Swift is breaking hearts and breaking records with her recently released album.
As of April 19, 2024, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” was released by Taylor Swift making headlines across the world. This new album broke Spotify records for most-streamed album in a single day on April 19. This record was previously held by her album “Midnights” which reached about 187 million listeners, but was surpassed with about 300 million listeners on her 2024 album.
Swift included 31 songs within her new album, each varying in length and meaning. In a recent interview on iHeartRadio, she referred to “The Tortured Poets Department” songs as dealing with “heartbreak,” Swift said. Many of the songs rarely have an upbeat feeling like some of her previous albums. Songs like “The Manuscript” use the soft melody of a piano in the background to create a solemn and melancholy feeling with Swift telling the story of her old love in a third person point-of-view as she says “Now and then she re-reads the manuscript” and then switches to “Now and then I re-read the manuscript. But the story isn’t mine anymore.” This section is really interesting because she switches from third person to first person as if she was narrating her own story all along.
Although the title of her album is “The Tortured Poets Department” it feels almost coincidental that it is so similar to the “Dead Poets Society” which is a 1989 drama in an all-boys school covering a group of boys who continue to show their love to literary works. In Swift’s new music video titled “Fortnight” she features Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles who played Todd Anderson and Knox Overstreet in “Dead Poets Society”. This addition of their characters in the music video pays tribute to the film. I enjoyed the fact that she was willing to include them in her music video due to the similarities in the titles of her album and the film. I particularly enjoyed the film, and I’m glad she chose to bring some ounce of it up within her music.
My favorite song within her album was by far “So Long, London”. I thought she did a great job of making the song flow, with random bursts of energy from a music pad in the background. The chorus “So Long, London” is repeated throughout, and it’s as if she is saying goodbye to a beloved city. The line “And you’ll say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it” is a metaphor that alludes to the fact that she will always stay true to her word, just as a captain goes down with his ship because they have ultimate responsibility. I also enjoyed the fact that she questions her love’s (unknown) opinion of her throughout the entirety of the song.
Overall, this new album strikes me as melancholy and heartbreaking which seemed to be Swift’s goal. Many fans think that this album was about her ex Joe Alwyn who she was with for about six years. It was just recently in 2023 that they broke up, which has made many fans wonder if this album covers their break up. However, Swift never clearly stated it was about him.
Although this was enjoyable to listen to for the first time, I didn’t notice anything that stood out more than her other albums. There were other albums that stood out a lot more to me such as “1989”, “Midnights” and “Reputation” which were a lot more upbeat.
