Abbie Klein
On Feb 4 Taylor Swift broke the internet yet again when she announced her 11th studio album “The Tortured Poets Department” during her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 66th annual Grammy awards. Swift released no singles or sneak peaks to any of the tracks before its release on April 19, making the anticipation for the new album at an all time high.
With Swift’s previous successes and the overwhelming excitement for the album the stakes were extreme, and “The Tortured Poets Department” failed to meet any of those expectations. With this being Swift’s 9th album in 5 years I wonder if the failure of this project is a sign that it’s time for her to finally take a break from the music industry.
When the album first dropped at midnight it featured a 16 song track list, making the run time just over an hour. However, at 2:00 a.m. Swift released an extended version of the album with 15 more tracks adding another hour to the run time. While most people would celebrate the addition of so many more songs, the surprise drop came off as excessive. A lot of the songs sounded really similar. With not many defining moments upon the first listen, it felt like the album dragged out for two hours with each track mixing into the next.
Swift’s strength has always been in her songwriting. Even though the songs didn’t stand out sonically there was hope that they would lyrically, especially with an album having poet in the title. Disappointingly the album failed here again. There are some songs that are written beautifully and I would even consider masterpieces, until a single bad lyric sneaks its way into the chorus running the whole song.
But Daddy I Love Him really showcases Swift’s ability to storytell within her lyrics but the line “I’m having his baby/ No, I’m not, but you should see your faces” overshadows the artistry of all other lyrics. Other songs like I Hate It Here and The Tortured Poets Department have this same occurrence with the lines “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists” and “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” These lyrics are proof that a bad choice can overshadow all of the good choices, making or breaking a song.
What makes these lyrics all the more disappointing is knowing how talented of a songwriter Swift is. Since Swift has begun the process of re-recording her earlier works back in 2021, I’ve realized how incredible her early albums are. There seems to be a sort of heart and soul behind her old work that her newer works lack. Which makes sense when you think about the rate at which Swift is releasing new music, she’s become a machine instead of an artist. The incentive of topping charts and breaking records instead of releasing music for the joy of sharing meaningful works is extremely reflective in this album.
While there are some songs that I really do enjoy it’s upsetting that there were only so few that stood out. So Long, London, The Prophecy and Guilty as Sin? all hold the songwriting that has won Swift album of the year multiple times. I just wish her talent was reflective in more than a few songs.
As a long time fan of Swift it was disappointing to listen to such a failure of an album, but I guess this is proof that what goes up must come down, a bad album was inevitable.