We hereby conduct this postmortem of Swift’s frenetically received, record-breaking, billionaire-making, fourteenth studio album, The Tortured Poets Department.
What is Taylor Swift? It’s a question I’ve found myself asking multiple times since the lead up and eventual release of Swift’s latest studio album, and her eighth release since the pandemic alone. At what point can unprecedented pop star ever feel genuine? How tortured can America’s most popular, powerful, wealthy poet ever really be? That’s always been the paradox that’s spun off since the album’s title was announced. And yet, Swift’s argument to that, while inherently flawed, remains relevant: because her grief and pain and anger are valid. And this album, more than anything, is her case.
That’s probably the clearest definition of Tortured Poets thus far: it’s a testimony that trades in the wide-eyed wonderstruck ingenue for the thirty-something cynical cultural phenomenon. And like any testimony, its emotional truths are sharp even if its execution isn’t always.
Swift has always been a pop culture paradox: for some the songwriter of a generation, for others the maestro of cultural capitalism. But for better or worse, it’s clear Swift no longer cares about anything than her own truth. And to her credit, she’s been put on trial many times throughout her career for telling her stories, and she deserves her own channel to process her feelings. Of course Swift is entitled to make art out of her pain. Anyone who says contrary is wrong. But Swift is also notorious for commodifying her art, that when writing about it, it’s no longer possible to simply write about the work itself, especially with her near-total domination the current cultural landscape.
To even remotely enjoy Taylor Swift’s work, as I have for most of my life now, is to sign up for the whole Taylor Swift experience, easter eggs, relationship drama and all, even if none of that extra stuff even interests you. The heart of the issue is that Taylor Swift is unlike any pop star before her in history, and so she’s something akin to a real-time creation of a new meaning of a pop star, where pop stars are not simply one thing but also everything else. Like it or not, it’s not as easy to see her as the underdog in most cases, even if she feels like she is.
And in Tortured Poets, Swift is less poet and more lawyer, stating her case in the only way she knows how: sung-through declarations, sometimes over-written, but verses sharp and acerbic as ever. This is the Swift we first encountered in 2017’s Reputation, but far more jaded, weary, and angry. But also far wiser. The difference is that Reputation had something real and meaningful to prove. Tortured Poets, on the other hand, would have benefited from more time and space in the studio in the absence of this backing need of something to prove. But theres also a paradox there because Swift seems to be struggling with the very notions of time and space. It’s evident in everything from “Clara Bow” in this album to “Nothing New” in Red (Taylor’s Version), both of which are ruminations on the notions of youth and love and adoration as ultimately, tragically, transient.
At its best, Tortured Poets reads like a mature collection of love trysts gone wrong, carefully examined with clinical prescision. But at its worst points, songs feel rushed, the melodies uninspired, and some lyrics simply baffling. As a result, few of these songs feel really lived in, or saturated with the kind of emotion usually prevalent in Swift’s discography.
It’s a complicated album, which is ultimately what’s most revealing about it: it profiles Swift in her own words, in the clearest way she sees herself, and then testifying her findings to the world. It’s not a clean kill, to borrow a TTPD lyric, but it is cathartic as an exorcism. That’s what makes it so compelling. For better or worse, she is the storyteller of this generation and this current cultural landscape. We’ve journeyed with Swift throughout her eras. Perhaps it’s time we acknowledge her seasons too.
