The Tortured Poets Department
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Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department has topped this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (April 19) on Billboard, choosing the pop superstar’s new double album as their favorite new music release of the past week.
The Tortured Poets Department brought in nearly 75% of the vote, beating out new music by DJ Snake featuring Peso Pluma (“Teka”); Nicki Minaj featuring Travis Scott, Chris Brown and Sexyy Red (“FTCU (Remix)”); Pearl Jam (Dark Matter); and Cloud Nothings (Final Summer).
The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s eleventh studio album and her her first release of new music since 2022’s Grammy-winning Midnights. The 31-track double album features collaborations with Florence + the Machine and Post Malone, as well as writing and production contributions from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.
On Instagram, Swift described the project as “an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”
Trending on Billboard
Although The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s first album of new music since Midnights, she has steadily pumped out her re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums in the interim. In between the two aforementioned albums, Swift topped the Billboard 200 with both Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), the latter of which became the star’s record-extending sixth album to debut with over one million pure sales in its first week.
The Tortured Poets Department is already off to a stellar start in the U.S. Upon its first day of release on Friday (April 19), the set sold 1.4 million copies in traditional album sales, according to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate. That marks Swift’s biggest sales week ever for any album in the U.S.
The Tortured Poets Department had also broken numerous Spotify records at press time, including becoming the first album in the streaming service’s history to have more than 300 million streams in a single day. The set’s first single, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, also became Spotify’s most streamed song in a single day.
Trailing behind The Tortured Poets Department on the poll is DJ Snake and Peso Pluma’s dance floor hit “Teka,” which dropped just in time for Peso’s performance at Coachella weekend two. The team-up brought in 10% of the vote.
See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.
Swifties might need at least a fortnight to recover from Taylor Swift‘s new YouTube Shorts video. On Friday night (April 19), after the premiere of her “Fortnight” music video from her just-released Tortured Poets Department album, Swift took to the video-sharing platform to encourage fans to share their “fortnight recap” with the hashtag #ForAFortnightChallenge. A […]
Jake Shane, who has nearly 3 million followers on TikTok thanks to his viral comedy videos under the handle @octopusslover8, is reviewing albums for Billboard with exclusive new essays and videos. Find his latest Billboard album review below, for Taylor Swift’s just-released The Tortured Poets Department album.
Taylor Swift, known for her vulnerability, has never been so vulnerable.
Trending on Billboard
First thing Friday (April 19), Swift welcomed us into The Tortured Poets Department, her earth-shattering 11th studio album. Except, upon arrival, listeners discovered it was more a graveyard than a classroom. The air is cold and filled with tension from ghosts of relationships past — each step inviting the listener closer and closer into stories frozen in time. The end result is an album that feels like pages ripped from Swift’s diary loosely scattered across a frosty gravesite — each tomb sharing its own story of grief, loss and, in some instances, love.
Tortured Poets is undoubtably Swift’s most personal album to date — which, for Swift is a hard feat to beat. Through classic Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner production, Swift’s pen floats on lyrics sharp to the touch. This is especially true on the Dessner-produced track 5, “So Long, London.” In it, Swift says goodbye to a relationship she gave everything for, but received no ROI. “My spine split from carrying us up the hill,” Swift proclaims; this is Swift at her very best, painting a photo of heartbreak so vivid that it almost feels like our bones are breaking too. Close listeners will notice the beginning of the track sounds similar to Swift’s love song “Call It What You Want” off her sixth studio album Reputation. Perhaps the most cutting lyrics, though, on “So Long, London” come in the second verse, when Swift admits her regret for holding on to the “sinking ship” that the relationship was: “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.”
One of Swift’s defining talents is how she builds a cohesive narrative throughout her albums, and here, that ability has never been more on display. On Tortured Poets, Swift walks the listener through a barren graveyard filled with withered bones and torn memories, only to finally reach sunlight — on the final two tracks of the album (not including the extra 15 songs that dropped at 2 a.m. ET), Swift has once again found love. On “The Alchemy,” Swift sings of a love so undeniable, she is returning to her old, pre-tortured ways: “I haven’t come around in so long. But I’m making a comeback to where I belong.”
As always, Swift’s lyricism shines bright (arguably brighter than ever before). This is notable on the absolutely devastating “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” where Swift looks in the rearview of a past relationship with more questions than answers. “You hung me on your wall. Stabbed me with your push pins. In public, showed me off. Then sank in stoned oblivion.” Swift’s pen is pointed, but, then again, when is it not? She doesn’t want to talk to said “man,” but she wants a message delivered: “You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man.”
