Taylor Swift is too big to fail

Its almost pointless to talk about Taylor Swift’s new album if you really want to think about it. For the super fan, their minds were already locked in on this being a messy tell-all, but for the normal everyday music listener this might have been a bit too much. Taylor Swift dropped her new album yesterday on April 19, 2024 at midnight and at first it only held 16 tracks and was around an hour long. A few hours later, she dropped 15 more songs and declared The Tortured Poet’s Department as a double album. And yes for those counting at home, that would make this a 31 track, double album.

This is a long held tradition in rock music and then adopted later in different genres, but has only really come back as of late thanks to the power of streaming. Ideally, this really shouldn’t be a huge issue if the music is great, but Taylor was playing with a bit with fire here and ultimately I’m not exactly sure what the plan was. This is the biggest pop star on the planet, dropping new material and its messy. So what’s the issue? With Taylor Swift being so ubiquitous, as well as being essentially the main character in public consciousness for the last few years, it just feels like a bit too much.

Lets back up a second and unpack this. The new album is a mess in my opinion. Its way too long, and conceptually it is all over the place. Jack Antonoff is back on production for at least the first part of this project and the production just reminds me of the last album, “Midnights.” Taylor Swift basically made an album about what someone in general would believe a Taylor Swift album should be about. Its a bit hard to explain, but I think she has bought into her own myth or at least that she is leaning a lot closer in on to her own myth making than ever before. What we got here is an event album about the last few years of relationships that Taylor has gone through and what has been on her mind since her globe-trotting tour. These are songs that are begging to have their lyrics dissected and with enough hints and clues for fans back at home to feel like they’re in on the secrets whilst also revealing to a general public what has been going on behind the scenes. But for me a lot of this just falls flat and doesn’t make that much sense.

Love is a crazy thing and it makes us do crazy things, and its probably what led Taylor Swift to go out with Matty Healy in the first place, who this album is mostly about. Sure there are few songs here and there about her other relationships with Joe Alwyn (still really don’t know who this is to this day) and Travis Kelce, but there are way more direct shots at Matty than them. Its a strange premise to begin with. These event albums from Taylor are starting to feel more like status updates or new stories on instagram/snapchat and the music and especially the lyrics start to hurt because of this. Across the 31 songs on here, Swift takes us on a journey of a whirlwind romance gone awry. She puts herself on display for the world, like here I am, here is what I did. She blasts this relationship, which mind you had her own fans write an open letter addressing this relationship and why it had to stop. But what doesn’t make sense to me is that Swift has in the past spoken about how she’s disappointed that people are focusing too much on her personal life:

And yet she invites this sort of parasocial behavior on her latest album. Because what else is on here? The Tortured Poet’s Department is filled with some of the worst and embarrassing writing and lyrics I’ve seen and heard in a long time. Sometimes this leads to funny moments where Swift take’s on her own fanbase on the song “But Daddy I Love Him,” but other times it comes across as TMI or in general just annoying. If you’re on the outside, its hard to see this album as anything other than wanting your cake and eating it too. But for the fans? I’m not sure what else they would want (other than catchier music I suppose). You got all this drama and juicy gossip on here and you can see why it can be compelling.

Across the 2 hours of listening to this project, I wasn’t really bored. But I also wasn’t exactly thrilled. The icy production from Jack Antonoff that keeps Taylor Swift in this 80s zone is mostly fine, but you won’t be finding much bombast. She brings back Aaron Dessner for mostly the second half of this album for a return to the Folklore/Evermore era on here, and its great because most of these tracks are much better than the Antonoff ones. But this is basically a battle of two producers on here and its makes for an incoherent album, at least sonically. So what do we end up with here? Like this whole Matty Healy relationship, its a mess.

Taylor Swift is everywhere. When I go to the grocery store or Target she is playing on the speakers. When I log online and see what my friends are posting, when I’m watching the super bowl, etc. She had one of the biggest tours of all time, and currently has the best selling concert movie of all time. You really can’t escape the Taylor Swift zeitgeist, for better and worse. It seemed inevitable that a backlash would eventually form and try to push back on this type of sound, and narrative. But for the fans, these are just haters that don’t want to see things through their perspective. I can relate to the fans because that’s how I feel about my favorite artists as well. So I understand them and why they may feel a bit overprotective.

