Whether you’re happily soaking it up like the sun or sick of hearing about it, I’m sure everyone has heard it by now: Taylor Swift has a new album out. Even though she’s been famous for over a decade, it seems like her status has grown exponentially over the past few years. She became a hyper-celebrity – she was the top global artist on Spotify in 2023, and this new album, The Department of Tortured Poets, was streamed more than 300 million times within the first 12 hours of its release. She released a surprise double album at 2 a.m., two hours after the release of the original, titled The Department of Tortured Poets: The Anthology. This deluxe version includes 15 additional songs, meaning Swift has released 31 new songs in total. The question then is: is it all worth the hype?
As a lifelong Swiftie, my answer is an unwavering yes. I listened to this album in awe, gasping at the impressive lyrics, freezing when Swift delivered a particularly strong high note, and, of course, being stunned by her bridges. It’s not perfect, and there are some moments that I can’t defend – and I’ll get to that later – but I honestly believe that The Department of Tortured Poets is some of his brightest and rawest work to date.
The album is like reputation I walked in the woods and met folklore And always And has sad songs in songs like “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” and media legends in “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” but he also has heartbreaking lyricism in songs like “How Did It End?” The entire album encapsulates manic depression – see specifically “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” – and appears to be a glimpse into Swift’s wild life following her breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn, with whom she had a relationship. six-year relationship. .
Swift touches on so much in this album. In “Florida!!! ”, which stars Florence + The Machine, it seems to spin a metaphor about the end of an intense relationship and a perhaps undesirable rebound, apparent in lines such as “You didn’t know your house was really only / A town where you’re just a guest / So you work your whole life just to pay / For a timeshare in Destin. The town where you realize you’re just a guest is the failed relationship, the rebound is the timeshare in Destin, Florida. Not convinced? Swift’s breakup with Alwyn was announced just before her first and only Eras Tour concert in Florida. Later in the song there are the lines “So you pack up your life just to wait out / The shit storm back in Texas.” Where did Swift play her next tour after Tampa, Florida? Houston. If one takes the time to look, there seems to be a method to his madness.
“Who’s afraid of little old me?” is a scathing look at the media and how it tends to vilify Swift and women in general. She compares herself to a show animal: “I was tame, I was gentle until the circus life made me mean / Don’t worry friends, we pulled out all his teeth.” This reminds reputation in album form, as well as individual songs like “Mad Woman” from folklore.
His lyricism shines through in “How Did It End?” » The bridge begins: “Say it again with emotion / How the death rattle breathes / Silence as the soul departs / The deflation of our dreams / Leaving me helpless and shaken / My ghost well- loved and me. » It rhymes, it’s sonically compelling and it’s heartbreaking – in my opinion, these lines constitute one of his most well-written segments to date.
This is not to say that his lyricism is perfect. There are definitely times when I found myself scratching my head and saying, “Really? As much as I love “Florida!!!”, the line “And my friends all smell like weed or little babies” seems too ridiculous to me. I think I know what she was trying to say – that because she’s in her thirties, everyone she knows is either single and smokes a lot, or they have kids – but the line is just weird. Or in “So High School,” when she exclaims, “Touch me while your brothers play Grand Theft Auto,” I cringed. It puzzles me that these lines come from the same person who gave us the bridge in “How Did It End?” » which I quoted above. This is one area where I wonder if no one tells him not to say certain things just because of his status. As in, his production team totally could have pointed out these lines, but it certainly seems like they didn’t. She may be amazing, but she’s human and sometimes needs someone to tell her not to say certain things.
This brings me to words that I cannot and will not defend. In “I Hate It Here,” Swift tells a story: “My friends were playing a game where / We would choose a decade / We wished we could live instead of this one / I would say the 1830s but without all the racists . / And marry for the highest bid. Here, she erases an entire era that harmed entire generations and turns it into an argument she makes during a board game. She didn’t need to say that! She shouldn’t have said that! He is insensitive and displays a large amount of privilege. My only slight caveat is that I don’t think Swift was trying to stand out the way she did; I think sometimes, in some ways, she’s not always the smartest. If I thought Swift was actively trying to start harmful rhetoric, I couldn’t support her at all. But that’s not an excuse, and I recognize that while the hurtful intent may not have been there, the impact certainly was. While I love Swift’s music in general, I’m one of the first to admit that she has flaws.
Overall, this is an album that isn’t meant to be an introduction to Swift’s discography. Rather, it is aimed at established, dedicated fans who understand the parallels it draws with earlier songs, the references to certain life events, etc. It’s full of images that take on new life when given the right context. If one is considering just getting started with Taylor Swift, one should not start here. But for those of us who know and love her, this album is a gift. In The Department of Tortured Poets, Swift weaves complicated stories through powerful singing. She captures the nuances of her romantic relationships, with the media, with her fans and with herself. It seems she has touched the lives of millions of people all over the world, creating an album that will surely go down in history.
