Revisiting Taylor Swift's THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT + THE ANTHOLOGY One Week Later

Since it’s been over a week after the release of Taylor Swift’s newest album(s), The Tortured Poets Department and The Anthology, I decided to sit down and compile my thoughts on where I’m at with it.

Favorites from The Tortured Poets Department: The Tortured Poets Department, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, Florida!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine)

Least Favorites from The Tortured Poets Department: Fortnight, loml

Favorites from The Anthology: Cassandra, imgonnagetyouback, How Did It End?

Least Favorites from The Anthology: thanK you aIMee, Peter, The Manuscript

Album Rankings:

1) Lover

2) Red

3) folklore

4) evermore

5) Midnights

6) 1989

7) The Tortured Poets Department

8) Speak Now

9) Fearless

10) Taylor Swift

11) The Anthology

12) reputation

This album, particularly The Anthology, has finally made me realize that I am not a fan of Aaron Dessner’s production. I should’ve figured this out when I didn’t like evermore as much as folklore, and majority of the Dessner-produced tracks on Midnights, The Tortured Poets Department, and the Taylor’s Version vaults make up my skips. Honestly, I am a Jack Antonoff/Bleachers girlie and defender at heart. Trying to rank The Tortured Poets Department as a whole was so frustrating because I absolutely loved the first half but could not get into majority of the second half, as the only thing that saved most of the songs from being skips on The Anthology was the lyrical content. Deciding to rank them separately makes more sense to me, as The Anthology tracks would bring my rating and ranking of The Tortured Poets Department down a few spots. Still, despite all of this, I would love to see Taylor work with other producers outside of Aaron and Jack in her future projects.

Here's my updated song rankings, and similarly to my album rankings I ranked the tracks from The Tortured Poets Department and The Anthology separately. There's been quite a few changes since my initial rankings from a week ago...

The Tortured Poets Department Rankings:

1) The Tortured Poets Department

2) I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

3) Florida!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine)

4) The Alchemy

5) Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

6) I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

7) Fresh Out the Slammer

8) Down Bad

9) My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

10) Guilty As Sin?

11) Clara Bow

12) So Long, London

13) But Daddy I Love Him

14) The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

15) Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)

16) loml

Biggest Growers: Fresh Out the Slammer, I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

Biggest Fallers: Fortnight, My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, But Daddy I Love Him

The Anthology Rankings:

1) Cassandra

2) imgonnagetyouback

3) How Did It End?

4) I Hate It Here

5) The Prophecy

6) Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

7) The Black Dog

8) The Albatross

9) I Look In People's Windows

10) The Bolter

11) So High School

12) Robin

13) Peter

14) The Manuscript

15) thanK you aIMee

Biggest Growers: Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, How Did It End?, I Look In People's Windows

Biggest Fallers: So High School, thanK you aIMee

Final Thoughts:

In this past week, I've been struggling so much to digest and understand this album and I've finally realized why: my youth and inexperience, not because I'm "not a Taylor Swift fan." (Context: I'm in my early twenties, I've never been in a relationship before, and I graduated high school just months prior to the pandemic, which I feel stunted my entry into adulthood and its typical experiences.)

In the past, Taylor's albums have always had a number of songs that I could relate to lyrically, and if I couldn't relate to the lyrics- typically her love and breakup-focused songs- I could at least enjoy the production- as I am someone who prefers production and melodies and harmonies over lyrics and concepts. Due to this, I've found myself loving the Bleachers-style sound of The Tortured Poets Department. However, with The Anthology, I'm having a harder time finding songs with lyrics I can relate to as she seems to focus on one overarching, consistent theme in this album with little discrepancy (ie: love and breakups). Even then, the production of the songs I can't relate to is so lacking and barren that I'm finding myself bored and disinterested.

I recognize that this is Taylor's most personal album to date, and I can appreciate that, but I have little interest in Taylor's personal life outside of her musical career. Not only that but releasing all thirty-one songs in such close proximity of each other without giving the listener time to process the original sixteen was a poor choice. I think that individually, most of the tracks work fine after multiple listens- new music from artists always sounds strange the first and second time you hear it. But overall, it's too much at once, and it's overwhelming.

As a long-time fan of her music since the original Speak Now era, this album overall just doesn't hit the mark for me like majority of the others. Maybe it's just not for me or maybe it'll grow on me as I grow older and experience more of the world, but for now The Tortured Poets Department is one of my personal favorites and The Anthology is one of my personal least favorites. (And no, disliking an album doesn't make you a bad fan, those stuck-up stans who will call you that just suck.)

In the end, it's not as bad as the antis and Ariana Grande/Beyonce stans are claiming it to be, but it’s not as great as the cupcake Swifties on Twitter are claiming either. I think a lot of the latter are affected by recency bias and their love for the album will calm down and rationalize in time. There’s an oversaturation of Taylor in the media right now, and I hope that after the Eras Tour concludes and she gets reputation (Taylor's Version) and Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version) out there, she takes a break, works with new producers, and gives herself time to get her music back into that prime sound.