The Tortured Poets Department (studio album) by Taylor Swift

From cestuneblague 06/13/2024 00:20

Yeah the authenticity-police argument of how one criticizes Taylor Swift's music is a mostly fruitless endeavor, though given I don't think that some of the harsher criticism is so much about the usual tall-poppiness towards the world's most famous pop musician (though surely some of that does exist) than this increasingly anti-schill stance against buttering the egos of the already mega rich and powerful just to avoid a bunch of angry Twitter mobs. No shade to the critics, I mean I'm sure none of them want to get doxxed, but for us non-public music-fan plebs- again whether you like or dislike her music- just grow some cajones and play the opinions where they lay. While I have admittedly never been wowed by Taylor, she has put out good music in the past and is a perfectly adept songwriter, and that's all I want to hear, good music, so that's all I'm really asking as the record-industry or dating drama already feels well past it's expiration date of being remotely interesting to anybody not personally involved.

And with this album, all I ended up really feeling is just a sense of... confusion. Mainly in that I'm wondering if even Taylor thought any of this was necessary to record or release to the public at all. It's not a bad album, no matter how much of the somewhat tepid "praise" or lyrics about 1830s racists (bad Taylor) would seem to indicate, Taylor's too professional to not record consistently listenable and meticulously produced songs, at the very least. But it's also just feels like a really temperate circle of nothingness under the shell. While the title was certainly snigger-worthy and had the air that she was going to finally release her Ironic Scene Kid album that always seemed to be a possibility with her specifically, despite some Panic at the Disco and Fallout Boy style song titles that isn't really the case here. Dunno, though, that would've made the record at least feel like... something. While one of the easy criticisms over her last album is that it often felt too much like her and Antonoff were often lazily reworking Melodrama or NFR demo b-sides (with half-baked songs that often just reminded you of fuller ones from better albums), here they often seem to be ripping off... Taylor's own catalog. Not only do the lyrics often feel quite naive for a thirty-something industry vet, but I can't also shake the glaring deja Vu especially when there's a four song stretch that sounds EXACTLY like a pushed-in-and-out replication of the only song people seemed to remember from her last album (Anti-Hero). Again does she really need to try that hard anymore, considering most fans are just going to take the skeletal offerings and project their own galaxy-brained theories about who or what these vague lyrics can possibly be about, but if none of that outside noise interests you... well, likely nothing on this album will either. Perhaps by design it's clearly all-meant to be esoteric hand-shake listening, but like always that makes for really limited and undefined songwriting.

So the two theories I came up of the reasonably attractive blankness of the album first lies with simple Exhaustion. When this is her, what, eigth or ninth album of new or re-recorded music in a decade that's not half-over, coming in the middle of massive worldwide stadium tour, it seems natural there's a sense of weariness to the whole affair. Also very likely that this was very much a studio-mandated release cause they sure need someone to pay the bills for the next couple of cycles, and obviously Taylor's too big to not instantly go multi-platinum even if this was just an album of her reading shipping invoices for thirty songs. Considering, though, how much it seems like the whole Taylor phenomenon has completely dwarfed the excitement over her actual music and how much even she has seemed to focus on her own myth (whatever the fuck that means) and public persona these days, I'm starting to wonder how much longer she even wants to dance with the one whot brung her. Cause if this is the best she can currently do, as a songwriter and an actual artist it's becoming a really slow and tedious tumble down the mountain.

This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.

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.

This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.

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.