Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department (April 19, 2024) Album • Page 69

as the expert floridian around here, i can say that however you say florida, someone from florida is probably saying it much worse than you

 

one backlash sector I was not anticipating: the fans who have been around since the country days who are mad that she cusses so much now

(uh idk how to post images on here but there's a swearing bar graph making the rounds)

 

What throws me off here is that “Guilty as Sin” which is an Antonoff tune, sounds closer to a Dessner tune. I also think it’s one of the stronger tracks.

 

Swearing is fine she’s just not that good at it

 

I felt like but daddy would've had the controversial dragging of her fans and I do think it has a catchy soaring sound. I could see the line about having his baby giving it the buzz and stuff for radio but I'm by no means an expert so I'm fine being wrong lol. I get fortnight has posty so it makes sense why she chose it but it's one of the songs that doesn't rly stand out much to me

 

I don't mind the cussing most of the time, but I do think it's made her a inferior writer at times and become a bit of a creative crutch for her.

 

I'm struggling so hard right now not to just organize these songs into two chunks like that, just because that's how my brain works and also because the two sides are so heavily weighted one way or the other already

 

Doing another full listen in an attempt to make a condensed tracklist. This second half is pretty fantastic, though. Most of my song cuts have been from the first half, even though I think the best songs on here are still from that first half.

 

I think that's definitely a strong choice, and a favorite of mine.

 

But Daddy as a pre-release single would’ve sent the hysteria to the moon

 

that one or guilty as sin would've been the two that I select as singles...I'd imagine daddy getting a radio edit

 

Clara Bow is so good

 

You think Taylor is sending a song about masturbating while thinking of Matty to radio?

 

I think moving specifically toward an Antonoff disc and a Dessner disc leads both to be a bit samey, more so with the Dessner collection. Disc 2 here is still predominantly a Dessner feel, but the Antonoff songs add some needed melodic and production punch.

 

not certain it's coming tonight, but anyone wanna predict how Pitchfork is gonna rank this? i'm assuming somewhere in the 6 range

 

6.9, baby.

 

Oh okay so all the Target bonus tracks are included in Anthology. Great. So I'm caught between not wanting to listen until it's in my hands and not wanting to buy until Anthology is on CD. That's nice.

 

Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department / The Anthology

what lottery numbers should I play

 

You may be waiting a while considering Midnights (3am Edition) still hasn’t been released on CD.

THE ANTHOLOGY was a manipulative way to get fans to double dip on the album they already purchased physically to boost overall sales and guarantee streaming records during its first day/week. It’s clearly working on the streaming side and likely will result in the second highest sales week in history based on Day 1.

To exceed two million units in one week in this day and age is insane. It didn’t seem possible that it would ever happen again after Adele’s 25 in 2015 yet here we are. One million didn’t even seem possible again after the five year gap between reputation and Midnights, but Taylor cracked the code to consistently break that barrier once again so it had to be raised to two million. There’s that number two again that she’s been aggressively pushing.

This particular release ultimately felt ugly from the start though. Perhaps it wouldn’t have if it wasn’t right on the heels of 1989 (TV), which I believe was the only rerecording to release more than just a variant from Target, and the outrageously long and winding Midnights rollout, which was more like a video game release with patches and monetized DLC content added after its initial release.

Also, now that you’ve endured my rant, I should note that I bought the “The Black Dog” Vinyl, “The Manuscript” CD, and THE ANTHOLOGY Digital Download. Shame on me.

 

Huh, I wasn't even aware there was extra stuff for Midnights. Maybe I'll just buy the standard TTPD and stream the rest. Or maybe stream it all first to see which Target "bonus track" I want? ugh

I'm a pretty casual Swiftie, I honestly didn't get into Taylor until after she started rerecording her albums. I've purchased every Taylor's Version and every newer album since, but this album's release has been ridiculous. le sigh

 

Yeah she dropped the 3am Edition with 7 bonus songs at (when else) 3am on the release day. Then another edition with 3 more songs on top of those the following May (Til Dawn Edition). And then a CD only edition (Late Night Edition) at the NJ shows that same day with one exclusive track, but two songs missing from the 3am Edition and one song missing from the Til Dawn Edition. Eventually that exclusive track (You're Losing Me) would hit streaming later in 2023.

This was all on top of the usual Target exclusive which had three different bonus songs (the only non-remix song on there would eventually be part of the Til Dawn Edition).

So based on the precedent set by Midnights, your plan of listening to the four originally announced bonus songs for TTPD and buying the physical version with the song on it that you like most is probably the best way to go.

 

After another listen, "Fortnight" is still clearly the best song on this thing. No wonder it was chosen as the lead single

 

“Clearly”

 

Finally managed to listen to this all the way through.

Definitely feel like this should have been cut down to 20 songs, maximum, but it’s surprisingly strong all the way through,