Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is hauntingly brilliant, even the 15 surprise songs
Taylor Swift’s vulnerability is her superpower.
From the glorified diary entries of her 2006 debut to her 2024 album of the year Grammy winner “Midnights," she has proudly worn her heart on her sleeve.
That heart is bloodied and battered, but ultimately beating on “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift’s 11th studio album that she surprise announced while collecting the first of two more Grammys in February.
Then came a bigger surprise when, at 2 a.m. Friday, Swift declared that "TTPD" was really a double album, with "The Anthology" tacked onto the the title and the addition of 15 songs to join the initial 16.
These 31 pensive pop tracks are the antithesis to “Lover.” Heartbreak and misery wrapped in melody. Rainbows faded into sepia tone. An era endured not enjoyed.
"TTPD" is bookended with a prologue – a poem by Stevie Nicks – and an epilogue framed as Swift’s summary report as the chairman of The Tortured Poets Department (Chaos, “leads the caged beast to do the most curious things,” she writes).
As she grapples with blame for the fizzling of a six-year relationship, she isn’t worried about pride. Former boyfriend Joe Alwyn is the obvious unnamed antagonist in most songs ("My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"), though Swift shoulders plenty of culpability ("The Tortured Poets Department" title track).
With these songs, Swift pulls listeners into the depths of misery catalyzed by a public breakup while she staged the biggest concert tour in history. It's an exploration of extremes told with intimate details. Is this her “Tapestry"? Her “Blue"? Her “Like A Prayer"?
Maybe the old guard still isn’t ready to anoint Swift to the echelon of Carole King and Joni Mitchell (Madonna? Absolutely). But “TTPD” springboards off Swift’s vibrant storytelling on “Folklore” and “Evermore” and spotlights the open-hearted confidence she presented on those musically minimalist albums.
Swifties can exhaust themselves excavating lyrical clues in the F-bomb-dropping “Down Bad” (“If I can’t have him, I might die”) and surmise if “But Daddy I Love Him” is funny or cruel (“I’m having his baby. No I’m not, but you should see your faces”), but it hardly matters.
Like the most successful artists in history – The Beatles and Beyoncé, perhaps – Swift is untouchable. Critic proof. Adored whether she unveils a masterpiece or a stopgap collection of songs.
“TTPD” falls closer to masterpiece territory, if not musically – similar cadences and production from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner coat many songs with the same sheen – then lyrically.
It’s a bonafide headphones album, best experienced in the quiet to fully absorb the sadness and exasperation in Swift’s voice when she sings in the resentful “So Long, London,” (“I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free”) and her ache on the melancholy piano ballad “Loml,” which will make your heart feel raked over with nails.
What guests does Taylor Swift have on her new album?
Post Malone is dancing closely to the fire known as "Call John Legend For a Feature" with his high-profile drops not only on Swift’s album, but Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.”
While he offered a pedestrian contribution with Beyoncé, Posty fares better on “Fortnight,” the opening song on “TTPD” which he co-wrote with Swift and Antonoff.
A gentle thrumming in the background cushions Swift's darkly funny lyrics (“I was a functioning alcoholic ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic”) while Post Malone dips into the mesmerizing rhythm with some sweet vocals.
It’s also one of two songs to namedrop Florida. But the second, “Florida!!!,” co-written by and co-starring Florence Welch, is the standout, with Swift and Welch trading vocals over a stomping backbeat that is both cinematic and purposeful.
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While it’s impossible to out-lyricize Swift, Welch nudges impressively close with her self-penned contribution: “Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine, well, me and my ghosts had a hell of a time.”
These two are ideal companions, musically and philosophically.
‘I Can Do it With a Broken Heart’ is one of Swift’s best Trojan horses
Synths flutter, an electro-pop beat pulses and the melody is structured as one of Swift’s trademark glistening pop gems.
But then the lyrics of “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart” kick in and Swift travels through the most potent psychological exploration of “the show must go on” since Smokey Robinson and The Miracles described “The Tears of a Clown” in 1967.
“I’m a real tough kid,” Swift sings, defiant as ever. “They said baby, gotta fake it til you make it … and I did.”
With humor and grace, Swift unfurls the anguish she hid while remaining very visible the past year, including blasting through an awe-inspiring three-hour show several nights a week on her world-spanning Eras Tour. But the song achieves liftoff with the dichotomy of Swift’s honeyed voice and her chant-singing, “I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday, every day.”
It’s a clever entry into the complexity of mental health, and Swift, she of limitless ambition, flips her sorrow into something constructive, a Superwoman unbowed by pesky things like misery.
“I cry a lot but I am so productive,” she chirps, tongue firmly in cheek. “It’s an art … you know you’re good when you can do it with a broken heart.”
The capper is Swift declaring, “I’m miserable and no one even knows it!” as she laughs through the end of the song. But after recognizing what she’s endured, even her giggles lacerate.
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Who is Clara Bow?
One of the most intriguing songs on “TTPD” is named for a 1920s-era silent film star and the layers run deep (paging all excavating Swifties!)
Is the choice of an actress who was seen and not heard on film a metaphor for her life with Alwyn, a cornerstone of which was privacy?
Or, as Swift sings from an observational post, does she merely resemble the alluring dark-lipsticked 20th century star?
The wispy ballad finds Swift mimicking the words she (possibly) heard in her upstart years, such as “You look like Stevie Nicks,” before the storyline comes full circle with a new rookie being told, “You look like Taylor Swift … you’ve got edge, she never did.”
It’s meta, yes, but Swift often subscribes to glancing back to lunge forward – always saturated in poetic sensitivity.
What is ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’?
The 15 additional songs Swift dropped a mere two hours after providing an emotional wallop with the first batch include four of the tracks already announced as bonuses: “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog.”
Among the others, Swift is especially pointed on the gently swelling acoustic guitar-based “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus,” a song that seemingly references her fling with Matty Healy (she laments being unable to save someone who “needed drugs” and was always just out of reach).
Her strongest vitriol, however, is reserved for “Thank you, Aimee,” which fans surmise digs into her feud with Kim Kardashian. But Swift is bold and forthright when schooling “Aimee” about her success in spite of criticisms – a familiar, if still welcome, page from Swift’s playbook.
A trio of “name” songs – “Cassandra,” “Peter” and “Robin” – are all winsome ballads couched in pretty piano melodies. “Peter” is especially endearing with its waltzing rhythm and Swift’s warm vocals on this ode to a childhood friend (“The goddess of timing once found us beguiling,” she sings).
But a highlight is the bouncy “So High School,” which finds Swift singing and strumming guitar with the breezy glow of ‘90s-era Sheryl Crow. Is her focal point current paramour Travis Kelce? Lyrics including “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle” and “I feel so high school every time I look at you,” are significant indications. But more importantly, the song pulls Swift out of the sludge and into the sun.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Taylor Swift pens 31 hauntingly brilliant songs: Double album review
