking Ball") to simultaneously debut atop the albums and singles chart, following the number-one debut of Midnights as well.[105] "Anti-Hero" spent six consecutive weeks atop the chart, surpassing "Look What You Made Me Do" to become her longest-running number one on the chart, and spent 15 non-consecutive weeks in the top ten, surpassing "Shake It Off" to become her longest-running top-ten hit, later surpassed by "Cruel Summer".[106] It debuted atop the Irish Singles Chart, marking her third chart-topper in Ireland, and formed a Chart Double with Midnights' debut atop the Irish Albums Chart.[88] The song was number-one in Ireland for six consecutive weeks.[107]


Elsewhere, "Anti-Hero" scored Swift her first top-ten song on Germany's Top 100 Songs chart since "Look What You Made Me Do", debuting at number eight and later peaking at number seven whilst charting for 70 weeks, becoming Swift's longest-running single on the chart.[108] "Anti-Hero" charted at number one in Belgium and Latvia, for six and three non-consecutive weeks, respectively.[109][110] It broke the all-time records for the most streams for a song by an international artist in a week and day on Spotify Brazil and Canada. It received a gold certification from Music Canada within its first five days.[88] "Anti-Hero" also topped the Canadian Hot 100 for five weeks, and marked her ninth number-one song in Canada.[111]


"Anti-Hero" was the sixth most-streamed song on Apple Music globally in 2023, and the tenth most-streamed song on Spotify globally in 2023.[112][113] The song was the ninth biggest song of 2023 according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with an equivalent of 1.31 billion global subscription streams.[114] Additionally the hook "It's me, Hi, I'm the problem, it's me" turned into a meme.[115]

Swift publicly performed "Anti-Hero" for the first time on January 12, 2023, as a surprise guest at the show of English band the 1975's 2023 concert tour, At Their Very Best.[116]

London

A large portion of the song was used in the final episode of the of You, an American psychological thriller series on Netflix.[117]

fourth season

The song is on the set list of Swift's sixth headlining concert tour, (2023–2024).[118]

the Eras Tour

The song was covered by British singer-songwriter and Dermot Kennedy on BBC One's Live Lounge.[119][120]

Mimi Webb

The song was covered by Australian band Pendulum on the Australian radio station Triple J as part of Like a Version.[121]

drum and bass

Actor and musician sang "Anti-Hero" while performing a striptease during the Give Back-ular Spectacular! Show at Los Angeles' Orpheum Theatre as part of a fundraising event for TV and film crews affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike.[122]

Jack Black

The Australian rock musician covered the song for the radio station Triple M.[123]

Paul Kelly

at Rough Customer Studio (Brooklyn) and Electric Lady Studios (New York City)

Recorded

at MixStar Studios (Virginia Beach)

Mixed

at Sterling Sound (Edgewater, New Jersey)

Mastered

Bobby Hawk's performance was recorded by Jon Gautier at Sound House Studios ()

Lakeland, Florida

Credits are adapted the liner notes of Midnights.[27]

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"Are You Ready for It? Re-Evaluating Taylor Swift"

McGrath, John (2023). . Popular Music and Society. 46 (1): 70–84. doi:10.1080/03007766.2022.2156761.

"The Return to Craft: Taylor Swift, Nostalgia, and Covid-19"

Tribulski, Emily (2020–2021). "Look What You Made Her Do: How Swift, Streaming, and Social Media Can Increase Artists' Bargaining Power". Duke Law & Technology Review. 19: 91–121.