The Tortured Poets Department is the eleventh studio album by the American singer-songwriterTaylor Swift. It was released on April 19, 2024, throughRepublic Records, with adouble album edition subtitledThe Anthology being released two hours after the standard edition. Swift wrote and produced the album withJack Antonoff andAaron Dessner while she was embarking on the American leg ofthe Eras Tour in 2023.
Using autobiographical songwriting,The Tortured Poets Department reflects Swift's cathartic episode while she was experiencing personal upheavals amidst breakups and heightened fame. Its songs depict grief and emotional tumult caused by ill-fated romance in a hyperbolic and confrontational manner, exploring themes of mourning, depression, anger, delusion, erotic desires, and self-aware humor. Musically,The Tortured Poets Department features two production styles. The standard edition is largelyminimalist,mid-temposynth-pop, characterized bysynthesizers, sustainedbass, andprogrammeddrums.The Anthology primarily consists of mellow, acousticchamber pop andfolk-popballads driven by piano and guitar. The album incorporates elements ofelectronica,country,rock,folk, andwestern.
Swift promoted the album via social media andmusic streaming platforms, and she included an extended set list for the Eras Tour in 2024.The Tortured Poets Department topped charts across Europe, Asia–Pacific, and the Americas; broke streaming and sales records; and became the global best-selling album of 2024. In the United States,The Tortured Poets Department became Swift'sseventh album to open with over a million units and first to open with two million units, spent 17 weeks atop theBillboard 200, and wascertified eight-times platinum by theRecording Industry Association of America. Its songs made Swift the first artist to monopolize theBillboard Hot 100's top 14 spots, with the lead single "Fortnight" featuringPost Malone topping the chart.
Critical reception ofThe Tortured Poets Department upon its release was mixed; positive reviews praised the cathartic narrative songwriting as emotionally resonant and deemed the album one of Swift's finest works, but negative reviews described the production as redundant and the lyrics verbose rather than poetic. Within weeks after the initial reviews, several journalists reassessed the album and appreciated the musical and lyrical nuances, opining that the criticism was overshadowed by Swift's media overexposure. The album received anARIA Music Award, aPremios Odeón, aJapan Gold Disc Award, and five nominations at the67th Annual Grammy Awards, includingAlbum of the Year.
Amidst the heightened fame, throughout 2023, Swift's personal life was a subject widely covered and debated by both her fans and the press, who routinely reported on her breakup after a six-year relationship with the actorJoe Alwyn, alleged brief romantic linking with the musicianMatty Healy, and new relationship with theAmerican football playerTravis Kelce.[4][5][6] At the66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, during her acceptance speech for theBest Pop Vocal Album award forMidnights, Swift announced the title of her eleventh studio album,The Tortured Poets Department.[7] Swift shared to her audience at an Eras concert inMelbourne, on February 16, 2024, that writingThe Tortured Poets Department was a "lifeline" for her because it made her reflect on how songwriting was an integral part of her life.[8]
The standard edition ofThe Tortured Poets Department consists of 16 songs, including two written solely by Swift—"My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" and "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?, eight co-written with Antonoff, and five with Dessner. The rapper and singerPost Malone is featured on and co-wrote "Fortnight", and the musicianFlorence Welch on "Florida!!!".[9][10] In a self-writtenepilogue included at the end of the album's packaging, Swift situates herself as the "Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department" and details the overall narrative: she references the end of a long-term relationship, which transitions into a short-livedrebound romantic fling that painfully ends.[3] In social media posts, she framedThe Tortured Poets Department as an introspective album that reflects "events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time—one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure".[3][11] According to some critics, by naming the albumThe Tortured Poets Department, Swift situated herself as a songwriter rooted in poetry's tradition of detailing the human experience with lost love and self-torment: from ancient times (Catullus,Sappho) and medieval times (Petrarch) to the European "poète maudit" archetype (Arthur Rimbaud,Charles Baudelaire).[12][13]
Tortured Poets is the culmination of a catalog full of songs in which Swift has taken us into the bedrooms where men pleasured or misled her, the bars where they charmed her, the empty playgrounds where they sat on swings with her and promised something they couldn't give.
