The influential, versatile and superstar artist Taylor Swift has released yet another enchanting album: “The Tortured Poets Department.” After only five months since releasing new music for her fans, Swift’s new album came out on April 19 — making this her 11 studio album, not including her re-recordings. Her fans have watched her change and navigate through different musical genres, from country to pop to indie folk. It is obvious to say that everything has changed. So the question is, does she ever stop song-writing?
“The Tortured Poets Department” is a gorgeous and wonderfully orchestrated album featuring 16 songs. Totaling a running time of one hour and five minutes, listeners will be sad when they have to wonder, is it over now? This new album brings Taylor into a new pop era that truly hits different, but tell me why I think she took inspiration from Lana Del Rey’s vibe by adopting parts of her voice and unique writing style. I felt reminded of Lana throughout the entire album.
The album features collaborations with artists Post Malone and Florence + the Machines. I prefer Florence + the Machine’s featured song because in “Florida!!!,” the pair is able to come together in delightful harmonization, and their voices complement each other a little better than Post Malone and Swift’s voices do. The beat drop in “Florida!!!” before the main chorus comes in strong with an empowering tone, but then executes a dramatic decrescendo, adding a super enjoyable backtrack for the song. I do love the song “Fortnight” with Post Malone, it just doesn’t stand out in an album with so many great songs.
The fifth track I believe to be one of the best — a song called “So Long, London.” This song is an absolutely sad beautiful tragic goodbye to her ex-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. It describes the treacherous journey leading to the couple’s demise, she shares how much she tried keeping the relationship alive. “Pulled him tighter each time he was drifting away, my spine split from carrying us up the hill, wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill.” The end of this song had me almost crying, and I can’t even begin to talk about how sad “loml” is. There are a countless number of super sad songs on this album. Don’t you want to give Taylor a hug after listening?
Compared to other of her past albums, this includes some of the most heartbreaking and unhinged lyrics ever released. In the song, “But Daddy I Love Him,” Taylor sings, “I’m having his baby’, no I’m not but you should see your faces.” Here, we see Swift fearlessly speak against the public criticism she received for her relationship with Matty Healy. This entire album is filled with mastermind poetic lyrics, and between that, backtracks and voice tones, this album is perfect and timeless. There is so much to decipher in this album from clues that I will be trying to figure out for a while. For example, in the song “thanK you aIMee,” Swift purposefully capitalizes letters spelling Kim, representing Kim Kardashian, because Swift has longstanding tension and disliking with her, which is pretty clear after listening to that song.
Long story short, it’s undeniably accurate when people refer to Swift as ‘the music industry,’ and don’t blame me for re-playing this fantastic album a million times. This is hands down a no-skip album, but that’s nothing new coming from her. It is also more raw and emotional than we have ever seen from her before. It gets crazier — Taylor announced as a 2:00 a.m. surprise that she had chosen to release another installment of “The Tortured Poets Department,” making it a double album. The add-on is called “The Anthology” and it includes 15 extra songs, even better than in my wildest dreams. This makes the album a total of 31 songs, and a run time of two hours and three minutes. We are never getting over Taylor Swift and we will love her forever & always.
“The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology:” ★★★★★
