Welcome to Planet Earth (Taylor’s Version). We’re just days away from the release of Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, and thanks to a trail of bread crumbs and Easter eggs left by Swift herself, there’s already plenty to talk about and speculate upon, even leading to analysis of songs that nobody has even heard yet.
Swift announced the existence and release date of the Midnights follow-up album in perhaps the flex-iest way possible: onstage, as part of her acceptance speech for best pop vocal album at the Grammys 2024.
Though fans had long speculated that she was gearing up to announce her latest rerecording (only her debut album and 2017’s Reputation remain on the Taylor’s Version to-do list), Swift, 34, had something else in mind.
“I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years,” she said. “Which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department.”
So where do we enroll?
Ahead of the release of Swift’s new album, here’s everything we know so far.
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When is The Tortured Poets Department coming out?
The Tortured Poets Department will be released on April 19, 2024.
What’s that title, The Tortured Poets Department, in reference to?
The short version of that is a big shrug. The longer, more speculative version? It may or may not be a deliberate echo of the now infamous “Tortured Man Club” group chat that Joe Alwyn shared he’s part of on WhatsApp with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal.
What will the songs be about?
In the lead-up to the release of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift shared five playlists of her own songs on Apple Music, seemingly curated according to the five stages of grief. There’s denial (I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life), anger (You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad), bargaining (Am I Allowed to Cry?), depression (Old Habits Die Screaming), and finally, acceptance (I Can Do It With a Broken Heart). Swift recorded voice memos to accompany each playlist, saying of the final collection, for example, “These songs represent making room for more good in your life—making that choice—because a lot of time when we lose things, we gain things too.”
This, along with the “last two years” timeline she mentioned when announcing the album—the last gasps and ultimate ending of her relationship with Alwyn—has us guessing that the album won’t not be about the breakup.
Will we see Travis Kelce stuff on there?
Love takes time, and so does recording an album. It’s possible that her newish relationship with Kelce, which kicked off sometime in the summer of 2023, influenced tracks, but not terribly likely. When Swift began working on the album, right after she released Midnights, she hadn’t met Kelce.
Is it going to be good?
Listen, Travis Kelce has heard the album, and he says it’s “unbelievable.” Considering he attended the Eras Tour of his own accord, it’s safe to assume that he’s a true-blue Swiftie and can be trusted, romantic bias or no.
Who is she collaborating with?
Post Malone and Florence Welch (of Florence + the Machine) are both credited on the album’s track list.
What’s on the track list?
Swift released the official track list for the album in an Instagram post in February. They are listed as:
1. “Fortnight” (feat. Post Malone)
2. “The Tortured Poets Department”
3. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
4. “Down Bad”
5. “So Long, London”
6. “But Daddy I Love Him”
7. “Fresh Out the Slammer”
8. “Florida!!!” (feat. Florence + the Machine)
9. “Guilty as Sin?”
10. “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
11. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
12. “LOML”
13. “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
14. “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
15. “The Alchemy”
16. “Clara Bow”
She has also announced bonus tracks “The Manuscript,” “The Albatross,” “The Bolter,” and “The Black Dog.”
Shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in the title?
No. It’s fine. The department doesn’t belong to the tortured poets, it’s a department of tortured poets. Find something else to worry about.
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