Using autobiographical songwriting combiningcountry music's detail-heavy narratives androck music's self-mythologizing,[15][16] the songs reference her cathartic phase while dealing with personal upheavals caused by romantic failures and heightened fame.[17][18][19] A heavily personal album,The Tortured Poets Department depicts emotions like anger, mourning, confusion, regret, longing, and delusion,[3][20][21] which are told via lyrical narratives that are messy, unbridled, and unguarded[22][23][24]—they mirror the experiences ofgrief[19][25] and explore themes like erotic desires, forbidden love, and escaping from the public eye to extremes, in a hyperbolic and confrontational manner.[14][24][26][27] The music criticAnn Powers summarized the content as a novel-like song collection about "emotional violence" that is imposed onto women by their male lovers and even by themselves, and commented that the lyrical details were so personal that they showcased Swift at her most vulnerable but also most ruthless.[14]
The overall sentiments are grim and sombre, brought by lyrical imagery of death, murder, prison, mental health spirals, narcotics, and alcoholism.[3][21][28][29] There are religious undertones, use ofprofanity,[19][30] andinternet culture-inspiredslangs in addition to literary allusions. According to the popular-culture academic Eloise Faichney, the writing style combining informal language with formal poetic traditions was emblematic ofInstapoetry, used by her generationmillennials, particularly women, to convey their experiences in prose or poetry using social media.[31] The first major theme, the dissolution of a years-long relationship, is anchored by "So Long, London", in which Swift's narrator bids farewell to an ex-partner and their romance inLondon.[32][33] She resents how the lost love wasted her youth and how she tried to rescue it to no avail,[34] a theme that is also detailed in "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys", in which she is in denial that the relationship is no longer salvageable.[35] The second major theme, the transition to a passionate fling that abruptly ends, is detailed across most tracks, which combine autobiographical details with fictionalized narratives and use devices likehyperbole ormelodrama for impact.[3][32][36] "Fortnight" details a two-weeks-long romance that entails jealousy and murderous thoughts,[37] while "Fresh Out the Slammer" compares the old romance to a suffocating prison and depicts Swift's narrator escaping from it the moment it ends, to get together with an old flame.[3][38]
The brief fling sends Swift's narrator into a whirlwind of strong emotions blending desire and pain.[14][21] In "Down Bad", she compares the feelings caused by this short-lived infatuation to being abducted by an extraterrestrial being.[39] "Guilty as Sin?" explores her longing to be intimate with another man while being trapped in an unhappy relationship and the guilt that ensues, comparing her orgasm to death and ocean waves crashing.[40] She declares her devotion to him in "But Daddy I Love Him",[32] and, in "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)", is determined to bring out the sweet nature of this problematic man, until she realizes at the end that she could not.[3] The painful ending is the theme of two tracks: "Loml" and "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived", which both explore the imbalanced dynamic between Swift's narrator and her subject.[3][41] In "Loml", Swift's narrator is devastated by this "con-man" who falsely promised her marriage and kids but ultimately abandons her,[41][42] whereas in "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived", she directs her anger and condemnation towards him, whoghosted her and thus "didn't measure up in any measure of a man", as depicted in the lyrics.[21][32]
Swift's heightened fame and breakups duringthe Eras Tour influencedThe Tortured Poets Department.
