Before Taylor Swift dropped her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” anticipation reached a fever pitch. But she had a huge surprise in store: it’s a double album!
When Part One came out, Swift wrote on Instagram, “All’s fair in love and poetry… New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out now 🤍” It features 17 tracks.
Then came the shocker: Swift revealed in another Instagram post, “It’s a 2 am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️ I’ve 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. 🤍.”
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Hours before the record’s release, Swift announced on social media that the first single was “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, and its music video was already out.
Swift praised the Grammy-nominated artist’s musical experimentation and melodies “that just stick in your head forever.”
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“I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on Fortnight,” Swift said in a post on X.
“Fortnight” isn’t the only track on the album on which Swift worked with another artist. Florence and The Machine is also featured.
When does the album officially debut?
“The Tortured Poets Department” will be released this Friday at midnight. ET. You can already preorder it.
If you’re planning to stream “The Tortured Poets Department” right after its release, be prepared for potential delays. When Swift’s last album, “Midnights,” came out, Spotify briefly crashed due to high demand.
How many tracks are in “The Tortured Poets Department”?
The album consists of 16 songs.
Additionally, there will be four bonus tracks: “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross,” and “The Black Dog.” Each bonus track will be available on separate physical album variants and won’t be on the streaming version of the album.
Historically, Swift has made vinyl exclusives available on streaming platforms several months after their physical release.
The average track length on “The Tortured Poets Department” is 4 minutes and 4 seconds — the third longest across Swift’s discography.
The longest song on the album is “But Daddy I Love Him,” which clocks in at 5 minutes and 40 seconds. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” is the shortest at 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The length of each bonus track has not yet been revealed.
Here are the titles of all 17 songs:
- “Fortnight”
- “The Tortured Poets Department”
- “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
- “Down Bad”
- “So Long, London”
- “But Daddy I Love Him”
- “Fresh Out the Slammer”
- “Florida!!!”
- “Guilty as Sin?”
- “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
- “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
- “loml”
- “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
- “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
- “The Alchemy”
- “Clara Bow”
- “Bonus Track: The Manuscript”
Who else worked on the album?
Florence + the Machine and Post Malone are both featured artists on the album. They are also credited as co-writers on their respective songs.
Aaron Dessner, songwriter, producer, and member of The National and Big Red Machine, is one of the two producers who worked on “The Tortured Poets Department,” alongside Swift’s longtime collaborator, Jack Antonoff. Dessner is credited as a songwriter on five tracks of the standard album, while Antonoff co-wrote eight tracks.
Swift is credited as a songwriter on every track of the standard album, including two entirely self-written songs: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
Why is it called ‘The Tortured Poets Department’?
Fans quickly noticed that “The Tortured Poets Department” is Taylor Swift’s longest album title by a significant margin, surpassing her previous record held by her third album, “Speak Now.” Before “TTPD,” “Speak Now” was the only one of her album titles consisting of more than one word.
Speculation surrounding the new album and its unusual title has mainly centered on Swift’s breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn in 2023 after their six-year relationship.
Following the album announcement, a 2022 Variety interview between Alwyn and Paul Mescal resurfaced on X. In the interview, they revealed that they were both members of a WhatsApp group chat called “The Tortured Man Club,” leading some fans to draw connections between Alwyn and Swift’s upcoming album.
The true meaning behind “The Tortured Poets Department” is yet to be revealed, but the album rollout has included references to famous poems like Charles Baudelaire’s “The Albatross,” along with other literary references.
When can fans expect a new music video?
In a video of the “TTPD Timetable” posted on her Instagram account Tuesday, Swift announced that she will release a music video at 8 p.m. ET on Friday.
However, she did not specify which track the video would be for.
The announcement in the timetable was accompanied by 14 tally marks. This led some keen Swifties to theorize that the video could be for the album’s first track, “Fortnight (ft. Post Malone),” as the title refers to 14 days, or for the album’s 14th track, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
What are Taylor Swift’s concert dates for The Eras Tour?
Swift’s wildly successful Eras Tour is set to resume next month in Europe, with shows scheduled for Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. The tour will continue until August.
In the fall, the tour will return to North America with performances in Indianapolis, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Here are the dates for the upcoming shows:
May 9: Paris
May 10: Paris
May 11: Paris
May 12: Paris
May 17: Stockholm
May 18: Stockholm
May 19: Stockholm
May 24: Lisbon, Portugal
May 25: Lisbon, Portugal
May 29: Madrid
May 30: Madrid
June 2: Lyon, France
June 3: Lyon, France
June 7: Edinburgh, Scotland
June 8: Edinburgh, Scotland
June 9: Edinburgh, Scotland
June 13: Liverpool, England
June 14: Liverpool, England
June 15: Liverpool, England
June 18: Cardiff, Wales
June 21: London
June 22: London
June 23: London
June 28: Dublin
June 29: Dublin
June 30: Dublin
July 4: Amsterdam
July 5: Amsterdam
July 6: Amsterdam
July 9: Zurich
July 10: Zurich
July 13: Milan
July 14: Milan
July 17: Gelsenkirchen, Germany
July 18: Gelsenkirchen, Germany
July 19: Gelsenkirchen, Germany
July 23: Hamburg, Germany
July 24: Hamburg, Germany
July 27: Munich
July 28: Munich
August 1: Warsaw, Poland
August 2: Warsaw, Poland
August 3: Warsaw, Poland
August 8: Vienna
August 9: Vienna
August 10: Vienna
August 15: London
August 16: London
August 17: London
August 19: London
August 20: London
October 18: Miami
October 19: Miami
October 20: Miami
October 25: New Orleans
October 26: New Orleans
October 27: New Orleans
November 1: Indianapolis
November 2: Indianapolis
November 3: Indianapolis
November 14: Toronto
November 15: Toronto
November 16: Toronto
November 21: Toronto
November 22: Toronto
November 23: Toronto
December 6: Vancouver, British Columbia
December 7: Vancouver, British Columbia
December 8: Vancouver, British Columbia