Pop
Page: 254
ENHYPEN are getting ready to take ENGENE’s out to the ballgame. The seven-man K-pop boy band announced on Friday morning (April 19) that their fans can catch members Heeseung, Jay and Ni-Ki at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on April 29, where the trio will throw out the first pitch at that day’s game between the […]
As Taylor Swift‘s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, made its way into the world at midnight on April 19 via Republic Records, Swift’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff tweeted in praise the new project.
Early on April 19, Antonoff wrote, “love this album more than i can say …. love you all very much … more later very overwhelmed … love you taylor.”
Antonoff also seemed to praise specific songs from the album in other tweets, writing, “!! FOTS heads lets go!!” which seemed to be a nod to the song “Fresh Out the Slammer.” He also wrote, “down bad heads as well,” which seemed to refer to the album’s “Down Bad.”
Trending on Billboard
The Tortured Poets Department features 16 songs, including collaborations with Post Malone (“Fortnight”) and Florence + The Machine (“Florida!!!”). At 2 a.m. on Friday, Swift surprised fans by revealing that The Tortured Poets Department is a double album, and released a slate of 15 additional tracks.
Antonoff, who also serves as the lead singer for the rock band Bleachers, is a co-producer and writer on the new album alongside Swift and Aaron Dessner, and has worked closely with Swift on several of her albums. One of their earliest moments working together was in 2013 when they co-wrote and produced “Sweeter Than Fiction” from the soundtrack of the film One Chance. Antonoff then co-wrote and co-produced several songs from Swift’s 1989 album, which won best pop vocal album and album of the year at the 2016 Grammy Awards.
Following the success of 1989, Antonoff has been involved in co-writing and co-producing Swift’s albums including Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights, as well as working on many of the “From the Vault” tracks on Swift’s re-recorded (“Taylor’s Version”) albums. He has also worked with artists including Lana Del Rey, The Chicks, Lorde, Pink and Sia.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times earlier this year, Antonoff praised Swift’s songwriting prowess, saying that the prospect of questioning Swift’s songwriting abilities “is like challenging someone’s faith in God. You just don’t go there.”
Taylor Swift had a number of surprises in store for fans when she dropped her anticipated 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Friday (April 19). Among them the late night bombshell that it is actually a double album, coming in at a heft 31 tracks over two hours.
But it was frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner of The National who provided one of the biggest reveals about the roiling, emotional collection in an Instagram post just hours after the album dropped. “I’m so excited and honored to share that I have contributed to my dear friend and collaborator @taylorswift‘s brilliant 11th album — a 31 song double album / anthology called The Tortured Poets Department,” he wrote in the post that also featured a snap of a smiling Swift in the studio and images of the album’s moody black and white cover.
Trending on Billboard
Dessner revealed that he and Swift began working on the songs back in 2022, after they dropped their two 2020 pandemic albums, Folklore and Evermore, and seemingly after she recorded her 2022 album Midnights. “We started working on these songs over two years ago and it feels like they have kept us company and evolved in beautiful and unexpected ways through so much life lived during this process,” Dessner wrote, marveling at the fact that the duo have now recorded more than 60 songs together over the past four years, including 17 on the new album.
“I am forever grateful to Taylor for sharing her insane talents with and trusting me with her music. I believe these songs are some of the most lyrically acute, intricate, vulnerable and cathartic Taylor has ever written and I am continually astonished by her skills as a songwriter and performer,” he wrote. Dessner also thanked another one of Swift’s most stalwart collaborators, Jack Antonoff, giving him kudos for his “open hearted and open door collaboration with me through all these many projects”; Dessner and Antonoff roughly split co-producing duties with Swift on the album.
The multi-talented songwriter/producer/composer also thanked his twin brother and fellow National bandmember, Aaron Dessner, engineers Laura Sisk, Jonathan Low, James McAlister, Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) and Bella Blasko and musicians Glenn Kotche (Wilco drummer), Benjamin Lanz (synths, trombone) and Rob Moose (viola, violin), among many others.
“It’s not lost on me how lucky I am that this is my job and I feel so grateful to be a part of creating this vast, magically detailed and symbolic world of songs Taylor has crafted that we all get to inhabit and enjoy,” Dessner wrote. “Keep searching and you’ll find some new detail, layer or sliver of meaning with each listen.”