The album's third major theme revolves around Swift's fame and its impact on her, alluding to how she coped with the breakups while having to perform in the public eye.[14][32][43] In these songs, which reference her public image and incorporate self-aware and sometimes self-deprecating humor,[44] she confronts anyone who she thought had wronged her: detractors, music-industry executives, the press, and her fans.[12][14][41] In "The Tortured Poets Department", which details an impending heartbreak between two musicians,[45] she tells her romantic interest that she is notPatti Smith and he is notDylan Thomas, both associating with and distancing from the "tortured poet" archetype that the title evokes.[12][46] In "But Daddy I Love Him", which is set in a religious small town, she criticizes anyone who disapproves of her romance with a troublesome man who may blemish her innocent, good-girl image. Several analyses opined that this was Swift's message to her fans to not interfere with her private life, influenced by their public outcry against her alleged fling with Healy due to his unpopularity.[41][47]
"Florida!!!", "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", and "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" incorporate elements ofSouthern Gothic melodrama.[41] Both "Florida!!!" and "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me" reflect Swift's anxiety when facing with her fame and identity:[45] "Florida!!!" is anescapist tale about escaping to Florida to reinvent her identity and forget past wrongdoings,[37] while "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" details her rage and resentment against the culture that she was brought up in, alluding to her early success when she was still a teenager.[45][41] In "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart", Swift claims that she could put on a show despite her depression from being abandoned by her romantic interests.[3] The standard edition's penultimate track, "The Alchemy", is about a burgeoning and triumphant romance using American football metaphors—the outlier in an album of heavy emotions.[45] The closing track, "Clara Bow", was named after the 1920s silent-film actressClara Bow. In it, Swift explores how women in the music industry are consecutively viewed as replacements for someone before them.[14][32]
Thedouble album edition ofThe Tortured Poets Department is subtitledThe Anthology and contains 15 additional songs. Swift wrote three herself—"The Black Dog", "Peter", and "The Manuscript", 10 with Dessner, and three with Antonoff.[10][48] While theAnthology songs expand on the original edition's themes of heartbreak and emotional tumult, they are less directly autobiographical and use literary subtexts to convey the sentiments via metaphors and character studies.[48][49][50]
Motifs ofmythology are prominent onThe Anthology.[51] "The Black Dog" and "The Albatross" draw from and reinventEnglish folklore imagery; the literature academic Matthew J. A. Green commented that they also feature influences ofgothic literature.[52] "The Black Dog" references both a London pub and the mythical creatureblack dog—Swift's narrator is devastated upon learning that her ex-lover is seducing another female at the pub and, at the end of the song, compares his act of abandoning her to a dog withtail between his legs.[26][51] In "The Albatross", Swift plays with thealbatross metaphor originated inSamuel Taylor Coleridge's 1789 poemThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Her narrator compares herself to the albatross as both a sign of danger and an agent of rescue, subverting from third- to first-person narration at the final chorus. The lyrics are ambiguous; according to the philosopher Georgie Mills, they can be interpreted as either Swift's warning to someone who has wronged her or caution for a potential romantic partner.[53]
Swift similarly switches between first- and third-person storytelling in "Cassandra", a reference to the ancient Greek mythological princessCassandra, who was a prophetess cursed by the godApollo so that nobody believed in her prophecies. In the song, Swift's narrator details how the townsfolk murder Cassandra for her foresights, contrary to the original mythology that she is just ignored and not killed;[51] Burt wrote that Swift's "Cassandra" exerts influences fromHomer andVirgil.[45] In "The Prophecy", Swift's narrator pleads to a higher being to change her destiny of loneliness and begs for a soulmate. According to Mills, the trope of prophecy evokes mythological tales such as Cassandra andOedipus, and the lyrics incorporate biblical imagery ofEve being cursed.[54]
