Taylor Swift announces new album The Tortured Poets Department out April 19

[LetsEatSnacks]

I'm excited but have so much trepidation about this record after Midnights. It was a "fine" record but I don't find myself ever wanting to listen to anything on it with the exception of the 3am tracks (Would've, could've, should've might be her most underrated song). I don't have much confidence this album is going to be the folksy / downtempo album I want it to be but I really do hope she takes some new directions here regardless.

Edit: Add me to the list of people who thought Cruel Summer was her best song before it actually became a hit. Also to note: How awesome would it be if Carly Rae Jepsen covered Cruel Summer and Taylor did Run Away With Me by Carly? I've been thinking about that for months.

 

[Soda]

I'm excited but have so much trepidation about this record after Midnights. It was a "fine" record but I don't find myself ever wanting to listen to anything on it with the exception of the 3am tracks (Would've, could've, should've might be her most underrated song). I don't have much confidence this album is going to be the folksy / downtempo album I want it to be but I really do hope she takes some new directions here regardless.

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I agree with your opinion about Midnights. The 3AM tracks were generally better imo.

However I'm at the point that I don't really care if her new albums are certified bangers. As long as there's even just 2-3 songs I enjoy, I can add them to a playlist of her songs and it's already gonna be a huge playlist of amazing material.

 

[wiresandwavs]

Edit: Add me to the list of people who thought Cruel Summer was her best song before it actually became a hit. Also to note: How awesome would it be if Carly Rae Jepsen covered Cruel Summer and Taylor did Run Away With Me by Carly? I've been thinking about that for months.

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oh my GOD that would be incredible, let's manifest this

i love the fact we know nothing about TTPD going into friday. i remember that feeling of clicking on the opening track of midnights and just rolling the dice on the vibe. i feel like we should have a poll of who thinks this is pop, folklore-esque, or something completely new.

(i'm team something new, but that's mostly wishful thinking for noisy, experimental taylor - like 'closure' or 'glitch.' a girl can dream!)

 

[Mattmo831]

Beware of spoilers if you care. entire album got leaked

 

[Star-Lord]

Beware of spoilers if you care. entire album got leaked

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Oh shit i wonder how it happened

 

[Mattmo831]

Oh shit i wonder how it happened

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prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

 

[Ashionok]

I'll reserve judgement to when i listen to it myself, but so far it sounds like people are saying its musically like the leftovers of Midnights

 

[Soda]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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Imagine being such a simp for a popstar that you put yourself at serious legal risk to defend said popstar's honor. People are wild.

 

[Ashhong]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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That is actually crazy lol fans are scary

 

[Ashionok]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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Stan culture is crazy fr

 

[Mattmo831]

I really don't know the rules about music leaks on this forum so I won't comment on the content on this…. but I wanna so bad

 

[Ashionok]

I really don't know the rules about music leaks on this forum so I won't comment on the content on this…. but I wanna so bad

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I'd think putting a spoiler warning should be fine

 

[Humidex]

I really don't know the rules about music leaks on this forum so I won't comment on the content on this…. but I wanna so bad

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With two days left? Let's not.

 

[Lunchbox-]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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lmao

this deserves a thread

 

[Masterz1337]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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What's this Lana vs Taylor stuff?
Also are there any reviews on this yet? I haven't seen that it hit online yet

 

[Kyuuji]

Please no more leaks or hints in the thread without spoilers 🙏 some of us are really looking forward to the release and hearing what sound her next era will be for ourselves.

 

[Mau]

Couldnt control myself and read some impressions

Seems the album is being well received. Apparently it's a mix of Midnights with Evermore and it's surprisingly more based on the short lived Matt Healy relationship than Joe

 

[Mattmo831]

Edit - deleted. Not gonna post impressions or anything until after release I decided

 

[Mau]

Spoiler: Spoiler

not sure where you're reading impressions but circles I'm in are all saying that it's worse than midnights. Like loosies from those sessions.

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Been going to more pop-leaning forums tbh. Overall very positive over there. Guess we'll see soon

 

[JigglesBunny]

Spoiler

This shit is literally Midnights 2 with the two exceptions being "But Daddy I Love Him" and "Guilty As Sin?" which are so much better than everything else here that it's almost shocking they're not from an entirely different album.