On “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” Swift is at her most bare, detailing the heartbreak-turned -depression she faced while performing the biggest tour of her career (and perhaps of all time). “She’s having the time of her life there in her glittering prime. The lights refract sequin stars off her silhouette every night. I can show you lies,” Swift croons over a synth beat. Swift calls back to folklore’s “mirrorball” by proving once again that she can be anything we want her to be, even if it’s not true. It is one of the first times Swift has broken the third wall since the start of the record-breaking tour, and it is almost reassuring to listeners and fans alike. Taylor is human, too, even when her stardom questions the laws of physics.
One of the greatest tales Swift tells is that of heartbreak to healing; she did it on Reputation, and on Tortured Poets she has done it once more — this time, though, with more maturity and the clarity only age can bring. At the end of the album, Swift has once again found love and forgiven heartbreak. It might not be her true love, but she’s happy — oh, and she’s Taylor Swift. Who can argue with that?
You can find Shane’s review of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter here.
In case you’ve always wondered what Taylor Swift would look like with Post Malone‘s face tattoos, “Fortnight” is the video for you. On Friday night (April 19), Swift unveiled the video for “Fortnight,” featuring Malone. It’s the first visual from her brand-new 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, and it goes alongside the project’s […]
The Tortured Poets Department has quite the staff! Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated new double album on Friday (April 19), and across the LP’s 31 tracks lies a slew of references to celebrities inside and outside the worlds of music and poetry. When the “Cruel Summer” singer first revealed the Tortured Poets tracklist in […]
04/19/2024
See how we broke down every track from Taylor Swift’s latest opus.
04/19/2024
Taylor Swift is counting down the days until the release of her new album. On Saturday (April 6), the 34-year-old pop superstar used her lucky number to remind Swifties that there are only 13 days left until the arrival of her highly anticipated album, The Tortured Poets Department. The “Cruel Summer” singer took to her […]
Taylor Swift announced the fourth and final variant of her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, during her second Eras Tour concert in Singapore on Sunday (March 3). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The reveal arrived during the surprise songs portion of the pop superstar’s set, […]
Taylor Swift surprised her fans and the millions of TV viewers tuning in to the Grammys on Sunday night when she announced that she was releasing a brand-new album called The Tortured Poets Department on April 19. And now she’s got another surprise: The full track list has arrived, including some notable features.
Swift unveiled the track list Monday night (Feb. 5) on her social accounts, sharing new artwork for the project that seemingly includes 16 song titles and one bonus track called “The Manuscript.”
The biggest surprises of the track list reveal are the album’s two featured guests: Post Malone on album opener “Fortnight” and Florence + The Machine on “Florida!!!” Swift has never teamed up with either artist, though they’ve all expressed their admiration for one another in the past.
In Billboard‘s 2015 cover story with Florence Welch, the Florence + The Machine frontwoman revealed the life-changing advice she received from her friend and mutual fan Swift: “Taylor said that you must sing about what’s happening in your life.” Swift, in turn, gushed about Welch to Billboard. “What sets Florence apart? Everything. Every time I’ve been around her, she is the most magnetic person in the room — surrounded by people who are fascinated by the idea of being near her. But when she meets people, she pays them a warm compliment and immediately disarms them. There are very few people I’ve met in my life who are truly electric, and Florence is one of them.”
In an October interview with Howard Stern, Malone recalled running into Swift and the superstar throwing a compliment his way. “We were just passing by and she was like, ‘Oh my God! Nice to see you. “Better Now” is f—in’ amazing!’” Malone said Swift told him. “And I was like, ‘What? That’s f—in’ crazy, you’re a great f—in’ songwriter! Thank you so very much.’”
The Tortured Poets Department will be Swift’s first album of new material since October 2022’s Midnights, which won album of the year and best pop vocal album at Sunday night’s Grammys. She also put out (Taylor’s Version) re-recordings of Speak Now and 1989 in 2023, as she embarked on her career-spanning Eras Tour.
Find the full Tortured Poets Department track list below:
FortnightThe Tortured Poets DepartmentMy Boy Only Breaks His Favorite ToysDown BadSo Long, LondonBut Daddy I Love HimFresh Out the SummerFlorida!!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine)Guilty as Sin?Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)lomlI Can Do It With a Broken HeartThe Smallest Man Who Ever LivedThe AlchemyClara Bow
Bonus Track: The Manuscript