The Anthology also features influences from literature. "Peter" is based on the narrative ofJ. M. Barrie's 20th-century play and novelPeter Pan. Told from the perspective ofWendy Darling, the song depicts her waiting by the window for the dayPeter Pan grows up and comes back to her. By the end of the song, in thebridge, she concedes that she has tried in vain and, pleading with Peter Pan to forgive her, extinguishes the candlelight.[45][55] "The Bolter" was influenced byNancy Mitford's 1945 novelThe Pursuit of Love, about a female character nicknamed "The Bolter", who stays in society's margin and looks for love anywhere and in anyone. In her song, Swift's narrator is an endearing and mischievous woman who finds pleasure in seducing bad men, whom she describes as "trophy hunters", and escaping them at every turn.[48][56]
Other tracks draw from Swift's self-awareness and fame. In "How Did It End?", her narrator explores anguish over a failed relationship and contemplates on how the public's interest in her private life plays a role in the distorted reality and gossip that ensue.[57] In "I Hate It Here", her narrator daydreams about escaping to an idealized past, imagining a beautiful landscape of secret gardens, lunar valleys, and gentle people, but she later acknowledges that nostalgia is a trap.[58] "Thank You Aimee" is a sarcastic attack on a high-school bully; Swift's narrator appreciates the bully for making her stronger and tells them that she has changed their name so that they cannot enjoy the attention.[48] The closing track, "The Manuscript", is a re-examination on a long-gone romantic relationship with an older man; while it was once painful, Swift's narrator reflects on it with maturity and acceptance.[19][48] She ends the song with the line, "The story isn't mine anymore." According to Mills, this lyric refers to the "death of the author"—by relinquishing authorship on her stories, Swift gives way for her audience to collectively construct and own theirs, thus positioning herself as a "modern-day Homer" and turning her songs into folktales.[55]
The music ofThe Tortured Poets Department isminimalist.[62][63] Compositionally, the songs reprise many elements that had been characteristic of Swift's music: they employ theverse-chorus form largely composed inmajor scale and set incommon time, one-note melodies in the verses that create tensions for more tuneful choruses, andsyncopated rhythms and phrasings.[64][65] Many critics commented that the song structures and instrumental timbres feature influences of country music, a genre that defined her early career;[15][66][67][68] according toJon Pareles ofThe New York Times, Swift plays on traditional country songwriting by employing a "choppy pre-chorus, or chorus, that arrives in two-syllable bursts", which accentuates a steady verse structure and brings a "hip-hop percussiveness".[64] Swift sings mostly in the lower ranges of hervocal register, resulting in arap-like, conversational delivery;[14][21][69] the music professor Samuel Murray commented that she reprised many of her common vocal devices, like one-note melodies andrecitative singing style.[36]
The first four tracks ofThe Tortured Poets Department exemplify the muted synth-pop sound: "Fortnight", "The Tortured Poets Department", "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys", and "Down Bad".[83][84] The first three incorporate influences of 1980s pop on their synth textures; "Fortnight" and "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" incorporate an ambient,new wave atmosphere.[85][86] "Down Bad" featuresR&B inflections in its dynamic shifts and vocalcadences.[77] "So Long, London" begins with vocal harmonies that resemble acathedral choir and progresses into an electronic arrangement of trembling, fast-paced synths.[41][87]
The next four tracks feature strong country influences, brought by atwang in their instrumental timbres.[68] "But Daddy I Love Him" combines country,folk rock, andelectropop, over amplifiedsnare drums, dynamic strings, and Swift's full voice in her upper register.[88] Thereverbedelectric guitar in "Fresh Out the Slammer" evokesAmericana, while the composition of "Florida!!!"—gentle synths and rhythmic programming in the verses, and loud synths in the choruses, which end with a deep,tremolo electric guitar—situates it withinindie rock andarena rock.[89] "Guilty as Sin?" infuses elements of pop rock and 1990s soft rock,[37][90] accentuated by live drums andmelisma vocals.[77][91] The intricate arrangement of "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" resemblesorchestral pop: deep layers of dense, galloping synthsequences, grainyMoog bass, and a mix of electric guitar and drums.[42] "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" is instrumented by sparse,tremolo guitars, and percussions that sound like gunshots, evoking aWild West atmosphere and connotations ofwestern music.[18][71][92]
