Taylor Swift is enjoying critic and fan praise for her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Swift, 34, and her best friend Abigail Anderson both “liked” a TikTok from a fan showing support for the new record.
“I’ve been jamming Taylor Swift into any hole that I have that will listen, and I just want to say I like it,” Alli Bellairs said in the video, which was posted on Saturday, April 20. “It’s like she said, ‘Let’s take off the parental controls, taking off the training wheels. You want to go for a ride? Give me a pen and let’s get out of here.’”
Bellairs continued: “She went from Speak Now to ‘sit the f—k down and you speak when you’re spoken to.’ Get them, Taylor.”
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Swift’s newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released on Friday, April 19, and within two hours, she surprised fans with The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which featured 15 more songs.
“It’s a 2 am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” Swift wrote via social media. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore … it’s all yours.”
Fans have since examined the lyrics trying to figure out the inspiration behind Swift’s new songs. The overwhelming consensus was Swift’s surprising split from Joe Alwyn and her subsequent fling with Matty Healy. (Swift’s current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, also got subtle mentions in several of the tracks.)
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Swift has since offered more information about certain songs including “Fortnight” with Post Malone, “Clara Bow,” “Florida!!!” with Florence + the Machine, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.”
“‘Fortnight’ is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album. One of which being fatalism — longing, pining away, lost dreams,” Swift explained to Amazon Music. “I think that it’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. ‘I love you, it’s ruining my life.’ These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. It’s that kind of album.”
Swift went on to note that “Clara Bow” was based on her own experience in the music industry.
Taylor Swift Through the Years
“I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid. And they’d say, ‘You know, you remind us of’ and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her,” she recalled. “‘But you’re this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.’ And that’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you.”
Swift added: “I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these archetypes of greatness in the entertainment industry. Clara Bow was the first It Girl. Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.”
