Taylor Swift, an internationally acclaimed music artist, recently released her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” She announced the release of this album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in February, and since then, fans have been waiting for the myriad of new songs that she unveiled. The 17-song album was produced by a collaborative team of Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Patrick Berger and Swift herself. Shortly after the album’s initial release, she released a surprise second edition of the album titled, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” which included 14 additional songs.
This album describes her journey in life and dealing with loss, lust, confusion and new beginnings. Songs like “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart” and “But Daddy I Love Him” represents her feelings towards the media and the effect it has on her life. The feeling of grieving someone who is still alive is depicted by the song “loml,” while the feeling of rage and regret is summarized by “Smallest Man Who’s Ever Lived,” and “thanK you aIMee.” This album also portrays raw vulnerability in songs such as “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus,” “I hate it here,” “The Prophecy” and others across the 31-song anthology.
Rumors have spread rapidly online, speculating that the songs “So High School” and “The Alchemy,” offer glimpses of her relationship with NFL football player Travis Kelce. However, one of the most talked about songs is “So Long London,” as it is rumored to have taken inspiration from Joe Alwyn and the end of his seven year relationship with Swift.
The album shattered records even before its release, becoming the most pre-saved album on Spotify. After the release, she broke the record for the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era, selling over 700,000 vinyls. Within just 12 hours of its debut, “The Tortured Poets Department” became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in history, accumulating 799 million streams across all platforms. Swift also made history by becoming the first person to secure the top 14 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Despite its commercial success, the album has faced its fair share of criticism, saying her work has slowly started to devolve overtime. People are also saying that the album is too long, as “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” is 2 hours long. Criticism about the lyrics and the production are also common. The same criticism was given to her previous album, “Midnights.”
“I think her albums have evolved over time,” sophomore Jorden Jacob said.
“I don’t think that the production was bad but I don’t think that it was her best work. She and Jack Antonoff have made a lot of great music together but now it’s kind of blending together and sounding the same,” sophomore Calum Rouzier said.
Since Taylor Swift had basically grown up in the industry, her music has changed overtime which led to a wider range of listeners. Because of this, criticism is inevitable when people of all age groups are proven to be listening to her work.
“Her demographic has definitely changed. Now younger people are jumping in, but I almost think that as she’s been growing up, she’s been appealing to a wider range because her older stuff is still super relatable to people in middle school and high school, and now this newer stuff kind of hits some adult topics too. I think it’s changing more because she’s growing up” math teacher Ms. Westwater said.
Even with the criticism, Taylor Swift has included songs from this release on her Eras Tour. This led to songs such as “The 1,” “The Archer,” “Tolerate It,” “Long Live” and more being cut out. This has led to disappointment of fans that will be going to the Eras Tour in the future as some of their favorite songs have been cut off. “So High School,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “Down Bad” are some of the songs from the latest album that have been added to the setlist for the tour.
“I understand the frustration because literally no song can compare to ‘The Archer’ but the ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ set live is honestly phenomenal and I think it’s better than the studio recorded version. The album was a good addition [to the tour setlist] and wouldn’t have done as well as a tour by itself,” sophomore Calum Rouzier said.
