I think it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to describe a Taylor Swift album let alone do an album review. As a Swiftie since 2007, each album has a different personal meaning to me as it will for many! Swift has become not just one of the greatest artists of all time but one of most gifted songwriters and she will undoubtedly go down in history as being so.

It’s been a remarkable journey to witness her career grow to what it is from such an early stage! I almost feel unqualified to even be a fan now because I am not as invested in every detail of her work and life like I used to be back in the day! In a way, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in. But that being said, I still buy every album and am still in love with her artistry as much as I was the day I first heard Our Song . I also feel unqualified to offer up an opinion on the album as I can’t quite articulate the thoughts and the emotion of the listener that will truly give the album justice, but this is me trying.

It’s little things that make the journey of a Swiftie so special. Little things like the growth of Taylor Swift’s vocal ability and loving the changes and improvements as the years have gone on! Her voice alone tells a story in each song as you know the majority of her work is actually a personal one! A unique style in her voice, she has become such a comfort blanket in her delicate tones and she has a therapeutic way about her that makes her a remedy for so many pains.

The Tortured Poets Department has been one of the most exciting and anticipated releases of 2024 and one that Swifties have had fun counting down to since it’s announcement.

The album does not disappoint and with its surprising double album feature which is now an Anthology with 15 extra tracks, this double album is titled The Tortured Poets Department/ The Anthology and plays host to 31 songs (13 backwards for a reason surely?!) It will take us a long time to completely dissect (in a good way) and analyse this album but we are so ready for it! That’s part of the fun of a Taylor Swift album though isn’t it? Swiftie know all too well that no two listens are the same experience. Your favourite songs will change all the time, even years after its release. You always discover new easter eggs that you may never have noticed before especially when Swift has a reputation of hinting about things that won’t come to be for years! Her albums also bring engagement between fans who together, share experiences, discoveries, theories amongst other things. There aren’t many artists that cause that much discussion and debate. How fun it must be for Taylor to see even a snippet of what Swifties discuss!!!

The album holds solid folklore and evermore vibes but it also has elements of Midnights, 1989 and Reputation. Of course, each album has its own unique spin! It’s also impossible for Taylor to release a bad song! The album as of course would be expected, flows beautifully. It’s incredibly hypnotic and you find yourself enchanted and getting completely lost in its beauty. Lyrically and sonically the albums content is a magical and mystical experience that is chilling, cryptic and inspirational as well as being painfully relatable at places. Swift has this incredible gift of connection with her fans in her music, so much so that her pain is our pain in a way as well as making the songs our song to our own narrative. She certainly makes swifties feel like they have a place in this world. Has anyone listened to this album and not cried?

Perfect production from Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner and Patrik Berger – There’s every season in this album! Feelings of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter which makes it an album for all year round! The songs were written by Swift and Aaron Dessner and with Jack Antonoff and Patrick Berger on I Look In Peoples Windows.

Two great collaborations come from Post Malone (Fortnight ) and Florence and The Machine (Florida). Florida is particularly memorable in its more upbeat approach.

It’s going to take a while to know all the songs well back to front but early stand outs are below! This as I mentioned above will change – goodness knows it did for folklore and evermore to the point that the albums became a meaningful masterpiece in their entirety. It’s the simpler sounding songs that don’t hold much impact on first listen sometimes and then suddenly they creep up on me and become solid favourites. I feel this way about Cassandra and Robin knowing that as much as I like them now that the more I listen the more they will be firm favourites.

I won’t talk much of the lyrics if at all as it takes the fun out of it for the listener. But the lyrics are always deeply meaningful with every detail having a purpose and being something that swifties really feel and connect with whether it’s relatable or not. Some songs will make your tears ricochet, some will make you laugh and others will make you curious.

Fortnight with Post Malone is a great opener and that was the moment I knew this album was going to be sad, beautiful, tragic and yet gorgeous. Fortnight is wonderfully memorable and one of the more catchy songs off of the album so it makes sense that it is the first single.

The title track The Tortured Poets Department is a typical old school Swift written track with that unique stamp she has in the way she sings the songs lyrics! It’s sung like a letter read out loud!

