If there’s one thing I can say about Taylor Swift’s new record, “The Tortured Poets Department,” it’s that she certainly knows her prime audience.
Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock (or simply are afraid of talking to women), then chances are you’ve been made aware that today marks another monumental day of worship for the Swifties- Taylor Swift has released yet another album. Appropriately named the “The Tortured Poets Department,” this new release has left me, an avid fan since childhood, with mixed feelings. Let’s divulge.
Let me start by saying that I adore Ms. T Swizzle and am not quiet about it. Growing up, I owned two CDs: Abba Gold and 1989. I remember listening to 1989 on my Hello Kitty CD player sitting on the carpeted floor of my childhood bedroom in awe. Taylor was my childhood and she’s still here in my 20s. As we’ve both gotten older, as I live the experiences she writes about, as she moves from era to era, her music has only grown in meaning in my head.
Being the token Swiftie in my friend groups, I have received countless texts asking for my opinions on this new drop. My answer? I feel as if this woman has taken my life and written an album about it. From the wishful thinking of “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” to the quiet rage of “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” right back to the bittersweet confusion in “Peter” (which mirrors my last relationship in scarily accurate detail), this album is a tapestry of lost songs.
Artists like Swift remind me of the impact of sisterhood. All different women living all different lives, the themes that penetrate what it means to be a woman foster the community that I believe is what truly unites the strongest fandom in the music industry to date. Notes on lingering hurt, the desire to be seen authentically, and the muddled inexplicable relationships exist across race, age, and culture. There is something so wholesome about girlhood, and Swift has found the gift of putting words to its kind mutilation. After all, we all belong to “The Tortured Poets Department.”
While some of the tracks blew me out of the water, I will admit that I was left slightly disappointed and wanting more. It felt to me as if this album is a patchwork of left-over songs that Taylor wrote for past albums that didn’t quite make the cut.
Each of her past eras have been so distinct and creative that I fear she may have leaned into the “tortured” part of this album title a little too heavily. Almost as if she is trying to remain relatable to the heartbroken teenage girl crowd, it irritates me that she hasn’t embraced more progression in her style through this record. That being said, sometimes creative expression needs the raw emotion of pain, and if Travis Kelcey is truly making her as happy as the media makes it seem, perhaps she is simply diving back into past traumas for material. Maybe it would be better to look at “The Tortured Poets Department” not as a complete album concept, but rather a culmination of Taylor throughout the years.
I am incredibly interested to see what Swift comes out with next, to see if she continues down this road of plodding synth monotony or finally embraces her new era with a higher level of intention.
And an answer for Taylor’s question “who uses typewriters anyways?” It’s me. I use typewriters and the vintage red one sitting on my desk at home in San Francisco is very offended. And yes, I do identify as tortured as well as a poet.
My Top Tracks:
Flordia!!! feat. Florence + The Machine
The Alchemy
The Black Dog (From The Anthology)
How Did It End (From The Anthology)
I Hate It Here (From The Anthology)
Let me know what you think! (Unless you're a Kanye apologist...)