Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department

So, Taylor Swift put out this long-ass version of an album, so there’s a lot to sift through here. But one of my most immediate thoughts after listening to The Tortured Poets Department wasn’t ‘Wow, this was long’. But instead, how much the album felt like it pulled from across all of Taylor’s albums in some form. And given that this album was recorded whilst she was on her Eras Tour and in the midst of re-recording her albums, it makes sense that it would — either intentionally or unintentionally. But Taylor is very business savvy. So it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a conscious decision. Either way, it’s an ideal time for Taylor to have an album in her discography which manages to feel like a loose overview of her discography. The problem here however, is that the album — at least the first half of it — has no real direction, which was an issue I had with Midnights. It’s just a collection of songs and they sound…fine. But the core theme of the album gets lost in superlatives and excess. And it also doesn’t help the case of the Jack Antanoff and Taylor partnership being played out and overstaying its welcome — given that he is largely responsible for the first part of the album. But we’ll get to that.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

When I decided to head into this album, I wasn’t expecting there to be any parallels to Reputation of all albums, but HERE WE ARE.

People drag Reputation. But something that album seemed to spark in Taylor was not only leaning into perceptions people had of her, but also having a realisation that it’s fine to not always be the sweetheart in every story and have everybody see you that way, and that there can be fun in that. Whilst people will class this album as a breakup album and Taylor just shitting on her exes…again. Taylor selectively admits her own faults and the parts she played in her relationships falling apart. Of course it’s mainly skewed towards ‘You ain’t shit and I tried to be okay with that, but you were just too shit, but I really tried tho’. After all, these types of songs are part of Taylor’s brand. But still, there is some accountability on Taylor’s part that her pursuit of wanting to be in love so badly and finding thrill in the red flags resulted in her refusing to see the signs — even if we have heard versions of these stories from her before. And she also paints herself as that lil’ bitch from The Exorcist in one case for a fun moment in the song “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”.

Taylor is also petty on this album, which should come as no surprise. And it’s fun hearing her be as such, because it feels true to who I think she is — especially based on some of her more public spats. Sometimes it’s fun to be petty. And it once again toys with her own image of being America’s sweetheart. It makes for some really fun moments on songs, such as “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”, “But Daddy I Love Him”, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “thanK you aIMee”. Taylor has milked the whole ‘I’m just a young meek all American girl next door’ schtick for her entire career. And I think it’s largely what still continues to propel it. Taylor never fully acknowledges her stature as a public figure, because Taylor is business savvy and gets that she holds so much power with her all American girl next door image and the narrative it provides. It’s easier to see attacks or even the slightest criticism on Taylor as her being picked on if you see her as just the all American girl next door and not Taylor Swift LLC. Taylor Swift knows she is the Amazon of pop music, but Swift Action PR do their damndest to make sure this is not how she is seen. It’s fascinating to me looking at The Tortured Poets Department album through this lens. And I admire the lengths Taylor goes to maintain a certain image, because I don’t think her albums would work the same way otherwise. This one certainly wouldn’t.

This is a shitty analogy, but Taylor really does treat her public image and persona like a delicate, climate controlled greenhouse. And each album is a flower which can only grow and flourish if the temperature is exactly right, the amount of light is managed around the clock and the soil is the most perfect of soils. Even though Taylor could release anything at any time and have it top charts and break records, she still continues to be meticulous about when she releases albums — ensuring everything in her greenhouse is optimal. Because a question some probably had about this album is why Taylor chose to release it when she did, given one of the main topics of it. Surely it would have made more sense to release it after Reputation. But would it have hurt her [turns and looks into the camera] reputation if she had? Especially given the reception to that album.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

