Taylor Swift is already breaking records with her 11th studio album, a double record titled The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (TTPD).
Just nine hour after its release, the 34-year-old Grammy winner’s latest labor of love surpassed Beyoncé’s country album, Cowboy Carter, as the biggest debut for a 2024 album on Spotify. Beyonce‘s album scored 300.41 million on-demand official streams in its first full week of release
Around the same time, the Anti-Hero hitmaker’s newly-released album hit number one in over 60 countries on iTunes.
Among its many feats, TTPD has also become the first album in history to debut all its tracks in the top 25 on US Apple Music.
Its lead single, Fortnight, featuring rapper Post Malone, debuted at the top slot.
Taylor Swift is already breaking records with her 11th studio album, a double record titled The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (TTPD)
Fortnight is tracking to be her song with the most number ones after reaching the top spot in the United States, the United Kingdom and 33 other countries on Apple Music in nine hours.
Unsurprisingly, TTPD, which is officially the best-selling album in the US of 2024, is also reported to have made history as the biggest debut on Amazon Music.
It is projected to sell 2 million copies in the US first week.
So far, the most streamed tracks on Spotify are Fortnight, Florida!!!, Down Bad and So Long London.
TTPD has continued to break records by becoming the most-streamed album on Spotify in a single day with over a whopping, 200 million streams, reported Deadline on Friday.
Her previous LPs, Midnights (2023) and also 1989 (Taylor’s Version) also broke the same record at the time of release.
Reviews of Swift’s latest work have been overwhelming, and it received a perfect score 100 from Rolling Stone.
‘TTPD combines the intimacy of Folklore and Evermore with the synth-pop gloss of Midnights to create music that’s wildly ambitious and gloriously chaotic,’ music journalist, Rob Sheffield, declared.
He continued: ‘The Tortured Poets Department has a Reputation edge to it, and like Reputation, it sounds designed to confuse many people who try to decode it before listening.’
Other records she is likely to break upon the album’s release in various countries include tying with Jay-Z for the most #1 albums for a solo artist (14), if it goes number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Just nine hour after its release, the 34-year-old Grammy winner’s latest labor of love surpassed Beyoncé’s country album, Cowboy Carter, as the biggest debut for an 2024 album on Spotify
Around the same time, the Anti-Hero hitmaker’s newly-released album hit number one in over 60 countries on iTunes
On Friday, she surpassed Spotify’s record for the most pre-saved countdown page album in the streaming services’ history.
According to VegasInsider.com, she may also break her own record for the most streamed album in a day and most streamed album in a week on Spotify.
Her last album, Midnights previously held the record for the most streamed album on Spotify in a day (184.695 million) as well as the most streamed album in a week (785.253 million).
Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer & president for iHeartRadio, told CNN that The Tortured Poets Department ‘is probably the most anticipated album’ he’s ‘ever’ seen in his career.
‘It’s not just a music event, it’s a pop culture event that I think that everybody in America will be talking about and celebrating together,’ he raved to CNN in a recent interview.
Poleman continued: ‘It’s like in movies, it’s like James Cameron who cares about quality, cares about credibility but also cares about commercial success.’
After releasing her new album at midnight ET (2am UK time), Taylor took to Instagram to announce her latest record was actually a surprise ‘double album,’ after sparking a flurry of speculation by posting a countdown clock on social media.
Captioning the post, the superstar told her followers that she’d written ‘so much tortured poetry in the past two years’ that she wanted to share it with her fans.
Sharing the double album was called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, she wrote: ‘It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️
‘I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.’
While the deluxe version is not yet available for Taylor’s website, there were four different versions of the original album available, each containing a different bonus track, are priced at £13.99 ($17.38).
The vinyl version, including bonus track The Manuscript, costs £33.99 ($42.23), while a ‘phantom clear vinyl’ is price the same.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department: Full tracklist and meanings in her double album
Tracks on The Tortured Poets Department 1. Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)
Taylor appears to reference the end of her relationship with Joe Alwyn and her subsequent fling with Matty Healy in the first track on her album.
The first verse appears to hint at the end of her romance with Joe as she sings: I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me.
Taylor then wishes an ex well who betrayed her: All of this to say, I hope you’re okay, but you’re the reason / No one here’s to blame but what about your quiet treason.
In the second verse, Taylor talks about a short-lived fling that helped her ‘move on’, potentially a reference to Matt.
She sings: ‘All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February / I took the miracle move on drug and the effects were temporary / And I love you, it’s ruining my life / I touched you for only a fortnight.’
2. The Tortured Poets Department
The titular track is a shimmering melody which suggest that Taylor, modestly, doesn’t see herself at the top table of tortured poets: ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, and I’m not Patti Smith.’
It also appears to heavily reference her fling with Matty as she sings: ‘You smokеd then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.
‘I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever / But you awaken with dread.’
She also makes a candid reference to her mental health, singing: ‘But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave /And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen’.
3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Written solely by Taylor, this song’s dense electronic hum adds forceful notes.
Fans have suggested the title is a reference to the ‘shiny toy she sang about in her hit Cruel Summer from the album Lover.
It’s not clear if she is referring to heartbreak after splitting from Joe or the abrupt end to her romance with Matty.
‘Once I fix me, he’s gonna miss me,’ she vows, adding: ‘I know I’m just repeating mysеlf Put me back on my shelf / But first, pull the string And I’ll tell you that he runs Because he loves me (He loves me).’
4. Down Bad
Taylor references mental health again as she details how ‘down’ she feels without an ex and the infatuation she felt with him.
