The breakup after six years of Taylor Swift’s relationship with actor Joe Alwyn returns to the fore this Friday before the release of “The Tortured Poets Department”in which the American dissects the ills of her relationship and undertakes a therapy exercise after the end of the daydream.
Its publication has also come with surprise: after the leak this past Thursday of the 16 cuts that were to make up the complete album, they have finally beenor 31 songs that compose it and in them his personal life constitutes once again his favorite material to build songs.
“They reflect events, opinions and feelings from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time, one that was both sensational and painful in equal measure,” She herself commented on her networks after the publication about “a chapter that is closed and walled up,” in which “there is nothing to avenge and no scores to settle once the wounds have healed.”
Rumors about the possible thematic core of the album began since Swift herself (West Reading, 1989) revealed the title at the last Grammy gala, very similar to that of an online chat that his ex shared with fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, called “Tortured Man Club.”
That is also the title of one of the featured cuts, in which Swift blurts out to her interlocutor with the pretense of a writer (it should be remembered that Alwyn co-wrote some of the singer’s songs in the past): “You’re not Dylan Thomas and I’m not “I’m Patti Smith.”
Reproaches
In addition, The geographical coincidence between his ex’s British nationality and the inspirational source of the song “So Long, London”, one of the most tortured along with “Florida!!!!”, does not seem coincidental. Regarding this, there are those who have pointed out that this was the state in which “The Eras Tour” ended when the couple’s breakup was made public in April 2023.
The reproaches continue in one of the potentially most radiable topics of this batch, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” (in Spanish, my boy only breaks his favorite toys), in which the artist announces the moment in which she gives up on a relationship that is not prospering: “I abandon building castles that he destroys.”
Among the surprise topics that have appeared two hours after their official publication time are those that were supposed to be included as extras the four special editions of the album, that is, “The Black Dog”, “The Albatross”, “The Bolter” and “The Manuscript”, which closes the more than two hours of music.
The heartbreak, throughout the album
Heartbreak conceptually covers the entire album and, with it, melancholy becomes strong, but without despair in either its words or its forms, rather acceptance, with spaces for irony and sarcasm in cuts like “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” o “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”.
It is that, almost at the end, one of the few reliefs of accelerated and eighties “bpm” that can be found in this “The Tortured Poets Department”, marked by the emotional density of the songs, co-produced by the author together with her inseparable Jack Antonoff.
At his discretion, synthesizers and electronic arrangements replace largely to the organic textures that accompanied the melancholy which also permeated previous works such as “Evermore” or the previous “Folklore”, both from 2020.
Glimpses of the Swift of the “country” era emerge
In the midst of all this, from time to time glimpses of Swift from the “country” era emerge, such as when she recovers the ukulele and old melodic structures from that time, see in the dynamic and long “But Daddy, I Love Him!”.
Special mention deserves the two collaborations from this album which has been published without a prior cover letter: on the one hand Post Malone in the opening “Fortnight” (in which he is vocally relegated to more accompaniment work) and, on the other, Florence + The Machine on the cathartic “Florida!!!!”, with a more balanced vocal relationship between the two performers.
With “The Tortured Poets Department” already out, Swift will begin the European leg of her “The Eras Tour” in Paris on May 9, 10, 11 and 12. There will be fifty performances until the end on August 20 at Wembley Stadium in London, with stops such as those on May 29 and 30 at the renovated Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid.
2024-04-19 17:03:30
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