Calling all Swifties! The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally come. The Tortured Poets Department is finally out! TTPD is Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album- which was released on April 19th, 2024, at midnight as always. Before the album was released, Spotify made a library-themed art installation at The Grove in Los Angeles to advertise the album. This wasn’t the only way the album was advertised. iHeartRadio, aka iHeartTaylor, did a full album premiere with exclusive audio from Swift sharing the backstories and creative process behind some of the songs. Because of the advertising, TTDP broke multiple Spotify Records in less than 24 hours. TTDP is the first album in Spotify history to have over 300 million streams in a single day. In less than 12 hours, it became the most streamed album in a single day in 2024. One of the songs featured on the album ‘Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)’ became the most streamed song in a single day in Spotify history. Just when you thought this album was already so successful and popular, Swift released The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology at 2 AM- which features 15 extra songs. Swift posted on multiple social media platforms the meaning of the album. Swift said, “The Tortured Poets Department, an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions, and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time, one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over. The chapter is closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.
And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
This album is so beautiful in not just the music but the story. As I’ve listened to the album, I’ve fallen in love with it more. My favorite songs have to be ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’, ‘Loml,’ ‘The Black Dog,’ ‘Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus,’ and ‘How Did It End?’. If you haven’t listened to this album yet, I highly recommend listening.