I’ve not read any of The Tortured Poets Department think pieces, but I did read the statement that Taylor released about it. And I’m also aware that she had split from that miserable looking British man prior to this album. And despite my best efforts to mute all things Taylor Swift, I have occasionally seen headlines and tweets about how this album is less of a scathing launch at that miserable looking British man and more about her short stint with that unwashed looking white man from The 1972. Based on listening to this album, I do feel some of these headlines are sensationalised. BIG SURPRISE. Whilst Taylor certainly doesn’t need anybody extra as a defender at this point for an album which had gotten over 300 million streams in a day — I do think this album being reduced to ‘an album about Taylor’s exes’ is an unfortunate narrative, but an expected one for an album from somebody who was once known for releasing albums which were defined by the media purely on the couple of songs which were about her’s exes. But Taylor is smart. What was once an annoyance is now a selling point. And for this album to be the curveball of ‘OH. This isn’t about that miserable looking British man at all’ was an Avengers: Endgame style level reveal amogst the fandom and the blogs, that made the album even more of an essential listen for many. So, I doubt Taylor would be pressed about the album being seen this way, because it helps it and it helps her. And Taylor is meticulous. People see the album the way she intended for them to see it.

Yes, there are definitely songs on this album that you can deduce are about the dissolution of a relationship or two, but it’s not all that the album is about. The album deals with as much of how Taylor herself felt during periods when things in the relationship weren’t great and what she’d lost as a result. The album touches on how Taylor feels being in love again. The album also touches on what it feels like existing in a world where you are a commodity. The album runs a fair gamut compared to what the headlines made out. But any press is good press, and Swift Action PR knows this. She knows people will flock to this album to hear her doo-doo on her exes — to find out how things fell to pieces with the man who not only inspired songs on her last 3 albums, but a man who also co-wrote songs on each of those albums. And Taylor is very aware that she has said very little about that man from The 1972. A relationship for which she was dragged for online, even by her very own fans — which is something she addresses on “But Daddy I Love Him”. But Taylor is savvy y’all. Despite everybody having moved on from that relationship, she knows she still has to draw some type of line under it with her songwriting pen, and — in true Taylor fashion — absolve herself of the terrible optics of that relationship (TLDR; The 1972 man is racist and sexist) beyond just putting the artist on one of her songs that he made racist remarks about. She is also VERY aware of the attention she is courting with her relationship with that American Football man, so the timing is perfect and works for her narrative. Her new man is THE ONE one. Her exes ain’t shit. He is a good wholesome all American man living the all American dream. A better fit for Taylor than two depressed men from the UK who were holding a bitch back…apparently. Swift Action PR don’t play. One thing they gon’ do is find an opportunity and turn that fucking narritive around with an album. They learned that lesson with Reputation.

But more than just an album about Taylor’s relationships, The Tortured Poets Department feels like a purging of sorts. Sure, a bunch of the songs are about a relationship falling to pieces are about The 1972 man specifically, but they also put into context the ridiculous amount of investment that people have had in Taylor’s relationships. And I guess her being frank about relationship dramas and woes on this album is Taylor’s admission that she does court that interest. She has to feed the beast. Not because it could turn on her. But because the bigger the beast becomes, the more it can feed her and her career. Varying degrees of relationship dramas is what Taylor’s career is largely built on — whether it’s dating somebody from One Direction, having a fling with Loki, tweeting at Nicki Minaj, or beefing with Kanye West and a Kardashian. These are all defining moments in Taylor’s career which are chronicled by her albums. The Tortured Poets Department is no different. But this album does feel like Taylor saying ‘Okay guys. Let’s just get it all out and out of the way, so we can all move onto this new chapter of my life together’. Taylor’s last 3 albums were a case of her trying to avoid herself. But in doing so, there was a lot that built up and went unsaid. So The Tortured Poets Department is that album of Taylor throwing as much out there as she is willing to and dusting her hands.

Aside from men, recurring themes on this album are marriage, death and religion. The death references were so frequent that I was like ‘Damn. Is a bitch okay?’. But if this album was a form of catharsis and the act of Taylor letting things go, then references to death would make sense. Marriage has felt like something Taylor has longed for. So it’s natural that as a woman in her 30s who wants to find love and marry, that it would be something she mentions — with her hopes dashed of those paper rings being replaced with ones made of gold. As for the religion of it all, in many of these songs Taylor is choosing a path of forgiveness, so…that’s the religion I guess.

