The Tortured Poets Department
Album by Taylor Swift
Released 19 April 2024
Synthpop
Label – Republic
Rating – 3/10
The Superbowl of juvenility: Taylor Swift’s take on abstract lyricism.
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I’m not sure whether I wish I could see what massive Taylor Swift fans see in her music. The default instrumental palettes and melodies of The Tortured Poets Department – produced by Swift herself, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner and Patrik Berger, not to be confused with the former Liverpool player of the same name – feel so borrowed from previous mainline album Midnights, they’re unworthy of comment, and seldom saved by whatever charisma she has. If anything has earned attention, it’d be the album’s lyricism, only deserving of that attention due to its fishiness.
While many of the album’s woe-is-me-isms are par for Taylor’s course, The Tortured Poets Department was doomed for the ire of those who view music scholarlily as soon as its title was confirmed, as soon as those song titles were released, and as soon as its most noteworthy lyrics were published online. Here’s a highlight from the title track:
“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”.
My recent time online has been limited, but I logged into Twitter long enough to see those lyrics when they were released, alongside the subsequent ridicule. It’s justified too; who puts shit like that in a song? These lyrics ruin one of the album’s better synth palettes and melodies, and, as for Charlie Puth, yeah he probably should be a bigger artist given the commercial world’s glutton for trite. Or should he? The dude’s already dined out enough on the line “let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on”.
The only line that rivals that of Puth and chocolate is this one from I Hate It Here:
“My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we could live in instead of this,
I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid”.
But that’s from the expanded version of the album. It doesn’t really get quite as bad as the title track’s lyrics on the standard version but there are still a few corkers:
“My friends all smell like weed or little babies,
And this city reeks of driving myself crazy”.
–Florida: otherwise features one of the most gruelling choruses on the album; a mountain built by Florence Welch’s penchant for mighty, likeable anthemics.
“So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street,
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream ‘who’s afraid of little old me?’,
You should be”.
–Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me: Taylor tries out a Lorde impression, musically and lyrically but without the wit.
“Was any of it true?,
Gazing at me starry-eyed in your Jehovah’s Witness suit”.
And
“Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?,
Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?,
Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy?,
In fifty years, will all this be declassified?”.
–The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived: a commercial piano ballad. Remember, these are lyrics about exes.
The extended version of the album also contains lyrics about smashing up your ex’s bike (I’m Gonna Get You Back) and this doozy from So High School:
“You know how to ball,
I know Aristotle,
Brand new full throttle,
Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto”.
Relating her own nudity to the “indecent exposures” of her ex-lover will command a few laughs on Down Bad – which also contains silly lyrics about crying at the gym – whilst Taylor’s continued juvenility may strike nerves elsewhere; screaming “but daddy, I love him” on the song of the same title tonally and lyrically feels like an early-career Taylor Swift song, but she’s thirty-four now (also see other throwback Guilty as Sin?); songs like I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) just seem so childish.
I’d argue that Taylor’s masterplan was to make a meta album that exaggerates her lyrics – the on-par ones and the crazier ones – whilst maintaining self-awareness. While outright mentioning herself and her lack of edge on Clara Bow – a delightfully watery-eyed end to the standard edition – may insinuate as such, very few of the album’s lyrics are tactful or witty enough to make it work. Everything just sounds like typical Taylor Swift; the music, the melodrama; I have no reason to think there is anything poetic about her weird ramblings.
And so, maybe I do wish Taylor Swift simply being Taylor Swift was good enough for me. Maybe I do wish I was one of her unapologetic fans, because then there would be something to take from The Tortured Poets Department when ignoring its daft, pseudo-abstract lyrics. Ignore those and you’ve got the banal counterparts of Midnights, banalities that sound like The Weeknd with any oomph or excitement removed – particularly opener Fortnight. The instrumentals do nothing fresh, nor do her melodies. Give me the mild expansions of Lover or the folk of Folklore / Evermore over this humdrum, copy and paste, AI-generated bore. Oh how I wish I could see what her massive fans see in her music.
Weakest track – The Tortured Poets Department.
Rating – 3 out of 10
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