Ask music critics what they think of Taylor Swift’s eleventh studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” and those not afraid of being doxed might say something about the endless length, repetitive synth overlays or uninspired lyrics. Take “imgonnagetyouback,” a track that notably resembles “Get Him Back!” » by Olivia Rodrigo. In the chorus, Swift sings that she hasn’t yet decided “if I’m going to be your woman or if I’m going to break your bike.” Perhaps the lyrics are meant to be somewhat childish, but even the most novice editor should have pushed Swift toward the most obvious rhyme: “whether I be your wife or I destroy you.” life.”
Ask a Swiftie what they think of the album, and they may very well say it’s their best work to date. Yes, it would have made more sense for her to rhyme “woman” with “life” in “imgonnagetyouback”. But Swift obsessives know to connect “imgonnagetyouback” to “Fallingforyou,” a 1975 song written by Swift’s ex-boyfriend Matty Healy. In it, Healy sings, “I’m so excited for the night / All we need is my bike and your huge house.” Swift’s mention of a bicycle in “imgonnagetyouback” is therefore an intentional creative decision, as is the lack of spaces in the song title. Some fans went even further, saying the lack of spaces invites not only a comparison to “Fallingforyou” but also to Swift’s “Blank Space,” a song from her “1989” album. (1975, 1989 – there are a lot of years to follow here.) “In the music video for Blank Space, Taylor Swift breaks things and sings ‘Cause you know I love the players and you love the game “, YouTube said. a user called Miranda-ry9tf wrote in a comment. “In Imgonnagetyouback, she says, ‘We broke all the pieces, but you still want to play the game.'” Maybe 2014’s “Blank Space” was also about Healy? Swifties who have gone deep down the rabbit hole might argue that Swift, by omitting spaces in the title of her new song, has created a kind of ouroboros — a recurring theme in the artist’s work since 2016, when Kim Kardashian called him a snake.” If you write the words “imgonnagetyouback” in a circle, you’ll notice that the “k” and the “im” are right next to each other. This may seem like an exaggeration, but six tracks later, Swift mentions a mysterious rival named Aimee, on a song called “thanK you aIMee.” You don’t have to be a Swiftie to know who the capital letters belong to.
There’s long been a disconnect between how music critics and Swifties consume Taylor Swift’s work, but never before has that divide been so pronounced. We saw this in 2014, when “1989” became the best-selling album in over a decade, but was not reviewed by Pitchfork. (The following year, the music publication examined Ryan Adams’ album cover “1989” instead.) In 2017, Swift’s “Reputation” was the best-selling album of the year; it received poor reviews and was snubbed at the Grammys. During the pandemic, Swift narrowed the reception gap by releasing “folklore,” an album beloved by critics and fans. “Some of us spent years dreaming that Taylor would make an entire album like this, but no one really imagined it would turn out this great,” wrote Rob Sheffield in rolling stone, declaring it “Swift’s biggest album yet.”) But while critics came for the “folk,” fans stayed for the “tradition,” and that’s the main appeal of the latest album by Swift. The “Tortured Poets Department” or “TTPD” is nothing less than a Rorschach test. Lukewarm music critics often overlook the fact that “music” is something Swift stopped selling a long time ago. Instead, she spent two decades laying the foundation for a fan universe, filled with complex, sequential narratives that were contextualized through multiple perspectives across eleven blockbuster episodes. She does not create standalone albums but rather a musical franchise.
“TTPD” helped Swift break almost every streaming record possible. Upon its release, it became the most streamed album on Spotify in a single day, and Swift herself became the most streamed artist in a single day. It was streamed 314.5 million times on its release day; The second biggest debut on Spotify this year was Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter,” with 76.6 million. Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” comes in fourth place, with 59.1 million. “[Swift]This is on another level, let’s start comparing Ariana to Olivia Rodrigo instead,” a Grande fan account wrote on X. This poster might have the right idea: Why TO DO Are we comparing Swift to singer-songwriters like Grande and Beyoncé, and not Bob Iger, the media executive who turned Disney into a two-hundred-billion-dollar company? Disney owns two of the biggest fan properties in existence: Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel villains include Thanos and Doctor Doom; Taylor Swift villains include Scooter Braun and Kim Kardashian. (And now, maybe Healy.)
Like the MCU, the Swiftverse is more than a series of storylines and characters. It’s thousands of comments under Instagram posts, three hundred and thirty-two million extra dollars for the NFL, a global race for pearl bracelets, and the Fed wondering why inflation persists. In the Swiftverse, the music itself is not the point but how the point is conveyed. This is not to say that music is irrelevant; it serves a crucial purpose. But that goal is different depending on whether you’re a die-hard Swiftie or a casual listener. A common criticism of “TTPD” is that it lacks stylistic evolution, with too many references to Swift’s previous albums. Swifties understand that these Easter eggs add another dimension to a song or story they thought they knew. Opening with “So Long, London,” a track from “TTPD,” loyal fans will recognize a pulsing sound similar to an effect used in “Call It What You Want,” from the “Reputation” album. About halfway through the song, there’s also an “ah, ah” sound similar to part of the chorus of “Dress”, another track from “Reputation”. On the one hand, it’s reasonable for non-Swifties to assume that the artist, along with longtime collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, has unintentionally rehashed some of his older works. On the other hand, it’s a little crazy to think that Swift is capable of Nothing without intentionality. Assuming the callbacks in “So Long, London” are deliberate, they bookend the beginning and end of Swift’s six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn rather nicely. Most musicians – and artists in general – can only dream of their fans discovering such subtleties. It’s ironic that, in Swift’s case, these subtleties have led to some of her fiercest criticism.
Some of the smartest callbacks in “TTPD” aren’t to Swift’s old music but to Healy’s. Fans have discovered that Swift’s “Guilty as Sin” works strangely well as a musical overlay of “About You,” a 1975 song that is widely considered to be about Swift. Skeptics will note that both songs were produced by Antonoff and argue that “Guilty as Sin” raises the question of whether the Swift-Antonoff collaboration has finally become stale. But, for Swifties, “Guilty as Sin” offers answers. It connects two crucial pieces of a puzzle and makes fans feel like they’re close to solving the mysteries that Swift’s universe is built on: the identity of her muses, the uncertainty over whether “Folklore” and its follow-up “Evermore” are based on real events. Following this thought, Swift and Healy’s combined discography of over three hundred and fifty songs leaves at least twenty-two thousand one hundred and ninety-four possible combinations of track overlays for fans to manically work on, in order to answer Biggest Question ‘TTPD’ Asks: Was Matty Healy Always the Main Character?