The Tortured Poets Department is not just an album about Taylor’s breakups with men. It’s an album about Taylor’s breakup with the not-so-great relationship that she’s had with herself, and how that influenced her relationships with men. And in letting that go, she found new love for herself and somebody else.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

The Tortured Poets Department blurs a lot of lines between what is fact and what is fiction. Taylor had said that her Folklore and Evermore albums were collections of stories which weren’t autobiographical. Then Midnights toyed with this idea of ‘what in my head is real and what isn’t’. And The Tortured Poets Department seems to shift between what Taylor actually experienced and fictional accounts born out of real life experiences. Taylor’s music has never been completely autobiographical — at least not to me. With her earlier albums you could tell that some songs were about things Taylor wanted to happen, or her accounts of how she thought things were. It was almost like songs earlier in her career were manifestations and hopes. Then there was a transition into songs about her own experiences as she got older and actually began to live through things which she had only seen from a distance. And it was at this point that she garnered this [turns and looks into the camera] reputation for just writing songs about her exes.

To me, whether Taylor is writing about something real or not doesn’t affect the quality of the song. My only thing is ‘Is the song good?’. But I guess with Taylor being somebody whose currency is how much about her life that people know, and a lot of that coming from what she says and does — it’s to be expected that albums of hers would exclusively chronicle these things to keep the beast fed. Taylor is smart when it comes to this shit. And The Tortured Poets Department being run with as this attack on her exes is probably what she hoped it would be taken as, even if the album isn’t exclusively just this. But I just think it’s a shame. And I think Taylor is in a place where she doesn’t need to court discourse or engineer the ways in which people group and title her music. Then again, I think it’s something which largely helps this album in particular, because the music by itself isn’t that great.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

Taylor’s voice really stands out on this album in a way I don’t think it has before. Maybe it’s the touring that’s got her voice in a different state or made her feel bolder about how she uses it — but she sounds good here. She pushes her voice into some cool places we don’t often hear her go. Taylor sings low A LOT on this album. This was something she dabbled with on Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights. But she goes low on every other song on this album, and she sounds good. I don’t think we’re ever gonna have Taylor sing whole albums low, because her voice isn’t as recognisable or distinct when she does. And pop music favours brighter voices. But you can tell that when she’s writing songs, she’s writing them with a lower singing voice in mind, which I find really cool. And it’s probably because she’s writing songs like poems or stories, which can also be spoken, as Taylor’s speaking voice is actually quite low.

The sense I get from the approach to Taylor’s voice on this album, is that her vocals are being played with as a result of her recording whilst on a tour — with her realising different facets of her voice as she tours, whilst also being conscious of how she’s going to sing some of these songs live and how they’re going to read in a live setting.

Midnights played a lot with how Taylor’s vocals were mixed, and it was one of the few things about that album I actually liked. I’m a sucker for playing around with vocals in the mix and using that to enhance the sound and vibe of a song. Messing around with Taylor’s vocals made sense for an album like Midnights which had this bedroom pop, midtempo, dream-like vibe to it. But it’s cool to see that some of this carries through into The Tortured Poets Department, despite the sonics and the moods being different. And that despite the sparseness of some of the songs, the vocal production and mixing never feels overdone or distracting. This approach to the mixing of Taylor’s vocals feels like it may be ‘a thing’ with her songs now and I like it. It adds a layer of newness and interest to songs where Taylor’s songwriting and the music itself isn’t really ‘giving’. And it makes her voice sound better that it otherwise would have.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

I know Jack Antonoff gets whacked a lot for his work with Taylor Swift, but I don’t think their work together is inherently bad. I think Antonoff is an incredibly talented producer. It’s clear that he and Taylor find safety in one another, which is important for an artist like her. But Antonoff productions featuring sparingly on Taylor’s albums would serve them both better — making his contributions shine and feel far less repetitive and derivative. Even on an album that’s not particularly great, there will always be a couple of great songs from Antonoff, and I think that’s the purpose he should serve — a couple of good pop songs to cut through as the obvious singles, a couple of cute bops for album cuts and then that’s it.

