In true Swift fashion, the music industry herself decided to incite a magnitude of chaos while accepting her award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards, which took place on Saturday, February 4. This being her 13th Grammy, it’s no revelation that she would want to make it special. Though many fans assumed that a new announcement regarding the re-recording would ensue, it seems as though Taylor had another plan, a plan that has been in the works for approximately two years.
While on stage, Swift announced to the public that her 11th studio album, titled The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), will be released on April 19, 2024, which provoked an vastness of havoc for Swifties everywhere.
After the announcement, Swift soon debuted the album cover across all her social media platforms with a headline that read, “All’s fair in love and poetry… New Album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out April 19.” Alongside the cover art for the album, Swift shared a handwritten poem said to reflect the overarching theme of the project. TTPD will consist of 16 tracks, plus a 17th bonus track for anyone who gets their hands on a physical copy of the record. To add to the excitement, there will also be features from both Post Malone and Florence + the Machine.
During her first Tokyo Eras tour performance, Swift revealed the timeline of the TTPD. “I’ve been working on Tortured Poets since right after I turned in Midnights… I’ve been working on it for about two years; I’ve worked on it throughout the US tour.”
This piece of information is no shock to any fan since, recently, she has been in an extremely creative space, revisiting her old music for the re-recordings. It seems as though Swift has not stopped writing since the release of Folklore and Evermore in 2020, and fans couldn’t be happier.
The intention behind the release date could mean a multitude of things: that April 19th is National Cat Lady Day, or more believably, the anniversary of the announcement of Taylor and English actor Joe Alwyn’s breakup. The couple was together for a little over six years but called it quits because their relationship was said to have “run its course.”
With tracks on the album titled “So Long, London,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” and “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” fans assume that a breakup album is underway.
If that is the truth, then Alwyn had better start posting again in his group chat with Paul Mescal (from Normal People) and Andrew Scott (from Fleabag), which is curiously named “The Tortured Man’s Club,” just to see if he has a place to lay low for a few months.
The Tortured Poets Department appears to be a meta-commentary on Swift’s artistry as a whole. The title depicts what it means to fully encapsulate the epic highs and torturous lows of sharing poetry with the public eye.
Since the start of Swift’s career, she has been the subject of an abundant amount of emotional torment caused by different people in her life. This series of unfortunate events has become the sole inspiration for her music—the reason she has become such a staple artist of this generation. The nerve to embrace such vulnerability in her work gives Swift the ability to reach the level of cultural force she currently possesses.
In sharing her art with others, Swift is embracing a level of raw, emotional truth that only those stable enough in their vulnerability can achieve. In the process of doing so, she is perpetuating the inexplicable pain that she has already had to live through once. No matter how much time has passed, that pain will always be part of her, which seals her into this never-ending cycle of self-perpetuating torture.
It seems as though every artist, at some point in their life, is a tortured poet, since every writer surrenders a part of their soul to those who consume. However, when the topic of confessional songwriting gets brought into question, Taylor Swift should be one of the main subjects of that conversation. After all, she is the tried and true Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.