‘Everything comes out teenage petulance,’ sings Taylor as she bitterly surveys the fallout from an old relationship.
She continues: ‘Everything comes out teenage petulance / F**k it if I can’t have him / I might just die, it would make no difference / Down bad, waking up in blood /Staring at the sky, come back and pick me up.
‘F**k it if I can’t have us / I might just not get up / I might stay down bad.’
5. So Long, London
The first track to be written with The National’s Aaron Dessner brings a change of pace, with a lovely, choral intro. ‘So long, London, you’ll find someone,’ sings Taylor.
The song appears to be a reference to British ex Joe and a follow up to her hit London Boy from Lover.
She references their different approaches to the end of their romance, singing in the first verse: ‘I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift / Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away / My spine split from carrying us up the hill.’
Verse three she muses: ‘And you say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it / My white knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment.’
Taylor Swift officially dropped The Tortured Poets Department on Friday – her hotly-anticipated 11th studio album
6. But Daddy I Love Him
‘I know he’s crazy, but he’s the one I want,’ sings Taylor, showing wry humour as she admits to falling for the bad boys. Produced, with real brightness, by Dessner.
She goes on to revel in the fact she dismisses warning from critics, singing: ‘They slammed the door on my whole world / The one thing I wanted
‘Now I’m running with my dress unbuttoned, / Screaming, But daddy I love him / I’m having his baby / No I’m not, but you should see your faces.’
7. Fresh Out The Slammer
Finger-picked acoustic guitar adds folky notes reminiscent of lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore to Fresh Out The Slammer, which details rushing into a new relationship.
Seemingly a reference to her fling with Matty – who she previously dated in 2015 – she sings: ‘Now pretty baby, I’m running back home to you. / Fresh out the slammer I know who my first call will be to.’
On the decay of her past relationship, she sings: ‘Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter he was with her in dreams / Gray and blue and fights and tunnels, handcuffed to the spell I was under.
‘For just one hour of sunshine / Years of labor, locks and ceilings / In the shade of how he was feeling.’
8. Florida!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine)
An album highlight, this theatrical duet with London singer Florence Welch is an uplifting song of escape – from small-town life and a bad romance.
Tellingly the first tour stop following her split from Joe was in Tampa, Florida and she begins her song by singing: ‘You can beat the heat if you beat the charges too.
‘They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true / And my friends all smell like weed or little babies / And this city reeks of driving myself crazy.’
9. Guilty As Sin?
A tale of unrequited love, and a superb slice of 1980s-style soft rock. It even mentions The Downtown Lights, a 1989 single by Scottish band The Blue Nile.
She begins the track with her feelings on being ‘trapped’ in a relationship, singing: ‘My boredom’s bone-deep, this cage was once just fine / Am I allowed to cry?
‘I dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks.’
She hints at an emotional affair providing her release, singing: ‘These fatal fantasies giving way to labored breath taking all of me we’ve already done it in my head.
‘If it’s make-believe why does it feel like a vow we’ll both uphold somehow?”’
10. Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?
Big drums, a dramatic arrangement, and more dry humour in another song penned solely by Taylor. ‘You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me,’ she snarls.
It’s reminiscent of her hit single Look What You Made Me Do and the villain arc is prominent in her lyrics.
She sings: ‘I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean /Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth
‘Who’s afraid of little old me? Well you should be.’
This is her first new album since the end of her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn and, while she doesn’t mention Alwyn by name, speculation will be rife that tracks such as So Long, London are about him. Pictured together in 2019
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy seen leaving The Electric Lady studio in Manhattan on May 16, 2023
11. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
A moody, stripped-down number worthy of Lana Del Rey, who has also worked extensively with the song’s producer, Jack Antonoff.
She appears to be referring to chain smoking, booze loving Matty, as she sings: ‘The smoke cloud billows out his mouth like a freight train through a small town / The jokes that he told across the bar were revolting and far too loud.’
Fans had expressed their concerns when Taylor started dating The 1975 bad boy rocker and it seems her friends had the same reservations.
Taylor sings: ‘They shake their heads, saying, “God help her” when I tell ‘em he’s my man / But your good Lord doesn’t need to lift a finger / I can fix him, no really I can / And only I can.’
12. loml
‘You said I’m the love of your life,’ sings Taylor on this warm, resonant piano ballad. In a smart twist, the ‘loml’ ultimately becomes ‘the loss of my life’.
She describes being love-bombed by an old flame, seemingly referring to Matty given their past experience.
Others have suggested the intensity of the lyrics suggest it relates to her longterm relationship with Joe.
She sings: ‘I felt a glow like this, never before and never since /If you know it in one glimpse it’s legendary.
‘You and I go from one kiss to getting married / Still alive, killing time at the cemetery / Never quite buried.’
13. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
More 1980s influences on an electronic pop track that sees Taylor vowing to remain a trouper, despite any romantic strife.
She sings about putting on a brave face while her relationships publicly fall apart, noting: ‘They said, “Babe, you gotta fake it till you make it,” and I did.
‘Lights, camera, b***h, smile / Even when you wanna die / He said he’d love me all his life / But that life was too short / Breaking down, I hit the floor / All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more.’
Taylor has previously admitted she struggled with her love live playing out so publicly and the narrative that she’d had more boyfriends than other women.
14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
‘You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man,’ sings a disdainful Taylor on a melodramatic ballad.
The title is noteworthy, given that Matty’s stature is an object of some debate. The singer previously disclosed: ‘Everyone in [the 1975] is 6’4” and I’m 5’10”, so everyone thinks that I’m 5’5”.’
