On Feb. 4, Taylor Swift won her 13th Grammy for “The Best Pop Vocal Album” category for her album Midnights. During her acceptance speech, she announced that she is releasing a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, after keeping it a secret for the past two years.
The album’s expected release date
The Tortured Poets Department will be released on April 19, 2024. This will be her 11th studio album. She started working on this project shortly after finishing her other album “Midnights” and continued working on it while on The Era’s Tour (2023-2024). Swift has made the album available for pre-order on her website right after announcing it at the Grammy’s.
What songs are expected to be in this album
On Feb. 5, Swift dropped the official tracklist of the songs in her new album. The album will have 16 songs total, plus one bonus track titled “The Manuscript.” The other titles include: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” “Guilty as Sin,” “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” “I Can Fix Him (No Reallt I Can)” is going to make me cry I can feel it,” says sophomore Julia Gutkin. Swift is also collaborating with other artists like American rapper Post Malone on the first song “Fortnight” and English indie rock band Florence and the Machine on “Flordia!!!,” which fans think is highly unexpected.
Cover art
The cover art, as shown in the picture, was photographed by Beth Garrabrant. The picture is a black-and-white shot of Swift lying on a sofa with black lingerie: a black see-through top and shorts. The image on the back cover contains the words “I love you, it’s ruining my life.” According to Taylor Swift’s stylist, Joseph Cassel, she was wearing clothes from the fashion line “The Row” and “Yves Saint Laurent. Both the artwork and title were spread through numerous brands, organizations, sports teams, and franchises. It was posted on all of her social media accounts, along with a photograph of a handwritten note, which reads in English: “And so I enter into evidence / My tarnished coat of arms / My muses, acquired like bruises / My talismans and charms / The tick, tick, tick of love bombs / My veins of pitch-black ink / All’s fair in love and poetry…Sincerely, The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.”
What fans are theorizing about this album
Since Swift didn’t reveal much, fans are left scouting for clues on what her album will be like. According to some fans on the internet, the title of her album seems to be targeted towards her ex-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn.
“I think there will be Travis references, but also references to her breakup with Joe,” Gutkin says. Others think that this album will explore more than one of her muses. One Swiftie commented in a Buzzfeed article, “She’s the chairman of the department because she loved and left them all! She even told us the album is about more than Joe, by highlighting ‘my muses, acquired like bruises.’”
