Disclaimer: All following opinions are my own and in no way reflect the opinion of the Panther Prowl, Roseville High School, or Roseville Community Schools. I am not, in any way, a professional music critic – I am purely expressing my opinions.
I am writing this review as I listen to the latest album by Taylor Swift, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (2024), primarily as first impressions from me. It is the eleventh studio album of Swift’s and was produced and written primarily by her. I will dive deep into a few tracks, but for the most part it will be a general overview.
The first song of the album, titled Fortnight, features Post Malone and was chosen as the primary single released off the album. The song itself really invokes little to no emotion. Though I am understandably not the target audience of Swift’s music in general the production and arrangement just seem mellow and too low key for my tastes. However, I do like the lyrics, but Swift has little to no power behind her voice in the song – unlike other female vocalists such as Billie Eilish who has an undeniable power behind her voice which she utilizes perfectly.
The titular track, The Tortured Poets Department, invokes emotions similar to some of her softer music from her early career, feeling like a modern evolution of her older style. The production and arrangements are fine, yet the lyrics severely lack. The lyrics tend to pull too much of their diction from modern euphemisms, which is fine, yet it feels overdone to me as when Swift does push her voice it is usually on these lyrics. My biggest grudge with this song is Swift pushing her voice, with much of this album being more mellow I feel she should not have pushed her voice in this track. A slower tempo with a moody delivery would have worked better, in my opinion, yet I feel the song is fine and definitely worth a re-listen.
The third track is my favorite of the album, entitled My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys. It does have more adult tones, something which Swift has added increasingly to her music in more recent years, but nothing extreme. It has solid production and solid lyrics, I personally would not want to listen to it outside of this review, as it is not really my taste, but it is a solid song.
An exact counter to the third track is the one directly after, Down Bad. It feels as if Swift is trying to give herself an edge, which makes sense after being associated with a youthful audience for so many years and being forced to cater to that audience for most of her career, but she overdoes it. This track is not a rebellious song of freedom, it is not a song you can relate to, it is the musical equivalent of when former child Disney stars act out to break away from the public image that comes with that former career.
For most of this album it was very much filled with what I believe to be synths, keyboards, drum machines, and possibly a real drum set. Nearly every song in this album feels artificial, there is no part of it that feels acoustic or real in any sense. These elements are commonly found in pop music, but this album in general is too mellow for the most part to be considered the more hyper pop which tends to be popular in today’s music industry. I thought that the track But Daddy I Love Him was going to break from this, having a bit of acoustic guitar mixed in, but the further into the song you get the more the guitar is drowned out. I found this stylistic choice extremely disappointing.
A song I was pleasantly surprised by was Florida!!! which prominently features the indie rock back Florence and the Machine. It is probably the biggest stylistic difference from the rest of the album, giving a song by Swift a bit of a pop rock touch, more energetic than much of the other tracks on the album with their melancholic tones.
The only other two tracks which really stood out in any way to me were I Can Do It With a Broken Heart and The Alchemy, both of which gave more hyper pop, rhythm-based sounds which contrasted much of the rest of the album.
Overall, I feel the lyrics were quite derivative, and that most of the songs had nothing special to them. To give it a score I’d give it a three out of five, the few standout songs such as Florida!!! and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, were the bright spots on a dimly lit path. The album should have been half its length, in my opinion it would have been much better. My opinion of it being too long may not be immensely popular as Swift has already released a double album with 31 songs, nearly double the original 16, which clocks in at just over two hours.