3/10 for me here, Midnights was a 1/10 for me.

 

[EchizenKurage]

So now we have a billionaire musician with a perfect life appropriating poor, suffering artists. Pretty gross imo.

 

[Autumn]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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How do you even come back from that as a stan community.

 

[Night]

So now we have a billionaire musician with a perfect life appropriating poor, suffering artists. Pretty gross imo.

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Rich people can suffer and struggle with their art. Thanks for that, though, I guess.

 

[Mary Celeste]

Spoiler

wasn't into Midnights and I like this about as much, maybe even less

 

[Soda]

So now we have a billionaire musician with a perfect life appropriating poor, suffering artists. Pretty gross imo.

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What happened now?

 

[EchizenKurage]

Rich people can suffer and struggle with their art. Thanks for that, though, I guess.

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She is not a tortured poet though. Please tell me in what way has this person has ever been tortured? She has billionaire problems. She has one of the best lives on earth. For comparison I'm homeless, I have disabling depression. My life is truly a living hell and I'm an actual tortured poet (I write poetry). Not a pretend one. Tay Tay may be a poet but tortured she ain't. At all. Even if it's just a "fun" concept it's not funny to me.

Imagine if the appropriation wasnt socio-economic, or about mental health and rather about race. "rich white person titles their new album [non-caucadian] girl summer." Instead of "rich white best life-living super-successful star makes light of poor suffering artists, using it as cute/cool concept." Neither should be okay, and yet people do all sorts of mental gymnastics to rationalize one, ironically the same way bigots do to protect their beliefs.

The arts used to belong to the poor and those in great suffering. Throughout history art was the lone bastion the lower classes had. Actual tortured poets die in anonymity or hang themselves from a rafter. Nowadays with all art but music especially it's all trust fund kids like Ariel Pink and Caroline Polachek (who also made light of trauma on the tonight show not too long ago), because who has time to write or compose when you're living day to day in poverty and filled with constant all-encompassing financial stress?

It's not a surprise though. I mean the condescension our society so casually has towards poor people is still allowed in most demographics. Every day I hear someone casually call someone else a bum, or say things like "poverty franchise." It basically means the homeless are pieces of garbage. Yet even on resetera, especially sports thread. No one blinks an eye.

Socio-economic inequality is not less important than other social issues and yet it's still treated like so. To be honest I'm worried about getting banned bringing just this perspective up.

 

[rainier]

The title is a reference to her ex-boyfriend's group chat name.

 

[Aiqops]

Oh shit it'll be out so soon? Nice.

 

[higemaru]

She is not a tortured poet though. Please tell me in what way has this person has ever been tortured? She has billionaire problems. She has one of the best lives on earth. For comparison I'm homeless, I have disabling depression. My life is truly a living hell and I'm an actual tortured poet (I write poetry). Not a pretend one. Tay Tay may be a poet but tortured she ain't. At all. Even if it's just a "fun" concept it's not funny to me.

Imagine if the appropriation wasnt socio-economic, or about mental health and rather about race. "rich white person titles their new album [non-caucadian] girl summer." Instead of "rich white best life-living super-successful star makes light of poor suffering artists, using it as cute/cool concept." Neither should be okay, and yet people do all sorts of mental gymnastics to rationalize one, ironically the same way bigots do to protect their beliefs.

The arts used to belong to the poor and those in great suffering. Throughout history art was the lone bastion the lower classes had. Actual tortured poets die in anonymity or hang themselves from a rafter. Nowadays with all art but music especially it's all trust fund kids like Ariel Pink and Caroline Polachek (who also made light of trauma on the tonight show not too long ago), because who has time to write or compose when you're living day to day in poverty and filled with constant all-encompassing financial stress?

It's not a surprise though. I mean the condescension our society so casually has towards poor people is still allowed in most demographics. Every day I hear someone casually call someone else a bum, or say things like "poverty franchise." It basically means the homeless are pieces of garbage. Yet even on resetera, especially sports thread. No one blinks an eye.

Socio-economic inequality is not less important than other social issues and yet it's still treated like so. To be honest I'm worried about getting banned bringing just this perspective up.

