Bridgewater, Va. – On April 19, Taylor Swift released her eleventh studio album titled “The Tortured Poets Department,” which encapsulates the story of her most recent relationships.
Taylor Swift has been a gem in the music industry ever since she released her first album, “Taylor Swift”, in 2006. It all started when she was little writing songs and performing at local venues in Nashville. Later on, she came out with hits such as, “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me.” Ever since then she has taken the music industry by storm. Over the years, she has earned herself a total of 14 Grammy Awards. She has raised a generation of people and helped them heal from heartbreak.
Taylor Swift announced the release of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the 66th annual Grammy Awards this past February. While accepting her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for her album “Midnights”, she mentioned the name of the new upcoming album. All of her loyal “Swifties” went crazy in excitement and were beyond eager for the release to come.
Swift’s loyal fans had speculations of the TTPD album, basing their opinions from her previous album, “Midnights”, which was about self-identity and navigating through the bumps in life. For the most part, “Midnights” was mostly made up of pop tunes with an occasional folk themed song, which had the Swifties wanting more of a folk vibe or maybe even more of a country theme.
According to Spotify, one of the top 4 songs of Taylor Swift’s discovery page are “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone),” which is her most streamed song with 93,072,136 streams. Then there is “Down Bad” at 59,630,713 streams. The other two are “The Tortured Poets Department” and “So Long, London.” TTPD has 54,718,896 streams and “So Long, London” has 55,707,988 streams.
To Swifites, deciphering Swift’s songs is the best part about her music. The rumor about TTPD is that it’s about her toxic love affair with the lead singer of The 1975, Matt Healy. Swift has yet to confirm this, but most of her fans attempt to piece it together. The beauty of Swift’s songwriting is that it’s open for interpretation.
TTPD offers a range of different vibes throughout the album. Some say that it could be categorized as “folk-pop.” Despite the catchiness of the songs, the album dives deep into themes of love and loss– essentially adding the classic Taylor Swift theme.
Since the album’s release, Taylor had an interview with E News to clarify some things about the album. Swift mentions that the song “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” is about “being somebody’s favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore.” She goes on to mention that a lot of us can relate to this because we feel valued by a person in the beginning of a relationship and then as time goes on it’s like you decrease in value. Her other song, “Florida!!!,” is actually about her love for Dateline, the popular true crime television show.
Even if you aren’t going through heartbreak, there is a wide variety of topics that Swift’s fans can relate to in her albums.
