THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT / Taylor Swift / April 19, 2024
- Joshua Yoo
- Apr 24, 2024
- 2 min read
In maybe the first time in her entire career, Taylor Swift as a public figure feels larger than the music she creates, hot off of a record-breaking concert run, saturated NFL media coverage, and unexpected political turmoil that all feel as tiring and consuming for the public as it must for her. ‘THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT’ is the cathartic release that she well deserves, primarily processing the public demise of her past two relationships, but packaged in an uncharacteristically messy, imitative way.
The album adheres to its bright, synth-pop palette faithfully, indulging in a fair share of reverb-soaked drums, droning bass lines, and major key signatures that all paint her songs with this free-spirited grandiosity. The mood is effective in moments, like on the big celebratory proclamations of affection on “The Alchemy”, but an unusual amount of tracks lack disciplined structure or captivating hooks to support the aesthetics from underneath.
With unfocused, meandering arrangements like on “Fresh Out The Slammer”, or poorly conceived choruses like the tiresome drum slams on “Florida!!!” or underwhelming line delivery on “Down Bad”, it’s sometimes difficult to sustain attention for the songwriting. Even the lyricism itself is sprawling, unrestrained and seemingly unedited, which although leads to some raw, well-crafted stories of heartbreak and lament (“Guilty as Sin?”), also loses its footing when getting too wrapped up in sentimentality (“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?) too often.
The unshakeable takeaway from her eleventh studio album is a sense of disappointment that the real, visceral emotions that Taylor lays bare are obscured by the clunky packaging. A rare shortcoming in refinement and stylistic ingenuity, empathizers may walk away from this album with the stories more than the music itself.
Highlight(s): Guilty as Sin?, The Alchemy, The Tortured Poets Department, loml
Lowlight(s): I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), Down Bad, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?, Florida!!!
Comments