The Tortured Poets Department (studio album) by Taylor Swift

From melisandre 04/27/2024 12:47

@spigelwii I don’t see how there is an offensive reference to Charlie Puth. Taylor doesn’t say anything offensive at all about him.

Overall, I’d say this is a really good album. Maybe it will prove to be a great one in time. It takes a few listens, but the songs are there. My one criticism is that the production is too safe. Still, I’ve listened several times and it is on the way to becoming a favourite.

At first I was disappointed with the anthology tracks, but even these are starting to sound really good after a few listens.

This might just end up being top tier Swift once the dust has settled. To those rating this 5/100, I honestly give up.

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Taylor Swift new album is great. I love how she made it really different than her previous albums. I almost did not feel it. Is she just way ahead of her time? I don't know. We'll know soon.

Overall, she really did a great job on this album. What an evolution! However, I somewhat felt that she's been copying Lorde's sound on Melodrama since her Midnight era. If you have ever heard "Hard Feelings/Loveless" by Lorde. You'll hear the exact sounds that you will hear at "Midnight Rain" at one particular part of the song.

And now, if you heard her new song "Down Bad", you will hear the outro of the song the exact sound you will hear at the outro of "Supercut". Also made by Lorde from the album of Melodrama.

I don't know if she is sampling or maybe she is just subconsciously copying some of her songs. But hey, I'm not mad about it. I still love the album. It is totally understandable because I know that Lorde's "Melodrama" is a very influential album for future artists.

I'm a The National-era Taylor Swift fan. Prior albums are fine pop records but not really my cup of tea.

For me this is the second best of The National-era records. Evermore is better, by a margin, Folklore is marginally worse, Midnights is a tortured poets abomination.

It starts "ok" and gets better as it goes along. I haven't ventured into the Anthology tracks yet, and I probably won't tbh but the end of the record (from loml onward) is a decent run of songs. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart is a genuinely great song.

I'm not interested in the deeper meaning behind each lyric - but as decent pop records go, this is a solid 8/10 pop record.

From spigelwii 04/20/2024 11:43

As I was preparing to write a BEA review for this album, I read the Paste review and realized that there was really no point in attempting to clarify and quantify my opinion at this time. Maybe in a decade-plus it will be possible to return to this and give it a proper critical analysis, but anyone attempting to do so now risks getting caught up in the tidal wave of overwhelming cultural discourse. If you don't pick a side, don't worry: You will be ASSIGNED one by whoever. You will be assigned the "hater" or "Swiftie" title even if you, like me, initially recognize the album as merely an okay collection of pop songs with a couple of good ones and a couple of bad ones (one with a particularly offensive reference to the quality of Charlie Puth's musicianship/songwriting...I almost turned the album off in disgust when I heard that).

Anyway, I'm not going to even bother. I'm too scared that even after writing something HERE, a relative safe space, I'll get caught up in the discourse in an unhealthy way the second I attempt to put any sort of "pen to paper" about this collection of 16 songs (31 if you're truly patient). There are already a couple of reviews below mine and I agree with them both on some level, but any sort of rational discussion on the internet outside of this little bubble isn't really worth the time and anguish at the moment.

You wouldn't go outside during a hurricane, would you? Sorry if this review isn't "helpful."

From nocturnaldelight 04/19/2024 16:00

When I heard the opening track "Fortnight" with it's deep synthwave vibes my hopes were pretty high that this might be the first Taylor Swift album I could actually like. But it's continuously going downhill from there with mostly derivative b-side quality songs that sound like 99 percent of all her other stuff. "Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?"sounds quite OK but too much like a Florence and the Machine song who collaborated with Taylor on "Florida".

The song selection for the 16 track album on CD and vinyl is pretty poor because there's an expanded "anthology edition" for Streaming/Download with some quite interesting additional 15 tracks that was not announced before the release date of the physical album.

From HoldenM 04/19/2024 14:16

Still making heads and tails of the most hotly anticipated album of the year, but a few listens in, Swift's songwriting and Antonoff's production are becoming a bit staid. Not to mention that no one should be this broken up over Matt Healy. And while Midnights was comfortable, at least there was a theme lyrically and sonically. I think Taylor needs another pandemic.

With all that said, The Tortured Poets Department is fine. And perhaps a Taylor Swift album should be more than "fine," but it's not ruinous by any means. There are plenty of highlights, and though the impetus for this project is annoying, the overarching struggle with setting boundaries with those who you love--like family, or rabid, parasocial fans--is valuable. It's a nice counterpart to Reputation that way. And if Swift's songcraft is a little familiar, there's still a baseline quality in most tracks.