The Tortured Poets Department & The Anthology: In Review
by Abhilasha Bhattarai | May 15th , 2024
All images are credited to Beth Garrabrant / TAS Rights Managment
Photo by Beth Garrabrant / TAS Rights Management
In both its standard and extended versions, Taylor Swift's 11th studio album charges ahead, bridging the divide between her intimate songwriting and her ever-expanding public persona. It's a raw, unfiltered, and somewhat anguished offering.
As a natural storyteller, she wove the emotional fabric of her life into unforgettable songs, not just about herself but about young women universally—capturing their pain, longing, wit, and strength. She was the girl next door with a platinum pen, turning her feelings into art worth listening to. Those days have passed. Swift, now elevated to mythical proportions by endless discourse, transcends her body of work—though that's no slight against her achievements. She's become her own legend: part tragic hero, part vindicated villain; inadvertently fighting monopolies and acting as a one-woman economic catalyst; accused of climate crimes yet also a problem solver; hailed as the voice of young women. In the past year, she's dazzled audiences with a relentless tour, becoming the highest-grossing act in history and reaching a billion-dollar valuation. While her musical feats are remarkable, no one earns a billion solely from music.
Taylor Swift's 11th studio album, 'The Tortured Poets Department,' senses the widening gap between Taylor Swift the artist and Taylor Swift the phenomenon, striving to bridge it with a flood of material. The weight of anticipation is immense: this marks Swift's first collection of new songs since the conclusion of a long-term relationship and two whirlwind romances—particularly her connection with Matty Healy of the 1975, which seems to inspire much of this album. Fans approached 'The Tortured Poets' seeking emotional release, or perhaps just juicy details. Swift, it appears, sought solace in familiarity. Reuniting with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, her primary collaborators from recent years, Swift revisits themes from 'Folklore' and 'Midnights,' though without entirely breaking new ground.
Photo by Beth Garrabrant / TAS Rights Management
The extended Anthology edition of 'The Tortured Poets' spans over two hours, and even in its abridged form, the album sprawls, with Swift's writing ranging from playfully unrestrained to noticeably in need of editing. The title track, with its tongue-in-cheek nod to self-seriousness, lampoons the creative process—an interesting choice given Swift's own grand performance. Metaphors abound, some sticking, others tossed aside and then retrieved for use regardless.
This unruliness leads to curious moments like "Florida!!!" seemingly appearing for no reason, or the dirge-like "So Long, London" listing five causes of death, or "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys," which pushes a schoolyard premise to its limits. Yet amidst this chaos emerges the enchanting "But Daddy I Love Him," reminiscent of "Love Story" but with protagonists tearing down castle walls instead of sharing glances in ballrooms. Dessner's driving string arrangements and Swift's storytelling prowess propel the song forward, despite its near-six-minute duration, creating a fantastical journey unique to this album. Swift demonstrates agility here, deftly navigating the chorus with a cheeky twist ("I’m having his baby/No I’m not, but you should see your faces").
Perhaps Swift aims for textual painting, reflecting the all-consuming, uncontrollable nature of her tumultuous relationship through the music itself. Or maybe she's playing with scale, juxtaposing the brevity of romance with its profound impact. "Fortnight," a languid opener featuring a sultry Post Malone cameo, establishes the timeline and stakes: "I love you/It’s ruining my life/I touched you for only a fortnight." Swift then constructs, song by song, a complex portrayal of a love interest—a "tattooed Golden Retriever" who embodies both allure and unreliability. He serves as a conduit for Swift to revisit themes prevalent in her recent work: marriage, youth, and public opinion's cruelty.
Photo by Beth Garrabrant / TAS Rights Management
Vulnerability takes center stage here, stripping away some of the veneer from Taylor Swift the commercial entity to reveal Taylor Swift the tender, unlucky romantic we first fell for years ago. Despite her towering status, Swift remains relatable. Fluent in internet culture, she incorporates meme-speak, as seen in "Down Bad," where banal hooks contrast with descriptions of "cosmic love," appealing to corporate audiences with lines like "I cry a lot but I am so productive" ("I Can Do It With a Broken Heart"). Even "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" engages with outlaw imagery, its chorus delivering lyrical acrobatics: "They shook their heads saying, ‘God help her’ when I told ’em he’s my man/But your good Lord didn’t need to lift a finger/I can fix him, no really I can."
Swift suggests that this album offers unparalleled insight into her inner world, an exorcism of her true feelings about a relationship universally recognizable in its broad strokes. "I’ve never needed songwriting more than on 'The Tortured Poets,'" she confessed to a Melbourne audience ahead of its release. Yet, she's been using songs to navigate her private affairs since her breakup with Joe Jonas in 2008. What's changed isn't the intimate writing but the hunger for Swift's minutiae, coupled with the sheer volume of material she's providing. Clues and references that might have once been relegated to liner notes now pepper the lyrics, leaving casual listeners bewildered while dedicated fans revel in decoding them.
It's not entirely Swift's fault that we're fixated on her, but this album suggests she struggles to hear herself over the crowd's roar. Tracks like "So Long, London" and "loml" falter when every lyric carries equal weight, lacking a hierarchy of emotional resonance and instead suffocating the listener. Swift's reluctance to explore new musical territories is evident; she mostly retreads old ground, perhaps unsurprising given the past three years spent re-recording her albums and touring her past selves. The album's sound palette—reminiscent of Antonoff's sparse drum programming and twinkling synths, and Dessner's lush string arrangements—feels familiar, occasionally leading to songs that sound eerily similar to past works.
Photo by Beth Garrabrant / TAS Rights Management
Swift's conflicted relationship with her public image also resurfaces throughout the album. In the seductively morose "Guilty as Sin?" crafted with Antonoff, she finds herself "drowning in the Blue Nile," drawing comparisons to Jesus crucified for her indiscretions. "Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?" presents convoluted imagery, portraying Swift as both a defanged circus animal and a witch spiking her songs with narcotics. Even in the comparatively lighter "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart," Swift appears as a glittering zombie, smiling through the decay under stage lights.
This album embodies Swift's dual roles: the relentless creator and the face of capitalist machinery, constantly churning out content between stage and studio. Enter 'The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,' bloated with a whopping 15 additional songs. However, the standout tracks often do so for the wrong reasons: borrowing premises from others less skillfully, dwelling on resentments towards public figures, or awkwardly addressing historical issues like racism in the 1830s.