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ohhhh my goooodddddd it's just a inside baseball goof on her ex boyfriend's stupid group chat name.

 

[Masterz1337]

I'm sure this won't be received well, but just because she's rich and famous and maybe is the most powerful woman in the world doesn't mean it doesn't come with its own struggles. Fame and stress can do a lot of things to your mental health and she's at her highest highs but also some pretty bad lows too in the public eye. I don't think it's fair to say "she's a billionaire wage should shut up about her problems as an artist".

 

[EchizenKurage]

ohhhh my goooodddddd it's just a inside baseball goof on her ex boyfriend's stupid group chat name.

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And yet still in bad taste.

Sylvia Plath is a tortured poet. Hemingway is a tortured poet. I can go on with hundreds and hundreds of more poets and writers whose lives were filled with pain and end in dying poor and in shambles or by their own hand. Wikipedia pages that will make you shudder. Suicide and suffering are so entwined with "tortured poets" and from where Im laying - actually living that life - neither is cool or funny as an inside joke.

Edit: typo

 

[Dan-o]

Fresh copy pasta, with the perfect amount of salt. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Coyote Starrk]

ohhhh my goooodddddd it's just a inside baseball goof on her ex boyfriend's stupid group chat name.

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I felt this response because I have been there before lol

 

[Kyuuji]

Meanwhile Forever Winter exists.

 

[ablaine]

ohhhh my goooodddddd it's just a inside baseball goof on her ex boyfriend's stupid group chat name.

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Thank you!

 

[EchizenKurage]

Fresh copy pasta, with the perfect amount of salt. Welcome to the forum.

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Nice way to reduce my situation, thanks.

 

[Humidex]

Couldnt control myself and read some impressions

Seems the album is being well received. Apparently it's a mix of Midnights with Evermore and it's surprisingly more based on the short lived Matt Healy relationship than Joe

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Oh that racist pos

 

[ZeoVGM]

I'm just going to wait for it to officially drop tomorrow night. Happy to see the mostly positive impressions though!

Midnights was a 1/10 for me.

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This is god damn crazy to me. Holy crap.

 

[Dr. Mario]

Midnights plus Evermore?!

Those are my favorite albums
(together with Lover)

 

[louisacommie]

Imagine knowing in 2016 that Nick Mullen and Adam Friedland would be responsible for a Taylor swift album.

 

[Daphne]

I loved the more minimal kinda electronic style of Midnights, personally. Though I am hoping for something new, I wouldn't be too disappointed if it's similar.

Btw, the cliched example of the tortured poet, Byron, was an extremely privileged Lord who once murdered a friend over whose huge estate had more game birds on it and got clean away with it out of privilege. The idea that art, especially poetry, is exclusively a poor person's province is ahistorical. You usually had to have some kind of privilege to be able to devote enough time and energy to it, or to have the education, never mind to actually be published and become known for it. Which sucks, of course.

 

[ZeoVGM]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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This feels like it would it a bit harder if it weren't just 24 hours before the album releases.

 

[Humidex]

Midnights was a 1/10 for me.

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[Daphne]

Is this Lana/Taylor "disrespect" just about that Grammy awards thing? That's ridiculous, if so.

 

[Kingdom Key]

Spoiler

I can't believe she wrote an entire album about 2 months with Matty Healy. I just can't relate to the material at all because all I'm seeing is him.

 

[Arttemis]

prob a CD that got delivered early or stolen in transit. bonus track leaked as well so i think that means its the cd

edit: yeah apparently a lana stan stole the cd's and leaked it and titled the leak "dont disrespect lana ever again taylor"

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Disrespect Lana? I thought they were friends? They spent the whole Grammys together.

 

[JigglesBunny]

This is god damn crazy to me. Holy crap.

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I promise you both, it's not bait. I truly despise that album from top to bottom. In my opinion, it's the nadir of her discography. Where 1989 and folklore (my favorite Taylor albums) excelled both in their production and lyricism respectively, Midnights was, in my opinion, an eclectic trainwreck of career-worst lyrics and baffling production choices that were actively painful to try and barrel through every time I've listened.

