Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department (April 19, 2024) Album • Page 61

I won't stand for this Steel Train deletion

 

Going back to disc 1 after spending a lot of the day with disc 2. I like 2, but 1 very strong on its own. I kind of wish she'd split these up, because they don't really make sense as parts 1 and 2 of the same double album. (Also, I need better names to refer to these than "disc 1 and 2." Any ideas?)

 

the tortured poets department anthology disc 1 and the tortured poets department anthology disc 2

 

been referring it to "base album" and "bonus tracks"

 

I'm stealing side B from CRJ

 

1: 'Matty'

2: 'Trav'

 

Hey, you just added more words.

See, I want her to make it easy for me by giving both discs relatively meaningless names. Even RHCP knew to simplify matters by naming the Stadium Arcadium discs "Jupiter" and "Mars"!

 

lol

 

Jesus christ this thing turned out to be 31 tracks??? I'm just catching up on news now

 

I'm just going with "first" and "second"

 

MY BOY ONLY BREAKS HIS FAVORITE TOYS

is a banger. Giving the album a first listen now.

 

ha! I'll listen to it again with that framing but this isn't half the album that Battle Studies is. (what an underrated album!)

I just made the case on Twitter that the end of Disc 1 parallels reputation pretty well.

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart = Dancing With Our Hands Tied
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived = This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
The Alchemy = Call It What You Want
Clara Bow = New Year's Day

It's not perfect (dropped "Dress" to make it work) but the people claiming there's no narrative to this thing are missing out. Also it's funny because I'd literally pick every reputation song over its TTPD "competitor".

 

Was this posted in here already?

 

People aren't ready for that conversation.

 

it's extra annoying because Spotify can literally do that with no issues:

also I'm going to keep pushing the joke that this is her Stadium Arcadium

 

I shoudl really get that on vinyl. Though my forever stance will be that "Friends, Lovers, or Nothing" should have been like twice as long. that six minutes goes by fast! also I added an Oxford comma.

 

I just wanna say that while I got kind of bored with the album I caught Bleachers at Coachella and the new songs kicked ass. belonged right alongside the hits, even as he was doing his faux Springsteen impression.

 

Yeah I just watched the livestream the other day and they were great as always live

 

When Taylor belts out WHOS AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD MEEEEE for the first time, my jaw dropped and I got goosebumps, what a fucking powerful vocal performance

 

Oh god if this is Taylor swift related then RSD lines are going to be fucked again like last year

 

Thoughts on the album and discourse, dozens of pages later:

big fan of artists releasing as much music as possible, so I love the secret double release, even if there is some fatigue. Is it a lesser “album” for it? Perhaps, but at the end of the day, my favorite artists are largely the ones for whom I have the most songs I enjoy listening too. Even concise albums rarely have no skips, and there are almost always b-sides that should’ve been on the record, so bring on the tunes and maximize how many I’ll love.

for the same reason, I’m hesitant to say she should’ve/should take a break, but i agree with the sentiment I think she’d benefit from whatever would shake up the songwriting a bit

surprise releasing the double album vinyl to preorders wouldve been a legendary move and I’d imagine the number of future orders would’ve exploded. Feels like a missed opportunity to gain an ungodly amount of good karma, even if she doesn’t need it. Saw a news story earlier about how she functions as America’s royal family. Would’ve hammered home that narrative.

as for the record itself, I agree there’s an element of staleness here but at least for me that’s kinda missing the point. If it’s really good, I care way less how little individual albums deviate from each other. My problem with this is largely the same as my issue with midnights - I’d go farther than saying the album feels one-note and say it feels like a vast majority of the songs feel too long and repetitive themselves. I feel like most of the last 45 Taylor swift songs I’ve listened to just have the same cadence and repetitive rhyming pattern throughout the whole song, over and over and over again for 3-5 minutes without ever going anywhere. idk, I really miss the massive pop hooks and singalong songs, even if the song structure was very traditional.

all that said, I do think it’s better than midnights. Feels more lyrically dense, her storytelling is as good as ever, even if it comes with a lot of the classic Taylor clunkiness. I liked it a lot more on my second than first listen and it’ll continue to grow. Very excited to see her in Liverpool

I don’t think there’s a meaningful difference between “Taylor is being exploitive” and “fans don’t have to buy it, they can still listen to it.” Exploitation comes from intent, not the number of people that fall for it. Good on folks for not giving in, but every decision an artist makes is designed to part as many people with as much money as possible. She’s just better at it.

 

Tom Breihan pretty much nails all my thoughts on this. One of the best music critics out there.

 

The best critic is one that has the same thoughts as you? I guess that checks out haha