At the same time, its hard to not agree with the haters on this album. This has got to be the most cringe thing she has ever written. And no amount of not knowing the general Swiftie lore will help this. Its all on here and it is not subtle. There are multiple songs about the Matty Healy relationship that lasted less than a few months. There are cringe songs about Travis Kelce on here. There is even a Kim Kardashian diss track (or two depending on how you see it). A lot of this album deals with that parasocial aspect of Taylor Swift and being a Taylor Swift mega fan. And while its commendable that she can get this all off her chest and make some decent music out of it, its hard to believe this billionaire when she says some of this stuff. We are at the peak right now, the height of Taylor Swift’s powers and THIS is what she gives us?

There is no better way to say it. But this is ass. This is subpar writing and it is across the entire album. We got lines on here that not only needed a second pass, but a lot of them should have just been scrapped. This is the issue with the double album, there is just too much material on here and a lot of it should have been left on the cutting room floor. But at the same time, I can’t lie and say I was not engaged. I was actively listening to this album, alongside reading the lyrics. Pausing for whatever Swiftism that caught me off guard, almost like if it was rap music and being like “there ain’t no way she just said that” type of way. In general its just crazy for me that this album probably took longer to write, record, produce, master and release than the entire Matty Healy relationship. Like did we really need a full dissection of this relationship? I guess so, this is her truth. But at the same time, what did you expect? Life isn’t that simple, sometimes we gotta learn the lesson the hard way. And it all worked out anyway, Swift is finishing up her magnum opus of a tour and is dating a guy who just won the Super Bowl and had that fairy tale ending, like it was written in the stars.

Its a deep and personal view into her life and sometimes it results in some good music, but most of the time there just genuinely bad lyrics on here that sour the experience for me. That and the Jack Antonoff production. We really need something new out of this guy man. These songs are lacking an oomph, a general punch to the gut. A lot of this production is cold and lifeless. Sometimes its just too pristine. If the mood board was the Drive soundtrack, that would be cool, but its more like its on that level sometimes, while the rest of the time its set out to be this sad and thought provoking sounding album. At least for the first half of this double album anyway.

So where do we stand after all is said and done? This is the most parasocial of her albums yet, at least as far as I know. Its also pretty infantilizing seeing Taylor Swift have these song titles and confessional lyrics that are aiming for an Olivia Rodrigo type of younger audience. But that I feel is a different discussion altogether. I think in general it won’t matter what I have to say, or what the long term haters have to say. This is a 2 hour Taylor Swift experience and it is messy. To the fans, I’m happy you got this and we now add Swift to the pantheon of bands and artists with their big double album. So congratulations to you guys. I’m sure its going to be a fun summer dissecting this album to pieces. For the rest of us, we’ll probably just have to deal with it as we walk the aisles of the H-E-B or CVS I guess.

EDIT: re-reading this I’m coming across a lot more negative than how I actually feel lol. So basically this album isn’t really that bad. It is definitely passable and some times it was actually just fun. This isn’t really a take down, I’m just disappointed by the album myself. And I didn’t really focus on the positive aspects of the project. There are actually really fun songs on here. I particularly enjoy the first song, Fortnight, with Post Malone. I thought that it was a fun track and Post Malone is really having a crazy year with these features. There are other songs like Down Bad, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, The Blackdog and more I can name that I had a great time with. I think if this album was shortened and had the best songs of each half, or at least the most thematically similar ones could be excised, it would be a much more focused project. As it is right now, the first half is still available as its own version online and I guess on physical too, and you could always listen to the album that way.

I think there will be a lot of replay value, maybe not for me, but there are pockets where the melodies and harmonies truly shine. Particularly on the second half of the album. When the lyrics aren’t cringe inducing, they can actually be pretty clever and fun as well. For me personally, its an overall mixed bag and can feel at times like the sequel to Midnights, or at least the cut songs from that album. But Midnights was definitely more upbeat than the stuff on here, whereas on here it can be a bit more dour. Which sometimes works! But this is not really a big change from her previous sound, and reaching back into the Folklore well adds to this not really feeling too different. So yeah my bad on this being more negative. Didn’t mean for that. I think there are some songs here that I can see many people loving, as I said, but there is just too much stuff. And a lot of it can sound same-y. It makes a long listen, a bit tougher. This album is 2 hours long. Honestly what I want to see is the album she makes after this one. Maybe there will be a switch up in some form or the songwriting can hit super hard.

The album is good, its fine.