It takes a while for the dust to settle after a Taylor Swift album release. Social media is a-flurry, and every major outlet delivers a review almost instantaneously – they’re often as detailed as the album itself. That’s understandable when there is so much to decode. Two hours after the release of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift released 15 more songs coined The Anthology, inflating the total track list to 31.
There are an overwhelming number of words, so much so the melodies feel as if they’re bursting at the seams. The lyrics meander, which is odd when Swift has such a talent for satisfying, succinct storytelling. She seems aware of it, though. She says she sounds “like an infant, feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen”. But that’s not to say there aren’t impressive, sometimes funny and – naturally – poetic moments throughout.
She kicks off the marathon with Fortnight, which features Post Malone. It comes paired with a music video Swift says is “the perfect visual representation of this record” – she also wrangled a Dead Poets Society reunion having Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles star in it. Visually, it’s straight out of the more recent Oscar-winner Poor Things, with 1800s dress, unsettling angles, men working in laboratories with a woman on the slab, and a dramatic pullout to a stormy cliff face.
These visuals help set the scene for some of the eerier tracks. How Did It End? compares a relationship’s breakdown to a death where everyone wants to know the gory details. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? attacks the premise that she’s one of the most famous, and therefore powerful, people on the planet, but she assures us, “Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth.”
There’s some shock factor to this album; it’s harder to digest than previous ones, which for some listeners could be its downfall. But based on that alone, this is her rawest and bravest songwriting to date.
And of course, she can’t not mention the elephant in the room. Her multi-record-breaking Eras Tour, only midway completed as she heads to Europe later this month. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart lets us in on a secret; she was utterly depressed during some of the performances. It’s conversely boppy and is said with a self-aware wink, “I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art.”
The album descends into classical references of alchemy, the Greek priestess Cassandra’s morbid and disbelieved prophecies and even Peter Pan. This storybook approach harks back to her folklore and evermore albums, which were filled with characters too, but this time it’s apparent Swift is using these figures as self-referential metaphors.
Swift’s sixth album, reputation, which is one of two still due a “Taylor’s version” in her endeavour to regain the copyright to her discography, was a tone shift at the time. It received a few critical eye rolls and getting snubbed by the Grammys along the way. It is now widely praised as one of her more accomplished works in retrospect. I wonder whether The Tortured Poets Department is suffering the same fate.
The Tortured Poets Department is available digitally, on CD and LP.
