Can Gen Z Relate To Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Album?
It's okay not to fully like Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department,' as it's a slow burn that may be more relevant to older millennials than to Gen Z Swifties – for now.
We hereby conduct this post-mortem – for what feels like the millionth reading and for good reason. Since the launch of Taylor Swift’s anticipated 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) on Apr 19, there has just been so much to process.
Following months of Easter eggs and clues, diehard Swifties had their wildest dreams come true when the superstar made a surprise announcement that TTPD is indeed a secret double album and dropped an additional 15 songs just two hours after the first 16 songs were released.
The Tortured Poets Department is the 11th studio album Taylor Swift
Then, meltdowns among her fanbase ensued when it turned out that many of the songs are ostensibly about Matty Healy, the problematic The 1975 frontman she supposedly had a brief fling with (evidence: The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys and even the title track The Tortured Poets Department) instead of actor Joe Alwyn, who she was in a six-year relationship with.
READ MORE: How Taylor Swift Inspires The Style And Creative Pursuits Of Singaporean Swifties
Certainly, there are bittersweet ditties about the British thespian (namely the heartrending So Long, London as the fifth track, traditionally the most devastating song on her albums) but the consensus is he has dodged the worst cuts of her razor-sharp quill.
And for good measure, songs like The Alchemy and So High School with their American football references allude to her latest and currently blissful relationship with easygoing jock Travis Kelce. Amid all these poetic musings about the men in her life, Swift also dredged up an old, psyche-damaging feud with Kim Kardashian by raising one huge middle finger through the song thanK you aIMee, where the capitalised alphabets spell out the reality star’s first name.
Yet, despite this wealth of new and some say unhinged material to analyse – or perhaps because of it – reactions to this album have been all over the place. Sure, TTPD immediately began to smash streaming records, becoming Spotify’s most streamed album in one day with over 300 million streams and has garnered its share of rave reviews.
On the flipside, there are also critics who say the 31-song anthology is too rambling, could use an editor and that the music is too similar to her previous three albums: Midnights, Folklore and Evermore.
Certainly, each individual is entitled to their own opinion about a creative work but to put TTPD in perspective, Swift herself does pen on Instagram that the album is about “a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure”.
Scenes from Spotify's Taylor Swift pop-up in Los Angeles, California, on April 16, for The Tortured Poets Department
So it is not surprising that the album is sprawling in its length and scope as it offers up what might just be the most in-depth and honest look into Swift’s messy agony of grappling with depression, loneliness and other mental health issues during what is supposed to be the height of her career, the phenomenally successful Eras Tour (listen to the deceptively upbeat but ultimately wrenching I Can Do It With A Broken Heart for insight).
READ MORE: FEMALE People Cam: The Eras Tour
Then there are also the legions of confused Swifties who are not quite getting Tay’s tortured poet vibes or wondering what happened to her usual chart-topping bangers. My hot take is to give it time and return to the album at a later stage in life.
TayTay holding court during the Singapore leg of the Eras Tour in March
After all, as an older millennial, I will admit I used to think her early albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now were a little too twee as I was in my “sophisticated” early 20s back when those albums launched. These days, however, I appreciate these very same tunes (Taylor’s Versions of course) for their wide-eyed innocence and hope.
I only became a casual fan from 1989 when she began to sing about themes I could identify with like finding independence in a big city as a young adult and ultimately considered myself a hardcore Swiftie when the singer-songwriter pivoted to a more indie, folksy sound and sang about themes of isolation during her pandemic-induced Folklore and Evermore eras.
Young Swifties singing along at the waterfront in front of the National Stadium during the first day of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Singapore on March 2
This is why I can understand why TTPD is probably going to be a slow burn for many younger Swifties who may not necessarily have the life experience (broadly speaking) yet to fully feel for the tortured poetry until they are older.
On the surface, TTPD does seem almost Swiftian in formula in that it touches on ex-boyfriends and feuds with a confessional tone. But unlike her early music of teenage crushes and girly dreams, Swift’s Tortured Poets music is essentially written from the POV of a 30-something-year old who has gone through her fair share of gut-wrenching heartbreaks and disappointments.
It has always been Swift’s greatest talent – or curse – to express herself in a way that is hyper-specific to the stage of life she is in. This is one of the reasons why she can connect with her fans so deeply because these slivers of emotional insight that hardly anyone else talks about can feel like she knows their innermost thoughts.
The songs The Alchemy and So High School on The Tortured Poets Department, with their American football references, allude to her latest beau, Travis Kelce (above, right).
So when she wails “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” in So Long, London about how she has spent years waiting for Alwyn to seal the deal or croons about running into the arms of a rebound guy (Healy, probably?) in Fresh Out The Slammer, that complicated sense of yearning, embarrassment at being played a fool and newfound liberation will likely resonate more with an older fan who is more likely to have gone through toxic relationships and situationships too.
Still, if there is one takeaway for all Swifties, regardless of age, it would be that the only way out is through. As Swift writes, “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it”. In her case, it is likely she wrote this album to acknowledge and exorcise her old pain.
Perhaps we plebeians can draw strength in knowing that even at rock bottom, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. How do we know? I submit for inspection, Swift’s last lines in the last TTPD song, The Manuscript: “Now and then I reread the manuscript but the story isn’t mine anymore.