Check out Dessner’s post below.
Fans weren’t sure if Taylor Swift would feature a song about Travis Kelce on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, which the pop star has been working on since well before their romance began mid-2023. However, many listeners are convinced that one track on the LP’s expansive two-part tracklist is definitely about the Kansas […]
Between Kendrick Lamar, Drake and even J. Cole, rap fans have been devouring their favorite flavors of beef all month long. But now, pop fans think Taylor Swift is serving up her own heaping helping of piping hot conflict with her old rival, Kim Kardashian.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
With the surprise, 2 a.m. release of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, a complete, double-album version of the Swift’s long awaited eleventh studio album, fans seem to think that her song “Thank You Aimee” is aimed at the reality star she’s been feuding with since 2016.
For starters, fans pointed to the strange capitalization of the song’s title across all streaming services. Billed as “thanK you aIMee,” Swifties clocked that the three capitalized letters in the title spell out “KIM.”
Trending on Billboard
That trend continued when the Taylor Nation X account tweeted the chorus’ lyrics “Screamed, ‘f–K you aIMee’ to the night sky,” alongside a GIF of Swift performing during the Reputation portion of her Eras Tour set. Not only did fans latch onto the continued spelling of “KIM” through capitalized letters, but they also glommed onto the fact that Reputation was inspired, in part, by Swift’s ongoing feud with Kardashian and her then-husband Ye (formerly known as Kanye West).
Fans also pointed to a number of the excoriating lyrics throughout the song, which sees Swift apparently reminiscing on a high-school bully (the titular Aimee) and the impact she had on the pop star’s life. With the opening line, “When I picture my hometown/ There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you,” Swifties quickly pointed out the use of the words “spray-tanned,” potentially referencing Kardashian’s famous tan.
In the song’s third verse, Swift sings that she “wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool,” and “built a legacy which you can’t undo,” while adding that “there wouldn’t be this, if there hadn’t been you.” Fans theorized that the lyric referenced the infamous leaked phone call and subsequent snake emoji tweet that Kardashian shared in 2016, instances that fans believe deeply influenced Swift’s writing on Reputation.
Perhaps the most talked-about lyric on “Thank You Aimee” comes during the bridge, when Swift goes after her bully’s lack of development. “I don’t think you’ve changed much. And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues,” she sings, with fans pointing at the obfuscated name throughout the song’s lyrics. Swifties then pointed to a video of Kardashian and her daughter North West dancing to Swift’s “Shake It Off” as evidence for the bridge’s final lyric: “And one day, your kid comes home singin’/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you.”
Swift last spoke about her feud with both Kardashian and Ye during her wide-ranging interview as TIME’s Person of the Year in December 2023. “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” Swift said during the interview. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Listen to “Thank You Aimee” and see just a few fan reactions to the new track below:
I love that in thank you Aimee Taylor’s like “no one’s ever gonna know it’s about you” and then she put KIM in the title in an extremely unsubtle way— clara 🎀 (@thenerve2adore) April 19, 2024
Fans who got their hands on the physical copies of Taylor Swift‘s new album The Tortured Poets Department received an extra surprise when the project arrived Friday (April 19) — a passage written by the OG tortured poet Stevie Nicks.
The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman penned a poem dedicated to Swift, as printed inside the CD casings of the 16-track record. “He was in love with her/ Or at least she thought so,” it reads. “She was broken hearted/ Maybe he was too/ Neither of them knew.”
“He really can’t answer her,” the text, dated Sept. 13, continues. “He’s afraid of her/ He’s hiding from her/ And he knows — that he’s hurting her/ She tells the truth/ She writes about it/ She’s an informer/ He’s an x-lover/ There’s nothing there for her/ She’s already gone.”
Trending on Billboard
Nicks dedicated the poem, “For T — and me…”
The contribution from the “Edge of Seventeen” singer comes hand in hand with the shoutout Swift gave Nicks on the Tortured Poets closing track, “Clara Bow.” “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75, the hair and lips,” the pop star sings on the finale. “The crowd goes wild at her fingertips/ Half moonshinе, a full eclipse.”
