The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift
By Christie Nelson
It’s April 18th, 2024, 11:59:59 pm. I am sitting straight up in bed, feverishly refreshing my Spotify, desperately waiting for the gray tracks to turn white and then I hear it… Dun Dun Dun Dun dun dun dun dun… It was at that point that I knew it was all over. I didn’t need to hear any more to know that The Tortured Poets Department was about to be my favorite album from Taylor Swift, and I was about to hear, in my heart at least, the Album of the Year. And as someone who has been there since the release of “Tim McGraw” in 2006, that is saying something! Taylor has been at the top of her game ever since the release of Midnights in 2022, and she’s only getting better. While it may not have the radio hits that Midnights had, The Tortured Poets Department has some of Taylor’s best work. It is raw, personal, and dare I say… poetic.
Right out of the gate, I knew we had something special with “Fortnight.” See, Taylor has this thing where she uses her muse’s own musical style to create a devastating effect, twisting the knife just a little deeper (see the John Mayer-esque guitar riffs in “Dear John” from Speak Now). From the first listen, I knew instantly where I‘d heard those synth sounds before: The 1975’s “Somebody Else”. As a fan of both Taylor and The 1975, for the past year I had felt like I was inside the most insane crossover episode imaginable, and I was about to head into its dramatic and devastating conclusion. But I am not going to spend any more time talking about whether a song is about Matty or if its about Joe because at the end of the day, the songs are about Taylor, her life, and her feelings.
One of my favorite things to experience in the past year, especially since the release of TTPD, has been watching people react to Taylor’s music on TikTok and YouTube and seeing them convert to Swifties in real time. It just goes to show that most nay-sayers are just people who have only listened to Taylor’s radio singles and not her album tracks. You’ll have to come to terms with the fact that her lyricism is unmatched when you listen to songs like “So Long, London”, “loml,” or “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” I can still remember the shock hearing “the love of your life” turn to “the loss of my life.” It still amazes me that after listening to this series of gut-punch after gut-punch, that I keep coming back for more.
“You look like Taylor Swift in this light. We’re loving it. You’ve got edge, she never did. The future’s bright…Dazzling.” Taylor caps off the standard version of TTPD with the self-referential track “Clara Bow” all about show business and stardom. No one can quite understand the highs and lows of the limelight quite like the three women mentioned in the song: Clara Bow, Stevie Nicks, and Taylor herself. This is not the first time Taylor has reflected about the fleeting reality of fame; one of my favorite vault tracks from Red (Taylor’s Version), “Nothing New” featuring Phoebe Bridgers, touches on the same idea. In both of these songs, Taylor alludes to her feelings about paving the way for the next young starlet. It seems that Taylor has always been hyper-aware that when it comes to fame, you can be here one day and gone the next. Let’s just hope her fame continues to persist so she can keep releasing incredible new works like TTPD.
And now it’s April 19th, 2024, 01:59:59 am. “Could it be true?” I ask myself, hoping that I didn’t stay up till 2 a.m. on a school night to not hear a double album. But yes, it was true! Taylor Swift blessed us with 31 songs in one night. No one is doing it like Taylor Swift right now. The haters can keep complaining about how she is releasing too much, but all I can say is I am grateful for another incredible album in the books!