"Anti-Hero" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the lead single from her tenth studio album, Midnights (2022). It was released on October21,2022, through Republic Records. Swift wrote and produced the song with Jack Antonoff. A pop rock, synth-pop, electro, and electropop track, "Anti-Hero" features a 1980s-inspired drum loop generated with a LinnDrum and retro synthesizers. Inspired by Swift's insecurities, the lyrics address self-loathing and the impact of fame on her wellbeing; the bridge depicts a nightmare in which her daughter-in-law murders her for the inheritance.
Music critics generally praised the production of "Anti-Hero" as catchy and featuring strong vocals. They deemed its lyricism candid and honest, showcasing Swift at her most self-critical. Many publications ranked the song among the best songs of 2022. "Anti-Hero" peaked atop the Billboard Global 200 and charted in the top 10 in many territories across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. In the United States, it spent eight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and made Swift the first artist to have a number-one single on the Radio Songs chart in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s decades. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, it was the ninth-most-streamed song of 2023.
Swift wrote and directed the music video for "Anti-Hero", which depicts her fears, insecurities, and eating disorder, using three different incarnations of her. The video reenacts the nightmare mentioned in the lyrics, starring Mike Birbiglia, John Early, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Swift's sons and daughter-in-law. "Anti-Hero" won a People's Choice Award, a Billboard Music Award, and two iHeartRadio Music Awards. At the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, it won six awards including Video of the Year, making Swift the first artist to win the category two consecutive years. At the 2024 Grammy Awards, "Anti-Hero" was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance.
Background and release At the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, 2022, Taylor Swift announced a new studio album, slated for release on October 21. After the show, Swift revealed the album title Midnights on her social media. 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. 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. In the sixth episode, released on October 3, 2022, Swift announced the title of the third track: "Anti-Hero".
"Anti-Hero" is the lead single from Midnights. On October 21, 2022, it was released for download onto Swift's website, exclusively to American customers, and to Italian radio by Universal Music Group. Republic Records released the song to the US hot adult contemporary radio on October 24, and contemporary hit radio on October 25. A duet remix featuring the band Bleachers was released for limited-time download onto Swift's website on November 7, and for general streaming and download the following day. The single was supported by remixes produced by the DJs Roosevelt, Kungs, Jayda G, and Illenium.
Composition
Swift wrote and produced "Anti-Hero" with Jack Antonoff. 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". He created the drum sounds by applying a tremolo onto a LinnDrum beat. The end product is a pop rock, synth-pop, electro, and electropop song. The song is written in the key of E major in common time with a tempo of 97 beats per minute. It is driven by a 1980s rock-influenced drum loop, coated in dense reverb. Critics described the synths as "simmering" and "buzzing".
"Anti-Hero" explores Swift's publicity, fame, and personal issues. It returns to the autobiographical songwriting that she deviated from on the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and contains cryptic allusions to her public and private lives that generated diverse interpretations. In a self-recorded video posted onto Instagram, Swift said that the track was influenced by how her life became "unmanageably sized", which made her "struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person". She described the song as a "guided tour" through the things that contributed to her self-loathing. The track starts with Swift examining her flaws: "I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser", which Carl Wilson from Slate described as a reflection on her early fame.
In the first verse ("When my depression works the graveyard shift/ All the people I've ghosted stand there in the room"), she looks back on her difficult past. According to The Washington Post Emily Yahr, these lines allude to Swift's past celebrity controversies, including the events in 2016 that made Swift think her career was over. The second verse discusses how her fame hinders her from having real, meaningful connections: "Sometimes I feel like everyone is a sexy baby/ And I'm the monster on the hill;" there were varied opinions about whether these lines conjectured an insult, a confession, or an exaggerated self-image, and some internet audiences said they potentially referred to the sitcom series 30 Rock. Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times opined that the "sexy baby" lyric demonstrated the fetishization of female youth in the music industry. Swift makes fun of her public display of charitable acts with the lines, "Did you hear my covert narcissism/ I disguise as altruism/ Like some kind of congressman?"