The minimalisticpiano ballad "Loml" is driven by slow, melancholic piano chordarpeggios and soft vocals, building up with strings towards the end, while "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" is driven by frantic syntharpeggiators and throbbing bass programming over an upbeatdance-pop, electropop, anddisco-pop sound.[93] "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" begins as a piano ballad and builds up with a monotone synth sequence and a climatic second part, instrumented with Swift'sdistorted vocals overeighth-notebass drums andcrescendoing orchestral strings.[94] "The Alchemy" is a pop rock song with uneven textures of electric guitars,sixteenth-note synth sequences, andrhythm and blues-styled acoustic drums,[95] and the minimalist chamber-pop and pop-rock song "Clara Bow" is instrumented with airy,staccato strings and dual bass: onetonic, and one that harmonizes.[96][97]
The Anthology is more musically uniformed, consisting of five piano ballads ("How Did It End?", "Cassandra", "Peter", "Robin", "The Manuscript"), two piano-led ballads ("The Black Dog", "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"), and five guitar ballads propelled byfingerpicking ("I Hate It Here", "Thank You Aimee", "I Look in People's Windows", "The Prophecy", "The Bolter").[98] There are a few outliers: "Imgonnagetyouback" has a synth-pop production and R&B-influenced vocals,[99] and "So High School" evokes 1990s rock styles such as indie rock andalternative rock.[83][100]
Commenting on the titleThe Tortured Poets Department, Burt argued that while this did not turn Swift into a "print-based poet", it showcased her ability to incorporate evocative lyrics into pop songs.[32] The lack of an apostrophe, as inThe Tortured Poets' Department, was the subject of a debate in the press over grammatical correctness.[101] Literary scholars commented that the title was grammatically correct: Swift employedTortured Poets as anattributive noun, as in the case with the title of the 1989 filmDead Poets Society, and not as apossessive noun.[102][103]
Photographed byBeth Garrabrant, the standard cover artwork is a black-and-whiteglamour photo shot of Swift lying on a bed wearing black loungewear: a see-throughYves Saint Laurent tank top andThe Row boy shorts.[104][105][106] The black-and-white photoshoot for the album's booklet shows Swift casting her eyes downward while pouting her lips; the English-literature scholar Emily J. Orlando compared Swift's posture to the paintings of the English poetElizabeth Siddal byDante Gabriel Rossetti, a fellow poet.[107] Media outlets described the album's visual aesthetic asgothic[52] anddark academia.[108][109] Both the artwork and title wereparodied by numerous brands, organizations, sports teams, and franchises, and inspired numerousinternet memes.[110][111]
After the Grammy announcement, on February 5, 2024, Swift released the album cover and standard track listing via social media, and made the first physical variant, "The Manuscript", available for pre-order.[112][113] During the Australian and Singaporean shows of the Eras Tour in February−March 2024, she announced three additional physical editions that were each titled after a corresponding bonus track: "The Bolter", "The Albatross", and "The Black Dog".[114] She partnered withTarget for an exclusive "Phantom Clear" collector'svinyl LP edition.[115]
Swift included songs from the album in the Eras Tour's set list in 2024.
Swift promotedThe Tortured Poets Department on social media andmusic streaming platforms, promptingSwifties to search forEaster eggs.[116] OnApple Music, she curated five playlists with each containing her previous songs, inspired by thefive stages of grief.[117]Spotify hosted apop-up library of curated articles atThe Grove, Los Angeles;[118]QR code murals in various cities worldwide led to unlistedYouTube shorts on Swift's channel;[119][120]Instagram included a countdown to the album's release; andThreads added special shimmer effects tohashtags related to Swift and the album.[121]iHeartRadio andSirius XM announced special programs with exclusive content from Swift to celebrate the album's release; the former temporarily rebranded as "iHeartTaylor".[122][123]
ViaRepublic Records,The Tortured Poets Department was released on both physical and digital formats on April 19, 2024;The Anthology wassurprise-released on digital platforms two hours later.[124] The album had beenleaked two days prior, which resulted in the phrase "Taylor Swift leak" being temporarily banned from searches on the social media platform X (formerlyTwitter).[125] The initial release was supported by 19 physical variants—nine CDs, six vinyl LPs, and four cassettes;[126] all physical copies include a poem by the American singer-songwriterStevie Nicks, who is referenced in the track "Clara Bow".[127]
