Author : Jennifer Stone
Image Source: rollingstoneindia
One question that all the fans from around the world and the Swifties are having trouble grappling with is whether their favorite pop star Taylor Swift has reached her peak of creativity. As a fan, you always want your favorite singer or artist to create music that is ahead of their time and just a quick look around will show how preeminent Swift is in the zeitgeist to start reading the tea leaves. There is a saying that what goes up must come down and if this happens to Taylor Swift then maybe the world is not ready yet to accept this hard truth. She was already famous before her release of ‘Midnight’ but with the release of this album, a new electricity could surely be felt in the air.
She grew to exponential heights with the advent of the record-breaking Eras Tour, the kind of monocultural event that one almost never sees anymore. But this life-changing event is about to come to an end and with it, maybe Swift’s media dominance. Now the question is what is next? And ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ has attempted to give some answers. The album was written and recorded amidst an astonishing concert tour by an artist who is at the apex of her career, this album has a lot to live up to. Within two hours after the midnight release of ‘Tortured Poets’ the singer announced that it was in fact a double album, revealing ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’ which accompanied the initial 16 tracks with an additional 15.
This double album has the most tracks of any of her albums and is the second-longest of Swift’s discography. But the most anticipated question is what ‘Tortured Poets’ have to offer. The first three tracks of the album set a slow pace, a little too slow according to the fans. The opening track ‘Fortnight’ which features rapper Post Malone, is a post-mortem of a relationship that is accompanied by Tim Burton-esque macabre images. The video keeps a steady beat throughout but never quite reaches the crescendo Swift is known for. The second and third track continues with a similar level of steady pulsating beats, nearly bogging the beginning of the album down in a mire of producer Jack Antonoff’s signature synths. Swift and Antonoff have been longtime collaborators beginning with 2014’s ‘1989,’ for which Swift won Album of the Year at the Grammys.
Thankfully the pace starts to become faster when Aaron Dessner of The National begins to fill in the missing musical gaps, particularly with the fifth track ‘So Long, London’ a farewell song to a city that Swift had spent much of her time due to her various British love interests. ‘So Long, London’ features everything from ethereal church choirs to powerful percussion to soft electric guitar. Dessner produces most of the tracks exclusive to ‘The Anthology,’ creating a unique musical identity for the two halves of the album, with Antonoff’s half giving more focus to Swift’s lyrics instead of the production. Swift has always been known for her strong lyrics and her bread and butter, this is why she wants them to shine through any of Antonoff’s muted instrumentation. But it is a bit hard to shake the feeling of seeing and hearing something that has already been played thousands of times. The first 16 tracks resemble her previous album ‘Midnights’ which is largely due to Antonoff’s production but Swift seems to be echoing the same themes.
More than anything, it’s about ‘mess,’ and the idea that you are not done being ‘messy’ in your 30s, despite the popular idea that you should have your life together by the time you’re Swift’s age 34. She is writing about a lot of things: the end of a seven-year relationship, the bad boy she gravitated to afterward, and the hope she sees in the new man whose earnest simplicity may be just what she needs. This is well-trodden ground for Swift, though her lyricism remains strong despite a few retreads. The opening lines of ‘Florida!!!’, a song featuring Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, mention that all of Swift’s friends ‘smell like weed or little babies.’ In ‘Loml,’ she writes, ‘You sh-t-talked me under the table/ Talkin’ rings and talkin’ cradles.’ In ‘Down Bad,’ a song about wanting things you can’t have, she writes, ‘Now I’m down bad, cryin’ at the gym/ Everything comes out teenage petulance/ ‘F— it if I can’t have him’/ ‘I might just die, it would make no difference.’’
At its core, ‘Tortured Poets’ is exactly that: tortured. It seems that she has reached an interesting tipping point. She reveals the frustrations she has with her age and her feeling that she should be further along in her personal life; the idea of marriage comes up several times, and her inability to be in a lasting relationship clearly haunts her. Many of the same problems that plagued her in her 20s continue to plague her, and there is a perceivable anxiety about aging. Once you are firmly in ‘The Anthology’ section of the album, you will realize that the quality becomes much more consistent. With Dessner’s production talents and magical touch behind every track, the music becomes a lot more lively and present.
It’s possible that she has reached the tipping point and the mixed bag that is ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ might be proof of that. Even though Swift’s lyrics are strong in the album but not as strong as they have been in her previous albums. Her storytelling is the same way. This might be proof that she is on a downward trajectory. Perhaps, the speculations are right. But every time that Swift has been laid low, she has gotten back up and created some great art before long.
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