May 2, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Rachel Weissman
Taylor Swift’s newest hit album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” is a record breaker. TTPD debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, giving Swift her 14th chart-topping album, also racking up the third-largest sales week ever. TTPD makes Swift the only artist to have seven albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week, the artist with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, and extends Swift’s record as the artist with the most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 with 106 weeks and counting. And rightfully so, “The Tortured Poets Department” was the fastest album to surpass 1 billion global album streams in history — and people hate it?
Social media has not taken kindly to Swift’s new album, disregarding highly acclaimed reviews. Many complaints of TTPD come from Swift’s private jet usage, the insistence that she should stop releasing music, or her not-so-secret relationship. It seems that the internet is once again tired of successful women. However, none of these trolls seem to be acknowledging the musical content of Swift’s album — how convenient!
Nonetheless, just two hours after the standard edition of TTPD was released, Swift shocked the world with a deluxe edition entitled “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” with fifteen extra tracks, it seems Swift was only adding fuel to the fire of internet hatred toward her.
The production and lyricism in “The Tortured Poets Department” occasionally mirrors Swift’s “Midnights,” released 18 months ago, yet inspiration for this album can be seen across Swift’s discography. “The Anthology” has acoustic-folk sounds similar to Swift’s 2020 “folklore” with tracks such as “The Prophecy,” “The Albatross,” “I Hate It Here” and “The Bolter.” Similarly, Swift features some uncharacteristically acoustic tracks such as “The Manuscript,” “loml,” “How Did It End?” and “Peter.” On the standard edition, Swift’s “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” could easily belong on “1989,” originally released in 2014, yet Swift rereleased the album with bonus tracks just a few months ago — her rereleases proving to be quite the business strategy as “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” sits only behind TTPD as Swift’s largest debut.
Producers on TTPD — Swift, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner — relied on consistencies in the production to produce cohesiveness that TTPD thrives on. The delicate backbeats and rhythmic synths are particular to Antonoff, a producer Swift has worked with for the last decade. However, the vulnerability in the acoustic sounds belong fully to Dressner, creating an organic and folksy tone with less production, specifically with “The Anthology” edition.
To a Melbourne audience of The Eras Tour, Swift said that she “needed to write” “The Tortured Poets Department,” and this statement seems accurate. There is no true pop-banger on TTPD as seen on most of her previous albums — “We Are Never Getting Back Together” on Swift’s “Red” album, “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood” on Swift’s “1989” album, “Look What You Made Me Do” on Swift’s “reputation” album and “Anti-Hero” on her “Midnights” album.
Those tracks were written to chart and hit every radio across the world, however, the absence of a particularly single significant track was refreshing. Swift doesn’t need to purposefully create singles meant to chart, which is likely why she released the album all at once, it seems she didn’t have much need for promo. Nonetheless, even without a distinguished pop hit, Swift has managed the top spots on Billboard Hot 100, claiming the top 14, breaking her own record for claiming the top 10 spots with “Midnights” released in 2022. Track one “Fortnite” featuring Post Malone has occupied the number one spot, with the signature Antanoff synths and the dramatic crescendo to Malone’s bridge that led this song to number one.
TTPD is a vulnerable record because of the removal of the fantastical aspects of “folklore” and “evermore,” while including the literalness of “Midnights,” alongside the poetic innuendos Swift introduced in this album. Swift’s mournful perseverance makes this album painfully relatable – yet as Swift writes about these topics, it’s whiny, spoiled and overdone? Pop icons Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Justin Beiber and more have produced extensive music on the same topics and received praise for it. Despite the sexist hate TTPD’s release has provoked, Swift’s reign is well-deserved and long from over, we only ask that the listeners change the prophecy.