But the bigger issue is the pickle that Taylor has put herself in — where after Folklore, she can’t seem to balance Jack Antanoff and Aaron Dessner for one 15 track album. So we keep getting these dual releases, where one is mostly Antanoff and the other is Dessner. Folklore was split pretty evenly between the two, which probably partly explains why it was so good. But then we got Evermore. The Dessner album. The Tortured Poets Department. More-or-less the Antanoff album. The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. The Dessner album. Even Midnights did it to a degree. Midnights. The Antanoff album. Midnights: The 3am Edition. The bonus tracks were mostly Dessner.

I’m sure that Taylor likes all of these songs that she’s including on these albums. But it feels like a couple of things are happening here. One. Taylor doesn’t want to rock a boat with her collaborators by seeming to favour one over the other. So, the solution is just to spam us with a whole bunch of Antanoff songs and a whole bunch of Dessner songs. Two. Taylor feels more comfortable with Antanoff, because that’s her friend. But she writes better to Dessner’s music. One option could be to have them produce her songs together, which they have done — so Taylor gets the best of both without bloating tracklists. But if my intuition and vibe sensor is correct, perhaps Antanoff and Dessner don’t gel so well together. When I watched Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Antonoff and Dessner didn’t seem to click. The two of whom had absolutely ZERO chemistry. All the while, Taylor is just sat there drinking wine and getting cosy with her blanket. You could see that the way she works with Antanoff is very different to how she works with Dessner. But this doesn’t mean that Taylor can’t have their songs co-exist together in a better form than she has done as of late. Taylor really does need to find a way to have her poppier Antanoff produced jaunts and her depressed bitch Dessner jams sit together on one album. It’s not like she’s incapable. She did it for Folklore.

The Tortured Poets Department did not need to have a version with 31 songs on it. Picking the best 15 songs out of these would have been the better choice and made the material shine far better. Especially given that it is so easy to pick out the weaker songs of the standard edition and the weaker songs of the anthology version. And yet…Taylor didn’t do it. I’m sure part of releasing so many songs is to rack up streams, download, playtimes and occupy as many positions on the Billboard Hot 100 as possible, but that’s a whole other post. Taylor needs to get better at streamlining her album tracklists and curating them so that they are more focused. The sheer amount of songs, them not all featuring these tight pop structures and Taylor being super wordy and superfluous — it’s too easy for the focus to be lost when you’re in the thick of the album. A lot of the songs start to sound the same by the time you’ve hit “Clara Bow” and you ask yourself, ‘Wait, what is this album about? Where in the timeline of events is this song!?’. Sometimes I was barely aware when a new song had started, because every song bled into one, which made me attention wander.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

Speaking of Taylor being super wordy and superfluous — the songwriting. Taylor is a wordy girl. I get it. I’m a wordy bitch too. I like songwriters that have a distinct style and ism about them. It’s partly why I’m a fan of Mariah Carey — a fellow wordy bitch. But some of the songs on The Tortured Poets Department feel so cramped lyrically, which isn’t really an album specific issue. It’s just a Taylor thing. It’s as though Taylor is singing straight from a long poem or her diary entry to music. And sometimes it works. But sometimes it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, it REALLY doesn’t. Taylor has a penchant for being over-descriptive. Taylor paints her pictures and then spends more time describing how the picture looks than what is actually happening in it. And this contrasts with the more poppier songs, where the songwriting feels far more concise and to the point. I like that Taylor is in this place of having two styles of songs that Antonoff and Dessner’s styles cater to. She can put out a pop album when she wants to. And then decide to put out a folkier, wordy-ass album when she wants to. But as per the Antonoff and Dessner situation, Taylor needs to find a balance. And once again I will refer to Folklore, because she found the balance there. So it’s baffling how she wasn’t able to find it again here.

