REVIEW: A Tortured Popstar: Taylor Swift’s Most Vulnerable Album Yet Releases
Music
Photo courtesy of Taylor Swift's "Fortnight" music video on YouTube.
By PAULINA MATA/Social Media Editor
Even with a broken heart, Taylor Swift has just released her biggest album yet, both in terms of tracks and of sales. Swift’s 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” made its debut on April 19, breaking multiple sales records and her fans’ hearts.
The 16-track album is an exploration of a “fleeting and fatalistic” time in Swift’s life after the completion of her previous album, “Midnights,” and throughout “The Eras Tour.” Lasting an hour and five minutes, “The Tortured Poets Department” details the loss of a dying relationship and the grievances of stardom with its heart-wrenching poetry and soulful production.
Following the release, Swift revealed a secret double album featuring 15 more tracks, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” The second installment brings the album to a total duration of two hours and two minutes, only a few minutes short of beating “Red (Taylor’s Version)” as Swift’s longest album. Rather than being filled with Swift’s usual radio-pop singles, though, the vulnerability and emotions Swift expresses in “The Tortured Poets Department” makes each song a heavier listen than the last.
It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️ I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours. 🤍 Taylor Swift, on Instagram.
Taylor Swift, via an Instagram post
The release came with a multitude of achievements. In less than 24 hours, “The Tortured Poets Department” became Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day. Additionally, the album sold over 1.4 million copies in traditional sales on its release day, already marking it as Swift’s largest sales week according to Billboard.
And for good reason.
Swift starts the album with “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, the first and (currently only) single. Compared to her other pop albums, “The Tortured Poets Department’s” first track is distinctly moodier, with its brooding lyrics and somber beat.
“Fortnight” describes a short-lived romance and its long-lived repercussions on her life. Swift alludes to her instability in the lines, “All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February / I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary.”
Swift touches on the mournful ending of a relationship in other songs, too.
In April 2023, Swift and her boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, broke up. Fans speculate tracks like “So Long, London,” “loml” and “How Did It End?” are about the end of her years-long, private relationship. Though the tracks have not been confirmed to be about Alwyn, they describe the drawn-out and resisted end of a relationship. In “So Long, London,” Swift sings, “Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin’ away / My spine split from carrying us up the hill.”
In “How Did It End?” Swift mulls over the publicity of her breakup and how even as she is trying to process its end, she must answer the public’s questions. Backed with pensive piano, Swift sings, “Come one, come all, it’s happenin’ again / The empathetic hunger descends / We’ll tell no one except all of our friends / But I still don’t know / How did it end?” The lyrics suggest her breakup is a common occurrence, almost like a show, that everyone must be filled in on. And even as Swift feels compelled to explain, she hasn’t fully made sense of the breakup.
In juxtaposition to her growing success and the achievements of her “Eras Tour,” the album reveals what Swift presents as the true nature of her emotions while on tour. This is highlighted in songs like “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” Backed by what I think is the most upbeat production in the whole album, Swift explores her rise into mega-stardom, and the effects it’s had on her personal life.
As reflective and weighted as the album is, however, it wouldn’t be a Swift album if there weren’t a love song snuck in.
Toward the end of “The Anthology,” Swift sings the breathy and lovestruck “So High School,” which describes a love so new and simple, it’s teenage-like. The 22nd track is speculated to be about Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs football player and Swift’s current boyfriend.
The sheer joy radiating from “So High School” is almost like a breath of fresh air amidst the gloom of “The Tortured Poets Department.” The song has lyrics like, “And in a blink of a crinklin’ eye / I’m sinkin’, our fingers entwined / Cheeks pink in the twinkling lights.”
Lyrically, “The Tortured Poets Department” had a recurring theme of love, loss, longing and the mania induced by being in the spotlight. Swift worked with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner to pair her tortured poetry with a muted synth-pop sound and the occasional piano and acoustic guitar (thanks, Dessner). “The Tortured Poets Department’s” sound is nothing new or adventurous for Swift, but creates the perfectly sad atmosphere for Swift’s extraordinary storytelling.
And though the album was well-received by fans, “The Tortured Poets Department” has taken a harsh lashing by critics and the general public.
Lindsey Zoladz of The New York Times writes, “Great poets know how to condense, or at least how to edit,” critiquing the unnecessary abundance of songs on “The Tortured Poets Department” and its second installment.
While I agree that it’s a long album and perhaps a bit oversaturated, I think back to what Swift said at an “Eras Tour” show. Swift claimed, “[The Tortured Poets Department] was really a lifeline for me, just the things I was going through, the things I was writing about, it kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life.”
The amount of music she made, even while on a world tour, speaks to the emotional toll Swift was facing throughout this era in her life. It’s almost Swift’s trademark, at this point, to include even discarded ideas – as seen with the “From the Vault” tracks on her re-recorded albums.
My only complaint for this album would be the lack of variety in her sound. The ever-present gloomy synth and imitation of spoken-poetry vocals were an interesting concept for a few songs, but grew tiring by the second installment. Dessner’s production is a saving grace in “The Anthology,” as his acoustic-centered production lets Swift’s knack for storytelling shine in songs like “The Prophecy” and “I Hate It Here.”
Whether it be its emotional intensity rivaling “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Evermore,” or its exceeding length, “The Tortured Poets Department” is a standout in Swift’s discography. Swift’s lyricism and skillful storytelling once again make for an instant hit in the charts and to her fans’ hearts.
Like Swift said, “Try and come for [her] job.”
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