From May 2024, starting with the Paris shows,[e] Swift revamped the set list of the Eras Tour to include songs fromThe Tortured Poets Department in a new act, which she informally described as "Female Rage the Musical".[132][133] In line with the album's aesthetics, the set featured black-and-white graphics andOld Hollywood-inspired settings.[130][134] She recorded the live performances of several songs at shows in Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom, and released them as bonus tracks on limited-time digital albums via her website, exclusively to customers in the United States.[135][136] Also released as bonus material were acoustic versions of tracks as part of five limited physical album editions, and "first draft phone"demo recordings as part of four limited digital album variants.[137][138][139]
On November 29, 2024,The Anthology was released on vinyl and CD formats exclusively via Target in North America. The physicalAnthology album includes four acoustic bonus tracks.[140]The Tortured Poets Department spawned two singles: "Fortnight" was released on April 19, and "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" on July 2.[141][142] "Fortnight" debuted atop theBillboard Hot 100, marking Swift's seventh number-one debut and Malone's first,[143] while "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" spent 31 weeks on the chart, becoming the album's longest-charting song.[144]
The Tortured Poets Department broke consumption records across all metrics: streaming, physical sales, and digital sales. On Spotify, the album broke the records for themost single-day streams (300 million) and the most single-week streams (the first album to accumulate one billion streams in a single week, doing so in five days).[145][146] It became the most streamed album in a single day onAmazon Music and the most streamed pop album in a single day on Apple Music.[145][147] Within one week of release, the album amassed 1.76 billion streams globally, an all-time record.[148]
The Tortured Poets Department became the most-streamed album of 2024 on both Spotify and Apple Music.[149][150] It accumulated 4 millionalbum-equivalent units within its first release week, as reported by Republic Records,[151] and sold 5.6 million copies to become the global best-selling album of 2024, according to theInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry.[152]The Guardian commented that the album solidified Swift's status as the biggest pop star of the 21st century,[153] andBillboard wrote that her commercial success was beyond any of her peers.[154] By August 2025, it had sold 11 million equivalent units worldwide.[155]
In the United States,The Tortured Poets Department accumulated 1.6 million album-equivalent units in four days,[156] selling 700,000 vinyl LPs to break the record for the highest single-week vinyl sales in the digital era.[145] It broke the single-week streaming record ofDrake'sScorpion (2018), amassing 799million on-demand streams in six days.[145]The Tortured Poets Department debuted atop theBillboard 200 with first-week tally of 2.61 million units, including 1.914 million pure copies and 891.34 million streams. It became Swift's 14th number-one album, tying her withJay-Z for the most chart toppers among solo artists.[126] All 31 songs fromThe Anthology debuted on theBillboard Hot 100; Swift became the female artist with the most chart entries in a single week (32, with "Cruel Summer" also charting), the first female artist to have over 50 songs in the top 10 throughout her career, and the first artist to monopolize the top 14 spots in the same week, led by "Fortnight".[143]
Supported by double-digit variants in digital and CD formats,[157]The Tortured Poets Department spent 17 non-consecutive weeks at number one on theBillboard 200. It became the longest-leading chart topper in Swift's career and the first album by a female artist (and third overall)[f] to spend its first 12 weeks atop the chart.[158][159] Its chart dominance contributed to the number-two peaks of other high-profile albums such asBillie Eilish'sHit Me Hard and Soft,[160]¥$'sVultures 2,[161] andChappell Roan'sThe Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.[162] Topping theBillboard 200 Year-End of 2024,The Tortured Poets Department was the year's most-consumed album across all metrics in the United States, selling 3.491 million pure copies and amassing 6.955 million units.[163] The album wascertified eight-times platinum by theRecording Industry Association of America in September 2025, for surpassing eight million album-equivalent units.[164]