Later on in the song, the “Anti-Hero” artist turns the line on its head — “You look like Taylor Swiftin this light, we’re loving it/ You’ve got edge, she never did.”
The two stars’ surprise partnership with Tortured Poets comes after Nicks praised Swift’s Midnights track “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” last year. When Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie passed away in November 2022, the “Landslide” icon took comfort in the younger star’s lyrics, she revealed.
“Thank you to Taylor Swift for doing a favor for me, and that is, writing a song called ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid,’” Nicks said at one of her concerts. “That is the sadness of how I feel.”
Read Stevie Nicks poem for Tortured Poets below.
Let the games begin! Quickly after Taylor Swift dropped her The Tortured Poets Department album, Swifties were sifting through the lyrics to play their favorite parlor game: who is this lyric about?
And while longtime fans were sure the singer’s 11th studio album — which, in a surprise, is a 31-track, double-disc, two-hour behemoth — would plumb into the end of her affair with former longtime boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn, or perhaps gush over new beau NFL player Travis Kelce — the lyrics many keyed in on were not about either man.
In fact, a number of Swifties speculated that on the title track she references a fellow musician who Taylor allegedly dated for a brief period in early 2023, The 1975’s shambolic singer Matty Healy. The lines in question refer to an ex as a “tattooed golden retriever,” which many Swifties thought seemed to poetically sum up the hedonistic, cigarette-puffing, inked-up rock rabble rouser who seamlessly swings from eager-to-please to gratingly off-putting.
Trending on Billboard
“You smoked 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,” she sings on the collection’s gauzy second song. Healy often puffs cigs on stage during his band’s shows and his band released a song called “Chocolate” in 2013.
Other clues? A seeming reference to Healy’s one-time friend Lucy Dacus, in which Swift sings, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ 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/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be/ Because we’re crazy,” which also name-checks longtime friend and the song’s producer, Jack Antonoff. While Swift, and her team, never confirmed that the two were romantically linked, Swifties, as usual, dug deep for receipts.
“TTPD – Thank you Taylor for my new favorite description of Matty Healy, ‘Tattooed golden retriever.’ The Lucy & Jack name drop & wedding ring thing here triggered some kind of sleeper agent in me. Kinda wish this was the lead single but it feels too personal to be. 8/10 #TTPD,” wrote one, with another quipping, “the matty healy thing could have been a bizarre wrinkle in taylor swift lore and now it is the backbone of a major turning point in her career lmao.”
Oner song detective launched a deep-dive X thread with seemingly connected all the dots, including, “‘you left your typewriter at my apartment’ matty mentioned his love for typewriters multiple times, he spoke about it in this interview for example and a typewriter is also always a part of the stage of the 1975,” as well as “also when multiple magazines reported in may 2023 that matty is writing songs with taylor, they mentioned that he already left stuff like his guitar effect pedals, audio interfaces, synths and his macbook at her nyc apartment where he got papped multiple times the day before.”
At press time it did not appear that Healy had commented on the song.
Check out the fans comments and speculation below.
also when multiple magazines reported in may 2023 that matty is writing songs with taylor, they mentioned that he already left stuff like his guitar effect pedals, audio interfaces, synths and his macbook at her nyc apartment where he got papped multiple times the day before pic.twitter.com/S15LW6BAQ6— shelly ⎕ (@balladofmaroon) April 19, 2024
“sometimes i wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me but you told lucy you’d kill yourself if i ever leave and i said that to jack about you so i felt seen” lucy dacus and jack antonoff are both mutual friends of taylor and matty pic.twitter.com/NesasQafYk— shelly ⎕ (@balladofmaroon) April 19, 2024
matty lovebomving taylor and telling lucy dacus he’s going to kill himself about it 💔— ୨୧ graham┊peoples princess .ᐟ (@juniperfever) April 19, 2024
TTPD – Thank you Taylor for my new favorite description of Matty Healy, “Tattooed golden retriever.” The Lucy & Jack name drop & wedding ring thing here triggered some kind of sleeper agent in me. Kinda wish this was the lead single but it feels too personal to be. 8/10 #TTPD— Yanny ⎕ | Missing the Guys (@laurelsnotyanny) April 19, 2024
Imagining a heated argument between Taylor Swift and Matty Healy about typewriters.— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) April 19, 2024
the matty healy thing could have been a bizarre wrinkle in taylor swift lore and now it is the backbone of a major turning point in her career lmao— claire shaffer (@claireeshaffer) April 18, 2024
Another day, another record broken by Taylor Swift. In less than 12 hours, Swift’s new The Tortured Poets Department double album has become Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day in 2024 so far, Spotify confirms exclusively to Billboard. The 31-track set snags the honor from the previous record-holder, Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping Cowboy Carter […]
Surprise! Taylor Swift gave night owls a bonus when she dropped the secret, second part of The Tortured Poets Department.