As a UK Swiftie, So Long, London broke me. I hope London will still remain Fundon to Taylor!

But Daddy I Love Him is one of those songs that will have an incredible impact in a live setting! This just makes me more excited for the eras tour in the UK this summer. Will we get some of these songs on the set list? It may feel like a bittersweet moment if we do as I don’t actually want to lose any of the set list that has been going so far but I also want these new songs. Oh Covid, how you really have messed with us in so many ways. Long do we mourn the Lover tour.

loml gives us a beautiful piano ballad that we love from Swift.

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart is one of the few upbeat tracks. The synth pop esque tracks continue in iamgonnagetyouback.

Anyone who has been through a heartbreak will feel the torture of The Black Dog!

I adore the folklore stylings of Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus.

How Did It End? has such an aching, sore and harrowing piano melody! It’s excruciatingly beautiful!

So High School sounds like high school. Think intro’s to movies of the noughties. It’s a great fun sounding melody and very cinematic. She even mentioned American Pie so the sound was probably intentional.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is perfectly stripped back and has an element of hoax from folklore in it.

Clara Bow with its nostalgic 90’s styled grunge like guitar riff. Another anthemic song, it’s a moment of silence and phone lights in the stadium.

I Look In People’s Windows has a vibe of Safe & Sound and Invisible String.

The Manuscript is the perfect close much like hoax closed folklore. The song is a beautiful poetic end to what has been an incredibly poignant and melodramatic album! Taylor Swift continues to dominate the music industry with her phenomenal craft. The Tortured Poets Department isn’t going to be even close to the end of her ability to write timeless and poetic songs. I already want music from the vault!

We can make a guess who the songs are about and no one needs me to tell you! People will decide which songs are about Joe Alwyn, Travis Kelce, Matty Healy, Kim Kardashian and what have you but please do find your own story in these songs and heal from them, after all that’s part of why she made this album! Swifties also know how to find clues in the liner notes and the way song titles are written.

Taylor has described the album as;

“The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.

And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”

I don’t feel there is anything else that needs to be said. The songs contain a lot of heartbreak but Swift isn’t broken nor out for vengeance, she still has a perfectly good heart.

I am looking forward to reading all Swifties opinions of the album as a whole, of their early favourites and their theories and so on!

Here’s to a beautiful and lengthy journey of an album that will be part of our lives and will remain embedded on our playlists and brains forever and always.

If you aren’t captured and slightly tortured by this album then have you really been listening?

What are your early favourites?

The Tortured Poets Department/The Anthology Tracklisting:

Fortnight (feat Post Malone) – Written by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, Austin Post – Produced by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, Louis Bell

The Tortured Poets Department – Written by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff – Produced by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff

My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys – Written by Taylor Swift – Produced by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff

Down Bad – Written by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff – Produced by Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff

So Long, London – Written by Taylor Swift, Aaron Dessner – Produced by Taylor Swift, Aaron Dessner

But Daddy I Love Him – Written by Taylor Swift, Aaron Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner, Antonoff

Fresh Out the Slammer – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

Florida (feat Florence and The Machine) – Written by Swift, Florence Welch – Produced By Swift, Antonoff

Guilty as Sin? – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? – Written by Swift – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

loml – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

The Alchemy – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

Clara Bow – Written by Swift, Dessner – produced by Swift, Dessner

The Anthology

The Black Dog – Written by Swift – Produced hy Swift, Antonoff

Imgonnagetyiuback – Written by Swift, Antonoff – Produced by Swift, Antonoff

The Albatross – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus – Written but Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

How Did It End? – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced but Swift, Dessner

So High School – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

I Hate It Here – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

thanK you aIMee – Written by Swft, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner, Antonoff

I Look In Peoples Windows – Written by Swift, Antonoff, Patrick Berger – Produced by Swift, Antonoff, Berger

The Prophecy – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced but Swift, Dessner

Cassandra – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

Peter – Written by Swift – Produced by Swift, Dessner

The Bolter – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

Robin – Written by Swift, Dessner – Produced by Swift, Dessner

The Manuscript- Written by Swift – Produced by Swift, Dessner