Rarely has anyone worked harder and more productively than Taylor Swift in the music industry over the past year. She is still performing the highest-grossing tour of all time , The Eras Tour , with no signs of stopping. During that time, she re-recorded two new versions for Speak Now and 1989 . She even released a movie about her tour. Being so busy with work, Taylor Swift still has time to be an audience, cheering for her boyfriend, rugby player Travis Kelce. Anything Taylor Swift has touched in recent times has been a huge success, achieving great success.

If Taylor Swift had the choice to rest at this time, her fans would probably be satisfied with what the idol has been doing during the past time. However, Taylor Swift is still likened to a machine, working non-stop. As soon as she went on stage to receive the B est Pop Vocal album award at the 2024 Grammys, the female singer announced that she would release an album called The Tortured Poets Department in April. The album was initially said to have 16 songs.

But as if to surprise the audience, fans (and somewhat the illegal music leak team), after just a few hours of release, Taylor Swift bombed with the version of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology with 15 new song, bringing the album’s total number of tracks to 31 – a huge number for any album, and even more unimaginable for an artist with a tight schedule like Taylor Swift. Many viewers even joked that the number of songs in Taylor Swift’s latest album is only 1 song less than all the music in Blackpink’s nearly 8-year career. Saying so shows how remarkable Taylor Swift’s “productivity” is.

Still excellent lyrics

Many audiences commented before the album’s release that: The Tortured Poets Department would include songs written about Joe Alwyn – Taylor Swift’s deep love of 6 years – because the singer’s fans discovered that Joe once shared that he had a chat group called The Toured Man Club. However, with this album, listeners can see that Taylor Swift has many other topics and audiences that she wants to target.

In the first half, listeners hear a fragile, hurt Taylor Swift in love. Maybe she is the most successful and powerful singer in the music industry today, maybe she owns a huge amount of wealth that few artists have ever achieved thanks to her artistic activities alone. But in love, sometimes Taylor Swift also has to show despair and helplessness when things don’t go according to her wishes. In So long, London – a song said to be written about “London boy” Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift wrote painful lyrics when she couldn’t see signs of love coming from the guy next to her : “You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues/ I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof.

Or in another song that is also said to be written about Joe – loml – Taylor continues to express her sadness and disappointment when she once thought of a beautiful ending: “And I’ll still see it until I die/You’re the loss of my life” (Until the day I die, I still keep the concept/You are the loss of my life).

Ex-lover is still the main topic in The Tortured Poets Department , but not only that.

However, the songs expressing the greatest bitterness and disappointment in Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album are said to be aimed at Matty Healy – the singer’s brief love affair after breaking up with Joe Alwyn and before to Travis Kelce. In the song, which is also the name of the album The Tortured Poets Department , Taylor clearly mentions Matty’s unique characteristics such as: “like a tattooed golden retriever” or “You left your typewriter at my apartment” (Matty once admitted his love of using a typewriter in an interview with GQ).

In the series of songs for Matty, Taylor Swift did not use gentle words like with “London Boy” Joe Alwyn like “So long, London/You’ll find someone” (Goodbye London, I will find someone others) . She uses very strong words, like in the song The Smallest man who ever lived , she frankly comments “You didn’t measure up/In any measure of a man” (You didn’t measure up/In any measure of a man). Which scale is in the measure of a man) . Or in I Can fix him (No I really can) , Taylor Swift seemed to let out a sigh when she thought she could change a “bad boy” like Matty and then realized that she couldn’t.

However, if you think that Taylor Swift’s entire 31-song album is aimed at her old love, that would be a wrong thought. Taylor Swift shows that she can write about a variety of topics, such as in But Daddy I love him, which is Taylor’s way of protesting against the media for interfering too deeply in her love, or I Can do it with a broken heart is about Taylor’s strength to overcome pain to continue with her work.

Taylor Swift also showed that she has not forgotten her old “grudge” with Kim Kardashian when she hinted at her right in the title of the song thanK you aIMee , with the lyrics considered the most venomous in the album: “And one day, your kid comes home singin’/A song that only we two is gonna know is about you”, (One day, your kid will sing a song that only we two know is about you) “Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman/But she used to say she wished that you were dead.

In addition to old stories and old people, Taylor Swift also dedicated a song to her current love interest, Travis Kelce, in the song with the brightest colors on the album So High School : “I’ll drink what you think, and I’m high/From smokin’ your jokes all damn night/I feel so high school every time I look at you”. (I drink all your thoughts and I’m addicted to your jokes all night long/ I feel as happy as when I was a student every time I see you).

Literature and mythology are also the inspiration for the two songs Peter (inspired by Peter Pan) and Cassandra (inspired by Greek mythology) on this album by Taylor Swift, but they are also metaphors for waiting. waiting in frustration for the injustices she had to endure. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most personal album that Taylor Swift has ever released, in which every sentence and every word makes fans think of the singer’s real life.

The orchestration is not adequate enough

In charge of production for The Tortured Poets Department are still two familiar names who have accompanied Taylor Swift from folklore to now, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner (Jack has worked with Taylor since Lover). With the creativity and constant change of genre in each released album, loyalty to a familiar production team like this album can cause a bit of disappointment for fans.

Going deeper into each layer of sound in the album, the listener still sees a slight change when the synth sounds are thicker and the arrangement is somewhat more complex, but overall the first half feels very similar to midnights . The second half, in the Anthology section, recalls the folklore period, evermore . In addition to a bit of a different alternative rock sound in the song Florida!!! In addition, almost no song in the remaining 30 songs escapes the influence of her most recent studio albums.

Taylor Swift uses familiar producers who have accompanied her from Lover to present.

The catchy melody is also one of the missing elements in The Tortured Poets Department. It feels like the female singer put a lot of effort into the lyrics to pour out all her feelings, so the melody of this album is not something she carefully cared for. Except for Fortnight , which was chosen as a single, the remaining songs have monotonous melodies, structures that are not too different, are dense with words, and do not have bright hooks.

The brightest point in terms of production in this album by Taylor Swift is probably the appearance of two guests. Post Malone participated in the song Fortnight and created a valuable highlight with short, easy-to-remember verses. Meanwhile, Florence + Machine brought alternative colors to Taylor Swift’s album this time, creating a visible difference in Florida!!! . Jack Antonoff also tried to create a bit of newness with pop rock sounds in Guilty as sin or Who’s Afraid of little old me , but those are all elements that Taylor Swift has done with Speaking Now and Red , it’s not real. “new” even for female singers.

With Taylor Swift’s current position, the audience will certainly expect more than an album with the production not changing too much like The Tortured Poets Department . However, if we consider this as Taylor Swift’s most private album, dedicated to fans who have the opportunity to explore more deeply about the singer’s life and thoughts, this album can be said to have made a difference. fulfill your role.