Swift had teased a mysterious 2am countdown ahead of the conventional midnight release of Tortured Poets. For Swifties, it was worth the wait as the collection extended by an additional 15 songs.
“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” writes Swift on Instagram. “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.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The final, sprawling edition comes in at 31 songs, and more than two hours of playing time.
If three is the magic number, two is a godsend for Swifties, many of whom have noticed that their idol has been waving the number 2 in their faces for weeks. Her Tortured Poets Spotify library installation in Los Angeles featured a peace-sign statuette, and Swift herself flashed two fingers on camera at the 2024 Grammys when she first announced her new record. The clocks at the library pop-up and in her cryptic “Fortnight” music video announcement from earlier this week have all been set to 2 o’clock, and the star tweeted Wednesday, “✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.”
Trending on Billboard
Swift’s stamina is hard to beat. Tortured Poets is her fifth studio album in less than five years, a period that has also included four re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums. So, make that nine full length recordings since the months prior to the pandemic. Her epic The Eras Tour is currently on a break, and will restart next month for a summer stadium run across the U.K. and Europe.
TayTay announced The Tortured Poets Department at the 2024 Grammy Awards in February, where she won album of the year for a record fourth time, with Midnights, her 10th studio effort. In the same month, Swift collected the IFPI’s Global Recording Artist award for a fourth time, also a record.
Stream The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology in full below.
Taylor Swift just released her new album The Tortured Poets Department — but from the looks of a mysterious new countdown hidden on her Instagram profile, the fun is far from over.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
As soon as the pop star’s 16-track project dropped at midnight on Friday (April 19), Swift made her very first post on Threads, Instagram’s text-only counterpart which launched last year. At the same time, a mysterious two-hour countdown went live on her Instagram page, potentially ticking down to a new announcement or surprise coming at 2 a.m. ET.
The new countdown is sure to pique the interests of Swifties, who have noticed that the musician has seemingly been teasing the number 2 for weeks. Her Tortured Poets Spotify library installation in Los Angeles featured a peace-sign statuette, and Swift herself flashed two fingers on camera at the 2024 Grammys when she first announced her new record. The clocks at the library pop-up and in her cryptic “Fortnight” music video announcement from earlier this week have all been set to 2 o’clock, and the star tweeted Wednesday, “✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.”
Trending on Billboard
✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 17, 2024
Only time will tell what 2 a.m brings — but in the meantime, Instagram and Threads have several other new features for Swifties to enjoy. Fans can now change their direct messaging backgrounds to visuals inspired by the Tortured Poets album artwork; plus, Threads users who share the singer’s first post will receive a custom “TTPD” badge on their profile, distinguishing them as bona fide Swifties.
In the week leading up to Tortured Poets release day, Instagram launched its original secret countdown, which was only visible when fans pulled down on Swift’s profile to “refresh.” The countdown also prompted viewers to follow the 14-time Grammy winner on Threads.
As this was going on, conversations on Threads tagged #TTPD, #The Tortured Poets Department, #Tortured Poets, #TSTTPD, #Swifties or #Taylor Swift prompted a special shimmer effect to appear, while celebratory hearts appeared onscreen for those who “liked” a post stamped with any of the same tags.
Complete with 16 tracks, four bonus songs spread out across various deluxe versions and collaborations with Post Malone and Florence + The Machine, The Tortured Poets Department was one of the most anticipated releases of 2024. Swift took a break from her global Eras Tour to prepare for the album’s release but will resume the trek in May.
“It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life,” she said of the project at a February Eras show. “I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.”