On April 19th, 2024, Taylor Swift debuted her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, written and produced by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. Swift announced the album during an acceptance speech for an award during the 66th Annual Grammys, right after she won “Best Pop Vocal Album.” At 2am on April 19th, Swift released The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology as a surprise, which included fifteen new songs, totaling in thirty-one new songs. Her lead single off of the album, “Fortnight (featuring Post Malone)” had a music video that premiered at 8pm on the same day. Swift and her team gave so much in such a quick time, but many people did not consider themselves fans of the album and judged it harshly. The New Yorker claimed that the album was “too long and too familiar”, and The Atlantic said “it’s way too long and uneven to be, from any point of view”. CNN gave her a review that it felt “a little tired”, but published another review a week later saying that they are “ready to declare that it is one of Swift’s best works yet” (CNN). In one of Swift’s songs on the album, “But Daddy I Love Him”, her lyric “time, doesn’t give some perspective” really applies to the album as a whole, because with time to reflect, many are growing to love Swift’s latest work. 

Courtesy of Taylor Swift

Personally, I think that this is some of Swift’s greatest work and really highlights all of her career up until this point. She is able to channel the naivete and desire in Taylor Swift and Fearless, the rage and heartbreak seen in Speak Now and Red, the wanting to be accepted for who she is that is channeled in 1989 and Reputation, the self-loathing in Lover, the lyricism of folklore and evermore and the musical production seen in Midnights. I feel like in this album, Swift was able to be raw and real, and write down and share anything and everything she was thinking at the moment. She was not hesitant to hold back, and takes her personal experiences and intertwines them with her lyric-writing abilities and combines her art of storytelling to produce this two hour long album. A lot of the criticism of the album is about the length and the repetitiveness of the sounds and ideas on the album, and I think that was very purposeful. Swift’s goal was to make us tired from this album, and wants us to look with exhaustion that we carry from listening, because while we only related to her pain and got a glimpse of her life for two hours, she feels all of those emotions and thinks all of those thoughts and feelings all day, everyday. She is unable to hit pause or skip to certain parts of her life in the same fashion that we are able to play next on her discography. If you did not feel emotional exhaustion, desire for more and a whole lot of confusion after finishing the album, I personally do not think you listened to it right. 

Photo courtesy of Spotify via Taylor Swift

I feel like in her eleventh studio album, we are able to get what I love best from her and a skill I admire the most, which is her song-writing and deep lyrics, but we had the musical production that was behind Midnights, which I think makes the perfect album. While evermore is still my favorite album she has released, I would safely put The Tortured Poets Department in my top 5. My favorite song off of the album would be a tie between “Florida!!! (Featuring Florence and the Machine)” or “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”. In “Florida!!!”, I absolutely adore how Florence Welch’s voice works with Taylor Swift’s, as she offers a lower tone and more aggression with her singing. Additionally, I think that the use of the drums and tambourine (an iconic Welch instrument) in the chorus is part of what I love about the song so much, because the musical production is so different from Swift’s entire career trajectory. In “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”, I think that the lyrics are just perfect, and I feel like it can be interpreted and understood in so many different capacities, and I feel like I can apply it to so many aspects of my life. 

I asked my best friend and fellow Swiftie Cara Mia (who made her parents pick her up from college for this album release) about her thoughts on the album, and she said “it’s all the best parts of her previous albums. It has the lyricism of folklore and evermore, but the production of Midnight and instrumentals of Red and Speak Now. It is so raw and she does not hold back on her emotions.” Cara Mia’s favorite song is “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”, as she says the production and beat of the song are so fun, despite the depressing lyrics. 

Swift’s album was not meant to be comfortable, since “There is a clear emphasis here on vulnerability; it’s an effort to rub some of the varnish off of Taylor Swift the commercial product and focus on Taylor Swift the tender, unlucky romantic with whom we fell in love so many years ago” (Pitchfork). This album is made to see Taylor Swift, a hopeless romantic struggling in so many aspects of her life in a new light that the world is yet to see her in. I am personally a fan of the album and really enjoy how much Taylor opened herself up to the world, and how much she shared about herself, and the stories from her head. I would not say it is my favorite album of hers, but I definitely love and admire what path she chose to take, and have been listening to the album non-stop since she graced the world with thirty-one new tracks, a whole new dictionary of words and another masterpiece. 

Photo via YouTube