“The Tortured Poets Department” - Is Taylor Swift's new album a “torture” as its name suggests?

"Unprecedented" records

As expected, the album continuously achieved "huge" achievements in terms of online listening and disc sales. In just the first 12 hours, the record for the most online listening on the music listening application Spotify was broken (previously set by the female singer herself with the album Midnights reaching 185.58 million listenings), and easily became the most listened album on the first day of release with 314.52 million listenings.

Along with that, the album will certainly sit at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart with predicted first-week sales of up to 3 million copies - the best achievement of 2024 up to now.

The Facebook post announcing the album "The Tortured Poets Department" has received over 1 million interactions. Photo: Taylor Swift's Facebook

The commercial success of this album once again proves that Taylor Swift is the most popular artist of the 21st century when all activities are supported by a large fan base. The world tour "The Eras Tour" starting in 2023 became the best-selling music tour in history when all performances on 5 continents were sold out.

It is expected that after the final show ends, "The Eras Tour" will earn 2 billion USD - a record number for any artist at the present time.

As a constantly sought-after star, the effect of the new album is even more anticipated. Taytay's (another name for Taylor Swift) media team did not miss any opportunity to promote this comeback. Firing the first "shot" at the 66th Grammy Awards held on February 4, 2024 (local time), Taylor suddenly announced the release date of the album "The Tortured Poets Department" right after receiving the award for "Best Pop Album" for Midnights.

The news immediately took over the airwaves, climbing to #1 Trending X in the US and globally. That same night, Midnights took home the most prestigious award, "Album of the Year," making the buzz about Taylor's new album hotter than ever.

Seizing the opportunity when all the attention was on her, Taylor Swift announced her new album right on the Grammy stage after taking home the golden statue for "Best Pop Album". Photo: CNBC.

After announcing the release date, Taylor revealed more information about 4 different vinyl versions with the names: "The Bolter", "The Albatross", "The Black Dog" and "The Manuscript". This is not a new form of record labels and artists with the purpose of increasing the number of copies purchased to directly contribute to record sales.

Three days before the album was released, the singer's team set up a mini library at The Groove Shopping Center (Los Angeles) with "easter eggs" placed in every bookshelf, table, and typewriter. At the same time, a series of billboards on major streets around the planet were filled with images of the album cover.

"The Tortured Poets Department". (Source: YouTube Taylor Swift)

On apps, Taylor Swift’s team partnered with Instagram and Threads to count down to the album’s release. On Apple Music, Taylor released five playlists that corresponded to the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). On YouTube, the album’s promotion team had the world playing a crossword puzzle, with each QR code in a city around the world revealing a letter in a phrase containing secret information.

With a lot of hype and promotion, the music lovers' anticipation for the past 2 months has been focused on one name: "Taylor Swift". Last weekend, the anticipation officially ended, fans immersed themselves in 31 songs by the "President of the Tortured Poets Association".

Taylor Swift collaborated with Spotify to promote the mini library with many "secrets" about the album before the album was released on various platforms. Photo: WABE

New album, old material

Throughout the 16 tracks on the standard album, along with the 15 tracks on the extended version ("The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology"), music fans seem to "meet again" Taylor Swift's 3 most recent studio albums: "folklore", "evermore" and "Midnights". It's not too surprising that this is the 4th consecutive collaboration between her and 2 familiar music producers: Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

The trio Taylor - Jack - Aaron have worked together very well when 2 of the 3 previous albums were awarded the most prestigious award in the music industry - the Grammy Award for Album of the Year by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States. However, this collaboration shows that Taylor needs to step out of her comfort zone soon before her songs sink deeper into love stories of getting together and then breaking up, with music production lacking any breakthrough.

Every artist should have their own style, an artistic direction that the audience can remember. That direction will be the biggest challenge for anyone doing art, how to diversify the style but not too popular, how to have their own path but still receive support from the general public?

Taylor has successfully transformed herself twice, going from the title of "country princess" conquering the challenging Pop genre to surprising with an album full of Indie folk/Alternative rock. This time, she is "stuck" with a somewhat old-fashioned synth-pop sound due to the lack of innovative production style of the duo Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

"Musically, this is an album that hardly makes any noticeable stylistic changes or innovations," writes Laura Molloy, music critic for NME (New Music Express) . "It largely reverts to a monochrome palette - a Jack Antonoff-esque synth pop like Midnight, but still hardly the same as its predecessor."

The "compatible" trio Aaron Dessner - Taylor Swift - Jack Antonoff (from left to right) return for their fourth consecutive collaboration together. Photo: Music Mundial

Looking back at previous albums like "1989" or "Reputation", fans easily remember the catchy yet skillful melodies with each song having its own characteristics. "The Tortured Poets" is not like that, the heavy drums and repetitive synthesizer rhythms make it difficult for the songs to have any outstanding highlights. Not only that, fans also discovered the similarity between the song "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" with "Mastermind" from the album "Midnights" or "Cassandra" as a remix of "mad woman" from the album "folklore".

Taylor Swift's storytelling skills through lyrics are unquestionable as most of her songs reflect life stages that audiences can relate to. With "The Tortured Poets Department", it is upgraded with extremely poetic lyrics that make listeners constantly look up the dictionary because of the diverse and unique vocabulary used in the lyrics. However, delicious food should only be eaten in moderation.

Unlike a normal album that is over an hour long, the recording of "Tortured Poets" combines 2 versions, Taylor struggles with her thoughts for over 2 hours through 31 songs that mostly have the same theme of "broken love".

Too fan-pleasing with the number of songs, Taylor left listeners "overwhelmed" with the breakup of her 6-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn; her short-lived relationship with 1975 singer Matty Healy and most recently, her shocking love story with Travis Kelce - a football player for the Kansas City Chiefs.

After Joe Alwyn, fans are speculating that Taytay's next album will revolve around her relationship with football player Travis Kelce. Photo: Music Mundial

Although she added a few songs that weren't so tragic about love, like "Clara Bow" - about the burden of female artists in the music industry or "thanK you aIMee" - a reference to Kim Kardashian about Taylor's scandal with Kim's ex-husband (rapper Kanye West), those short breaks weren't enough to "heal" the listener after the complaints and resentment towards the men who were the singer's main musical inspirations.

She herself wrote in the album's title poem: "A smirk creeps onto this poet's face /Because it's the worst men that I write best".

Through the events, Taylor is still using music as a healing therapy for herself, she said: "It's really a salvation for me - the things I've been through, the things I'm writing... it's almost a reminder of why songwriting really helps me overcome challenges in my life."

Surely Taylor has succeeded in freeing herself from the inner turmoil that is the theme of this album. The biggest question that the "American muse" needs to quickly find the answer to continue to affirm her name is: Should Taylor Swift continue to pursue music that tells stories about ex-lovers with a monotonous synth-pop style or should she stay hidden long enough to give her fans enough time to recover from being "tortured"?

Source: https://danviet.vn/the-tortured-poets-department-album-moi-cua-taylor-swift-la-mot-su-tra-tan-dung-nhu-ten-goi-20240425094326596.htm