In the chorus, Swift identifies herself as the source of her problems: "It's me, hi/ I'm the problem, it's me/ At teatime, everybody agrees/ I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror/ It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero;" some critics said that these lines constituted the song's hook. American Songwriter Jacob Uitti commented that these lyrics reflected the song's central theme: taking responsibility, or a lack thereof. Uitti added that these lyrics cautioned the listeners to not look to pop stars like Swift as "saviors". In the bridge, Swift describes a nightmare in which her daughter-in-law murders her to inherit her fortune, and she goes to hell for not being as earnest as she appeared.
Some critics commented that the production complemented the lyrics. According to The New Yorker Lauren Michele Jackson, the verses are "bisected": the lyrics are sung "aloft and lilting on one phrase and near monotonic the next". Jackson said that this delivery made it seem as if Swift backed up each confessional lyric with a rebuttal afterwards. As the song ends, Swift repeats the chorus multiple times as the instrumental halts. Variety's Chris Willman described her vocals in the last choruses as "out of breath", and The Ringer's Rob Harvilla characterized them as "flustered, stammering". Jackson wrote that she sounded "weary" and, after she "[hisses]" the line "everybody agrees", "the song snaps back into place, its pep suddenly restored".
Critical reception "Anti-Hero" received widespread critical acclaim. Some picked it as a highlight on Midnights and lauded it as a great lead single for its lyricism, including Harvilla, Exclaim!'s Megan LaPierre, Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos, and The Independent's Helen Brown. Olivia Horn of Pitchfork described the single as an amalgamation of Swift's past albums, including "the lacquered synth-pop of 1989, the neurotic image analysis of Reputation, the dense lyricism of Folklore and Evermore". Horn added that the lyrics were full of surprising twists that deserved attention, and Rob Sheffield said the song was "like Season Two of 'The Man' full of killer lines".
The production also received positive comments; Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times called it "infectious", and Willman said that the track had an "earworm hook" and praised Swift's delivery of the final refrains as confident and a display of a "master of tragicomic dramaturgy". The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis stated "Anti-Hero" offers "a litany of small-hours self-loathing", but sensed "an appealing confidence" in Swift's approach—that she "no longer feels she has to compete on the same terms as her peers." Billboard journalist Jason Lipshutz ranked it as the best song on Midnights. He commended its "wondrously scathing self-examination", "sardonic masterstrokes", and Antonoff's "sleek, shiny" production.
The Observer critic Kitty Empire picked "Anti-Hero" as one of the most "fascinating" tracks of the album, because of its "darkest self-flagellation". Carl Wilson of Slate highlighted the lyrics, praising "the image of a touring superstar as an unrelatable monster" and Evermore-inspired "vignette" in the bridge about her future children. Wilson also admired Swift's "expanded" vocal tones, such as a "fantasy-European elevation reminiscent of Kate Bush" and "a very Yankee drawl". Calling "Anti-Hero" the "musical and emotional heart" of Midnights, Rick Quinn of PopMatters praised its "infectious" beat, "earworm" rhythm, Swift's enunciation, and Antonoff's production. He interpreted the "monster on a hill" lyric as Swift's "impossibility of blending in as one of America's biggest cultural figures." John Murphy of MusicOMH regarded "Anti-Hero" as "a Taylor Swift classic in the making", naming it one of the best songs she has ever written. DIY said "Anti-Hero" is arguably Swift's best lead-single. GQ named "Anti-Hero" one of the best songs of 2022. In a less enthusiastic review, Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal said the music was "overstuffed" and the lyrics were "awkwardly overwritten". +Critics' rankings of "Anti-Hero"PublicationListRankBBC25 Best Songs of 2022BillboardThe 100 Best Songs of 2022The 500 Best Pop Songs of All TimeDIYDIY Tracks of 2022Entertainment WeeklyThe 10 Best Songs of 2022Los Angeles TimesThe 100 Best Songs of 2022NPRThe 100 Best Songs of 2022The New York TimesLindsay Zoladz's Best Songs of 2022NMEThe 50 Best Songs of 2022PasteThe 50 Best Songs of 2022PitchforkThe 100 Best Songs of 2022Slant MagazineThe 50 Best Songs of 2022The Sydney Morning HeraldThe 23 Best Songs of 2022Time OutThe 22 Best Songs of 2022USA TodayThe 10 Best Songs of 2022
Commercial performance 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. 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.