Taylor Swift, the self-proclaimed “president of the Department of Tortured Poets,” will soon call a meeting where she will release her latest album.
For the most part, Swift has kept many details about the album under wraps, but as cryptic as she’s been while releasing her 11th studio album, there are still a few things we can deduce about “The Tortured Poets Department” from Herself. Swift.
Let’s start with what we know for sure: “The Department of Tortured Poets” is out Friday at midnight Eastern, or Thursday at 9 p.m. if you’re on the West Coast, and the first music video – whose song is still a mystery – will be released on Friday at 8 pm EDT following the album’s release.
The songs
The album includes 16 tracks and a bonus track titled “The Manuscript” and features collaborations with Post Malone on a track titled “Fortnight” and with Florence + The Machine on a track titled “Florida!!!”
Three vinyl variants will also be available for purchase, each with a different bonus track: “The Bolter,” “The Albatross,” and “The Black Dog.”
Schedule
When Swift first announced the album in February while accepting a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for 2022’s “Midnights,” she revealed that she had kept this album a “secret” for the past two years.
A few days later, during an “Eras Tour” concert in Tokyo, Swift told her audience that she started working on “Tortured Poets” immediately after finishing “Midnights.”
“I kept working on it throughout the US tour and when it was perfect, in my opinion, when it was good enough for you, I finished it,” he said at the time, according to images of the program published on social networks.
The topic
Swift also spoke about how much this album means to her during an “Eras Tour” concert in Melbourne in February, saying that “Tortured Poets” is an album that “more than any of my albums I’ve made, I needed to make it. “
“It was really a lifesaver for me. The things I was going through, the things I was writing about reminded me why writing songs is something that really helps me get through my life,” video images posted on social media from the concert shown. “I’ve never had an album where I needed to write songs more than on ‘Tortured Poets.’”
He stopped short of revealing anything about what the music will actually sound like, but all signs point to the album being about heartbreak, which can take many forms.
The humor
To connect the dots: Earlier this month, Swift created a series of playlists for Apple Music about the five stages of heartbreak. Each playlist includes songs from their music catalog that fit each stage: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
The titles of each playlist are lyrics that Swift had previously teased in various Instagram posts.
With the exception of 2020’s “Folklore,” Swift’s albums are typically autobiographical in nature and her romantic relationships tend to be a recurring theme.
Swift doesn’t appear to be experiencing any heartbreak in her current relationship with three-time Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce. Before Kelce, Swift was dating actor Joe Alwyn and in April 2023, CNN reported that their six-year relationship was over.
Knowing what Swift had shared about when she wrote this album, we can all learn from it whatever we want.
That being said, the feeling of heartbreak is not just limited to romance. It could really mean anything, so we’ll leave a blank for that.