Album Review: The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift
We knew Ratty Healy would end up as a net-positive for the Swifties
We’re back! Sorry for the delay. Bennett’s been busy with finals and graduation and Carson’s been busy getting married and settled after his honeymoon. But we’re finally ready to pick things back up. Thanks for your patience!
Well. We're here. Let's do this.
In April, Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated and discoursed-to-death 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department. If you already know, she sold 2.6 million units in the first week. That number is insane for a myriad of reasons, mainly because it's her biggest first-week seller by far (roughly a million more than Midnights and 1989 TV), and it is also the biggest streaming week ever by anyone, which is notable due to how many actual physical records she sold
It's the most significant first-week sales for any album since Adele's 25, which is primarily considered impossible to repeat due to the changes in music consumption with streaming since 2015 (but never say never with Taylor Swift).
After her magnificent 2023, The Tortured Poets Department would always be fighting an uphill battle to meet the impossible expectations of her previous records. Taylor has been everywhere. Between Midnights, the monumental success of The Eras Tour, the resurgence of her catalog on streaming, Cruel Summer becoming a single, The Eras Tour movie-breaking records, releasing two more Taylor's Version albums, and, of course, her takeover of the NFL with her relationship with Travis Kelce - she's had a lot on her plate. Nobody thought she would have a brand new album, let alone 31 tracks up her sleeve.
In the promotion for this record, Taylor has been insistent on this being her "therapy album" that she had to make to process all that had been happening to her last year. TTPD was a "lifeline' for her, something she was desperate to create. Swift's desperation overcomes this album, raging from cathartic and playful to overstuffed and tiresome. It was widely believed that this album would detail the end of her 6-year relationship with Joe Alwyn, but the actually is much more about the fling with 1975 frontman Matty Healy. The change of subject is almost more shocking than the double album drop.
The album is split in two, with the latter 15 tracks being The Anthology section of the album, a surprise drop two hours after the initial offering featuring heavily in production from Aaron Dessner, with the first 16 tracks being more of the same Swift-Antonoff formula.
For weeks, Swifties have ripped and torn this album to shreds trying to decipher which songs are about Matty, which are Travis, and which are Joe. Elsewhere on the internet who don’t care about Swift’s love affairs, the consensus has been mixed - most of the critique of this record comes that Taylor needs 1) an editor and 2) to break up with Jack Antonoff. We have to agree for the most part, but that doesn't mean there aren't some remarkable moments on this 31-track behemoth.
The album starts with a pop offering in Fortnight featuring Post Malone. However, the most exciting moment from this track was when it was revealed on the tracklist and people on TikTok made AI versions of the song that are better than the final product. The actual version is interesting, and it is inoffensive, but lacks a punch of what Post and Taylor could drum up together. In an attempt to be objective and critical, Fortnight is just fine. It's a slower pop jam with some excellent instruments that Taylor has been using more frequently recently. The song is a more prominent example of how Taylor has been renovating synth-pop as her musical identity lately, sometimes combining that with the folkiness experienced in folklore & evermore (take The Bolter, for example).
Most of The Tortured Poets Department builds on the sound established from her newest records, a blending of the folklore-evermore sound blended with the return of synths with Midnights. Tracks on the latter half like The Prophecy, I Hate It Here, and Peter carry an airy wistfulness to them straight out of the folkmore playbook.
Fan favorite I Can Do It With A Broken Heart details Swift’s complex relationship with her fame. It details her being on top of the world during the record-breaking Eras Tour juxtaposed against feelings of isolation and heartbreak. From a production standpoint, the track borrows from the “Wreck it Ralph” electronic sound from Bejeweled.
One of the stark differences in Tortured Poets is Taylor's choice to be so humourous and direct in her songwriting with a more unfiltered, ironic tone. Throughout the album, Taylor leaves evidence (not clues) as to who she's writing about. Most explicitly on "thanK you aIMee," - she spells it out for the audience. Taylor reflects on her infamous relationship with Kim Kardashian. Pop Lobster is not the place to go into a historical analysis of their conflicts, so if you're interested, I suggest reading the lyrics. Elsewhere, Taylor mocks herself and how pretentious the album title is, “Who uses typewriters anyways?”
This album is good but not great. Sure, it has moments of brilliance, like on But Daddy I Love Him, which borrows from the Love Story imagery Swift laid the foundation for 9 albums ago. Swift also breaks the fourth wall to examine the toxic parasocial relationship some of her fans have with her, “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best, clutchin' their pearls, sighing, "What a mess." Elsewhere on the track, Swift addresses those who chastised her relationship with Healy, that it was they only pretended to care about the controversies surrounding Healy as an excuse to attack her, “I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths clothing.”
There’s a million different dissertations out there around the lyrics on this record. We know that Taylor is chronically online, so it’s no surprise she’s seen the memes of her fans saying they needed a dictionary to comb through some of the lyrics on some of her newest albums.
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On Tortured Poets, it almost feels like Taylor deliberately decided to double down on that by including lines like “sanctimoniously performing soliloquies”, “left me bereft and reeling”, and “our maladies were such we could not cure them” just to name a few. Taylor leans a little too hard into this poet trope because it ends up making these tracks almost too dense and a mouthful to fit into the production of these songs.
Swift delivers once again a solid project, one that her fans will eat up until the next, but Tortured Poets is more a victory lap on her previous work than trailblazing a new path forward. It doesn’t do much to advance her catalog into new territory. With re-recordings for Reputation & Debut in her back pocket, we have a hunch we are not done with Taylor in 2024. Closing tracks Clara Bow and The Manuscript makes it clear where the biggest pop star in the world is headed next. She’s thinking about her legacy, and we’re intrigued at what move she makes next.
Can’t Miss: But Daddy I Love Him
You Can Skip: Robin, The Manuscript, Cassandra, I Hate it Here
BY THE NUMBERS
Bennett’s Score: 7.32
TTPD: 7.63
Anthology: 7.0
Carson’s Score: 7.29
TTPD: 7.81
Anthology: 6.73
Overall Album Score: 14.61
TTPD: 15.44
Anthology: 13.73
Notes from Bennett:
Look its good! I like it and i’m streaming! Im just not excited about it! It even took me a mere 3 days to work up the courage to sit down for 2 hours to listen. Songs from this album will probably be in my playlist for the summer as well as the rest of the year! I just don’t know which ones lol.
I also am unsure how i feel about the cringe here-its her trademark at this part but for me. Just not doing it at places. daddy i can fix him, fortnight, I'm just unsure.
This album is good but not shocking, unlike some of her other projects. Part of me believes this album exists solely to serve Taylor and keep her relevant and in the charts for her European leg of The Eras Tour. Here's to hoping for a hiatus before TS12, and please TS13.
Notes from Carson:
Despite it not being Taylors best, this album will always have a place in my heart. It came out when my wife and I were honeymooning and on a long hike in the English coastal/countryside. We had it on while we hiked and listened to The Anthology half while we made dinner and napped and the sun came through the windows. Amazing. Picture perfect.
I did not stay up to listen when it dropped because that would have been 5AM BST, but I woke up around 8 maybe an hour or so after she dropped the additional second half and that was crazy to be up for.
My biggest problem with TTPD is that its 31 tracks but there’s only like 3 bangers here (Down Bad, ICDIWABH, and Florida!!!). It’s summer. We needed bops.
What the f*ck is a tryst? She got me Googling too much on this album fr.
As a 1975 fan, I am drawn to this record more because of all the Taylor/Matty lore and how it feels so intentional some of the references to him and his music on this record.
Didn’t say anything in the article but shoutout to Guilty As Sin?
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The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift | Score: 14.61
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