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. 🤍.”
The first single from The Tortured Poets Department is…………. Fortnight featuring @postmalone 🤍 I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever. I got to witness that… pic.twitter.com/b6cqrHkbE1
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 18, 2024
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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.”
“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 12 a.m. 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 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.
April 19 🤍https://t.co/WdrCmvLHyA pic.twitter.com/1qSQqzYgEf
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 6, 2024
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 a 14-day period, 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