Vocal effects like those in the beginning of Midnight Rain are dotted throughout the record and every last one is jarring and obnoxious. None of the livelier tracks ever find that sort of euphoric joyful sound that you can find in even the weakest tracks off Lover and every one of the slower tracks feels downright anemic.

Lyrically then, man, just shocking. Anti-Hero is the closest that album comes to finding success for me both sonically and lyrically and then that atrocious "sexy baby" line hits like a ton of bricks and sends the song careening into the abyss with the rest of the tracks. Whole songs like Vigilante Shit and Karma are completely unlistenable for me because every line just feels so clunky and lands with a complete thud. There's none of her signature wit or earnestness, it's "hey kids, spelling is fun" Taylor running amok on beats from Jack Antonoff's GarageBand trash bin.

I love Taylor, and I rate every album pre-Midnights north of an 8/10 (using my own meaningless ten point rating scale, mind you) but I have nothing nice to say about Midnights and I literally cringed and turtle-shelled into my shirt in the theater when she got to it during the Eras Tour movie.

 

[djinn]

I promise you both, it's not bait. I truly despise that album from top to bottom. In my opinion, it's the nadir of her discography. Where 1989 and folklore (my favorite Taylor albums) excelled both in their production and lyricism respectively, Midnights was, in my opinion, an eclectic trainwreck of career-worst lyrics and baffling production choices that were actively painful to try and barrel through every time I've listened.

Vocal effects like those in the beginning of Midnight Rain are dotted throughout the record and every last one is jarring and obnoxious. None of the livelier tracks ever find that sort of euphoric joyful sound that you can find in even the weakest tracks off Lover and every one of the slower tracks feels downright anemic.

Lyrically then, man, just shocking. Anti-Hero is the closest that album comes to finding success for me both sonically and lyrically and then that atrocious "sexy baby" line hits like a ton of bricks and sends the song careening into the abyss with the rest of the tracks. Whole songs like Vigilante Shit and Karma are completely unlistenable for me because every line just feels so clunky and lands with a complete thud. There's none of her signature wit or earnestness, it's "hey kids, spelling is fun" Taylor running amok on beats from Jack Antonoff's GarageBand trash bin.

I love Taylor, and I rate every album pre-Midnights north of an 8/10 (using my own meaningless ten point rating scale, mind you) but I have nothing nice to say about Midnights and I literally cringed and turtle-shelled into my shirt in the theater when she got to it during the Eras Tour movie.

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The "sexy baby" line is so so bad 😭 Karma is trash. The whole album is trash.

 

[Uzzy]

I promise you both, it's not bait. I truly despise that album from top to bottom. In my opinion, it's the nadir of her discography. Where 1989 and folklore (my favorite Taylor albums) excelled both in their production and lyricism respectively, Midnights was, in my opinion, an eclectic trainwreck of career-worst lyrics and baffling production choices that were actively painful to try and barrel through every time I've listened.

Vocal effects like those in the beginning of Midnight Rain are dotted throughout the record and every last one is jarring and obnoxious. None of the livelier tracks ever find that sort of euphoric joyful sound that you can find in even the weakest tracks off Lover and every one of the slower tracks feels downright anemic.

Lyrically then, man, just shocking. Anti-Hero is the closest that album comes to finding success for me both sonically and lyrically and then that atrocious "sexy baby" line hits like a ton of bricks and sends the song careening into the abyss with the rest of the tracks. Whole songs like Vigilante Shit and Karma are completely unlistenable for me because every line just feels so clunky and lands with a complete thud. There's none of her signature wit or earnestness, it's "hey kids, spelling is fun" Taylor running amok on beats from Jack Antonoff's GarageBand trash bin.

I love Taylor, and I rate every album pre-Midnights north of an 8/10 (using my own meaningless ten point rating scale, mind you) but I have nothing nice to say about Midnights and I literally cringed and turtle-shelled into my shirt in the theater when she got to it during the Eras Tour movie.

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[Doby]

The title is a reference to her ex-boyfriend's group chat name.

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If it is it feels incredibly tenuous. In the interview where its revealed they (Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott) say there weren't even any messages in it. It was just some dumb thing someone made and added a few specific people to.