Although Swift doesn’t name names, she drops a lot of hints in bold for how to break free from a long-term cross-cultural relationship that has turned cold (the heartbreaking “So Long, London”) A brief introduction to juvenile delinquents. She throws up hackles at the more critical people in her life (the wild-eyed “But Daddy I Love Him”), and has a new relationship with someone who lets her sing with soccer metaphors. We got off to a good start (“The Alchemy” without gravity). The subject of the most headline-grabbing song on “The Anthology” is Swift’s reimagined Tortured Billionaires Club comrades as high school bullies, and the strangely capitalized “Thank you, aIMee” in the title.
Sometimes the album returns to its original form. Her first two songs are a powerful reminder of how viscerally Swift can evoke the flushed excitement of a doomed romance. Opener “Fortnite,” a vibrant, synth-heavy duet with Post Malone, is coldly restrained, but lines like “I love you, you’re ruining my life” unleash the song. , lasts until it brings brilliance. Even better is the chatty, upbeat title track, in which Swift’s voice glides over smooth keyboard arpeggios as she self-deprecatingly compares herself and her lover to bolder poets before concluding: Many of Swift’s songs get lost in a dense thicket of their own vocabulary, but here the silly specificity of the lyrics is emphasized — chocolate bars, first-name nods to friends, pop. References to songwriter Charlie Puth?! — There’s something strangely human about it.
But despite its breadth, The Tortured Poets Department is a strangely insular album, often wrapped in the familiar amniotic pulse of Jack Antonoff’s work. (The National’s Aaron Dessner, who gives Swift’s sound a more subdued, organic sensibility, produced and helped write five songs on her first album and much of The Anthology.) Antonoff and Swift have continued to collaborate since Antonoff’s contribution. He appeared on her 2014 smash hit album 1989, making him her most consistent collaborator. But there’s a sonic homogeneity to much of “The Tortured Poets Division,” from the gauzy backgrounds to the gently pummeling synths to the drum machine rhythms that lock Swift into a clipped, warbling staccato. It suggests that their partnership is in danger of becoming too comfortable and stale.
As the album progresses, Swift’s lyricism begins to feel unrestrained, imprecise, and unnecessarily wordy. Breathless lines abound, leading the melody down a circuitous path. As with “Midnight,” the internal rhymes build up like reciting pages from a dictionary. “Camera flashes, welcome bash, matches in hand, ashes thrown off the shelf,” she intones with a bouncy rhythm on “Fresh Out the Slammer.” This song is one of her few that leans too heavily on prison metaphors. Drug imagery is another inspiration for Swift’s most banal and head-scratching writing. Apparently “Florida” is “a hell of a drug.” If you say so!
But the song is one of the album’s best, an incredible collaboration with pop wizard Florence Welch, and a breath of fresh air as Swift explores a more theatrical and dynamic aesthetic. It makes it possible to take advantage of it. Another nice piece, “Guilty as Sin?,” is a rare Antonoff work that gives Swift’s voice a ’90s soft-rock vibe rather than strict electronics. These tracks in particular conjure up vivid Swift-esque images, including the “messy upper lip kiss” of her imaginary lover and her 30-something friends who “all smell like weed or little babies.” .
