On April 19, Taylor Swift released her new highly-anticipated album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” She first announced her album after she won her 13th Grammy. With the release of this album, she became the most-streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history.
The title of this album surprised me because all of her other albums have short titles. This change led me to think that this album was going to be a big genre shift, but it was not very different from her usual style. It reminds me of a mix of “Folklore” and “Midnights.” TTPD has 16 songs and lasts for 1 hour and 5 minutes, and it became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day. She now holds the top three most-streamed albums with TTPD, along with “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” and “Midnights.”
Something that many fans of Swift noticed was her use of the number two before the album release. Many theories about the significance of it were being spread around social media, such as that she was going to release a few extra songs, like “Midnights (3 a.m. Edition).” Another guess was that she might release “Reputation (Taylor’s Version).” It ended up being a secret double album, introducing 15 additional songs.
Her secret double album is called “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” Many were excited that she had released almost double the number of songs than everyone thought she would. I was, however, disappointed because I feel they are not as good considering they sound very similar.
In this album, she has two features: Post Malone and Florence + The Machine. Post Malone is featured on the lead single “Fortnight,” which became the most-streamed song on Spotify in a single day. Florence + The Machine is featured on the song “Florida!!!,“ which is a different style of music than I usually hear from Swift. There are more backup drums than usual, and Florence + The Machine actually sings a verse, whereas Malone only does some backup vocals.
One of the songs on her double album is called “thanK you aIMee”, which is all lowercase except for the letters K, I and M, which spells out the name Kim. This song is a diss track on Kim Kardashian because of their past rivalry. She calls her names, like a bully and a “spray-tanned statue,” and changes her name to “Aimee,” which doesn’t make it any less obvious. I do find it a little odd how she is bringing up an old grudge from 10 years ago that Kardashian seems to have moved on from.
Swift has come out with many songs in the past that are names, such as “Betty” and “Tim McGraw.” However, on this album, she had six name songs, which shocked me. Some of them include “Peter,” “Clara Bow” and “Cassandra.” It made me wonder if there was more meaning behind it than people think.
One of my favorite songs on the album was “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” It has very sad lyrics, but the background music of the chorus is upbeat, which reminds me of her album “Lover.” She talks about how she is super depressed and no one really knows about it, but I think she has made it clear since then that she is much happier now. It does show that she was in that stage of life while performing on her tour for all of her fans.
One of her songs is called “loml” which was thought to stand for “love of my life.” When she released her tracklist, many fans were guessing that it stood for something different. As it turns out, it stands for “loss of my life,” and the song makes it sound like she was cheated on. However, she has never directly confirmed it.
She has a song called, “So Long, London,” which is her saying “bye” to her ex-boyfriend for whom she wrote “London Boy.” I liked the song; however, I thought that it didn’t really sound like her, but rather like she was trying to sound like Lana Del Rey. This surprised me because usually Swift’s voice is very recognizable, but if I did not know any better, I wouldn’t have known it was her.
Personally, this is not one of my favorite albums by Swift. I feel like many of the lyrics were not very poetic which is what I expected, given the title of the album. Usually, I am a big fan of hers, but unfortunately, this didn’t meet my expectations. While I am disappointed, to say the least, I still love and respect both Swift and the following she has built.
Contact Sophia Bahrenburg at [email protected]