The Tortured Poets Department
2024 studio album by Taylor Swift / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tortured Poets Department[lower-alpha 1] is the eleventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was written and produced by Swift, Jack Antonoff, and Aaron Dessner, and released on April 19, 2024, via Republic Records. Swift announced the album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, after a win for her preceding work, Midnights (2022). The Tortured Poets Department was expanded into a double album upon release, subtitled The Anthology, adding a surprise second volume of songs.
The Tortured Poets Department | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | April 19, 2024 (2024-04-19) | |||
Recorded | 2022–2023 | |||
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Length | 65:08 | |||
Label | Republic | |||
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Taylor Swift chronology | ||||
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The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology | ||||
Singles from The Tortured Poets Department | ||||
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Swift conceived The Tortured Poets Department shortly after finishing work on Midnights and continued developing it during the Eras Tour (2023–2024), her ongoing sixth concert tour. She described The Tortured Poets Department as her "lifeline" album, conceived as a culmination of her imperative songwriting. It contains 31 songs across its two volumes, with the American rapper Post Malone featuring on the opening track and lead single, "Fortnight", and the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine on the track "Florida!!!".
A minimalist synth-pop and folk-pop effort with rock and country stylings, The Tortured Poets Department consists of largely midtempo songs driven by synthesizers and drum machines alongside organic instruments such as piano and guitar. Its subject matter focuses on Swift's psyche, exploring her outlook on her public and private lives using introspective storytelling. The lyrical content is characterized by themes of sorrow, self-awareness, delusion, melodrama, and humor. Journalists described the album's visual aesthetic as dark academia. The album polarized critics: most reviews were positive and praised Swift's cathartic songwriting for its emotional resonance and wit, while the rest suggested a lack of lyrical profundity. Some critics described the album's production as tasteful, while others found it uninventive.
Commercially, The Tortured Poets Department broke a number of digital consumption and traditional sales records. It achieved the highest single-day global streams for an album on Spotify and topped the official charts in 22 territories. In the United States, it debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week 2.6 million album-equivalent units, including 1.9 million pure sales, marking Swift's biggest sales week and record-extending seventh release to open with over a million units. Its songs made Swift the first artist to monopolize the first 14 positions of the Billboard Hot 100, with "Fortnight" at the top.