Taylor Swift’s songwriting is an acquired taste. I’m not always a fan of it, but I respect it. It’s a part of who she is. And as somebody who grew up constantly being told that I should write differently, speak differently and change my vocabulary — I would never want to impose that on somebody else. But as a pop artist, I think the key for Taylor is to always try and find  balance. The goal should be for the message hit within the package of a pop song in the best way possible. Not for it to be done with the highest word count possible.

I also think Taylor should play around with the idea of spoken word. She writes poetry. She likes writing stories. I think having spoken word songs on an album would be a cool thing for her to play around with if she were to do an album like this again. It would create a creative confine for her. ‘Okay, this song is super wordy and I can’t get it tight enough. Maybe this should be a spoken word piece?’. The vibe of this album is mostly conversational anyway, with Taylor just about singing on some of the songs — so it could work. And not only would it be another facet of her voice to explore, but in keeping with her wanting to main the all American girl next door image and appeal to her largely young fanbase — the spoken word songs would make these fans feel like Taylor is their friend and is speaking directly to them.

Girl. Hire me for Swift Action PR.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

One of the biggest problems with this album for me is that it’s too damn long. The anthology edition of this album is the one I listened to and it was a slog. There were definitely moments when I had to fight the urge to not check out. ‘It’s too damn long’ has become a big problem with Taylor Swift’s albums lately. Lover felt bloated with one too many songs. And Midnights would have worked so much better as an EP. Taylor Swift needs to get better with consolidation. In her mind, she probably feels that more is better and that she’s doing her fans a massive service by giving them more songs. But when she does this, it’s always at the detriment of the album — because the longer and more sprawling it is, the more unfocused it becomes. And The Tortured Poets Department struggled to keep its focus.

Another problem with this album is that it doesn’t show much growth from Taylor as a songwriter or an artist, which is a clear downside of her releasing so much music with such frequency. The pattern of how she writes her songs, some of the stuff she writes about, the way in which she sings the majority of her songs — there are no levels to it. It’s like a constant flatline. And I think flatline best describes the energy and vibe of this album. There are no real peaks or even dips with it. Even the likes of “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”, “But Daddy I Love Him”, “Florida!!!” and “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” aren’t the peaks they probably should have been and otherwise would have been on a tighter album with less songs, which was more aware of the top to bottom listening experience. Then again, is Taylor even putting out music for anybody other than her fans? They don’t give a damn about the ‘listening experience’. Just as long as it’s Taylor they’re listening to.

There is also a clear sense of tug-of-war on this album — in the sense that Taylor Swift seems to want to create an album which is more about telling stories through song, without each of them being packaged in the formats of tried and true pop songs. But Taylor is very aware that the songs kinda need to be. And this is what makes the aforementioned “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”, “But Daddy I Love Him” and “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” stand out in the worst way, because they don’t fit what I feel was supposed to be the anchoring sound and vibe of this album. And it doesn’t help that each of these songs feels derivative of songs Taylor has done before. Sonically, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” reminds me a lot of a watered down “Out of the Woods”. And “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” feels like a retread of “Bejeweled”.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department | Taylor Swift

Where I ultimately land with this album is that it’s just not entertaining or memorable enough, which should be two of the criteria that Taylor checks off with every album. Perhaps Taylor thought that the ‘tea’ would be enough to carry The Tortured Poets Department as far as entertainment value goes, but it really wasn’t. At least not for me — somebody who isn’t invested in it and didn’t feel any more invested in it after listening to the album. The best songs on the album were the ones about how Taylor was feeling about herself and her outlook on things, not the why’s, how’s and what’s of her partners. Maybe if Taylor chose to make herself the star in this story, it may have pushed more of the songs in a more interesting direction. But instead Taylor wound up with an album which seems sure of what it wants to do as far as her narrative goes, but unsure of how to best present itself musically and creatively — resulting in an album which is as boring and colourless as the album cover.

Highlights:
▪ Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? 🥇
▪ The Albatross
▪ I Hate It Here 🥈
▪ I Look in People’s Windows