In the English-speaking countries,The Tortured Poets Department is Swift's 14th number-one album in New Zealand, where it became the first album to chart nine songs in the top 10 of thesingles chart;[165] 14th in Canada, where it broke the record for the highest vinyl sales week in history;[166] 13th in Australia, where it set the records for the most simultaneous entries by a single artist in the top 10, top 50, and top 100 of the singles chart;[167] and 12th in the United Kingdom, tying her withMadonna for the most number-one albums by a woman.[168] In the United Kingdom, the album registered the biggest sales week by any artist in 7 years and by a non-British artist in 18 years,[168] had the biggest vinyl sales week since 1994,[169] and spent 11 weeks atop the chart, becoming the first album by a non-British artist in the 21st century to spend more than 10 weeks at number one.[170][171]The Tortured Poets Department became the best-selling album of 2024 in all of the four said countries,[g] and it wascertified triple platinum in Australia and the United Kingdom,[176][177] five-times platinum in New Zealand,[178] and seven-times platinum in Canada.[179]
In continental Europe,The Tortured Poets Department reached number one in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.[180] It became the best seller of 2024 in Austria,[181] Germany,[182] the Netherlands,[183] Spain (a first for a non-Spanish-speaking artist in the 21st century),[184] and Switzerland.[185] In Germany, it registered the highest streaming day for any album and highest sales week for an international solo artist in seven years.[186] The album was certified double platinum in Austria,[187] Belgium,[188] Denmark,[189] Italy,[190] Poland,[191] Portugal,[192] and Spain;[193] and triple gold in Germany.[194] In Brazil, 10 tracks fromThe Tortured Poets Department debuted on theBrasil Hot 100,[195] andThe Anthology was certified diamond.[196]
Upon release,The Tortured Poets Department divided music critics;[204][205] secondary sources described the critical consensus as either positive[206][151] or mixed.[207] According to the review aggregatorMetacritic,The Tortured Poets Department received "generally favorable reviews" based on aweighted average score of 76 out of 100 from 24 critic scores,[198] whileThe Anthology received a weighted average score of 69, from six reviews.[208]
A number of critics regarded the album as a landmark in Swift's discography. Reviews fromThe Independent's Helen Brown,[15]The Arts Desk's Ellie Roberts,[43]The Times' Dan Cairns,[203]PopMatters's Jeffrey Davies,[209] and Will Harris ofQ praised the album as one of Swift's most solid outputs, considering the musical composition, vocal stylings and lyrical tonality as ambitious and tastefully experimental.[210] Others, includingVariety's Chris Willman,[70] thei's Ed Power,[108] andThe Observer'sKitty Empire, called it a quintessential Swift album containing some of the best songs of her career.[211]
Swift's songwriting was a source of compliment.The Line of Best Fit's Paul Bridgewater dubbed it her most cohesive body of work to date, finding the music sophisticated and the lyricism symbolic.[78] To Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of theFinancial Times, the album is a stylistic evolution for Swift, with writing that marks a "characteristically appealing turn" into moody melodrama.[212]Alexis Petridis ofThe Guardian and Alex Hopper ofAmerican Songwriter thought that the album has Swift's wittiest lyrics, featuring nuanced musical choices that show Swift is "willing to take risks in a risk-averse era for pop" and "constantly evolving and pushing her limits", respectively.[66][213] In a more measured review, Olivia Horn ofPitchfork felt the lyrics did not "distill an overarching emotional truth, tending to smother rather than sting."[201] Others, such asThe New York Times' Lindsay Zoladz,Slant Magazine's Jonathan Keefe, andExclaim!'s Alex Hudson, described some lyrics as weak and overwritten; Hudson claimed that many of its tracks "mistake verbosity for poetry".[214][202][215]
The tumultuous mood and unconstrained emotion of the lyrics were also highlighted. Multiple reviews complimented the album's heavy, unfiltered emotion;[108][22][70][216]Clash's Lauren Webb described it as "a spell-binding, toxic, chaotic illustration" of deteriorating mental sanity.[200] Powers opined thatThe Tortured Poets Department shows Swift's newfound freedom, with a "lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself".[14] In a similar perspective, rave reviews fromRolling Stone'sRob Sheffield andVariety's Chris Willman described the album as Swift's "gloriously chaotic" and "audacious, transfixing" project, respectively.[217][70] To Willman, the album combines "cleverness with catharsis".[70]Consequence's Mary Siroky, on the other hand, found this style of lyricism jarring and "outright bizarre" at times, and felt the album was an attempt atself-parody rather than a showcase of Swift's songwriting acumen.[72]
Many critics, including Zoladz,[214]NME's Laura Molloy,[71] andStereogum's Tom Breihan, argued that Swift and Antonoff's collaboration onThe Tortured Poets Department was uninventive due to a sonic similarity to their past collaborations.[69][218]The New Yorker'sAmanda Petrusich rather favored Dessner's input to the album as "gentler, more tender, and more surprising".[46] Horn and the BBC's Mark Savage felt the melodies were sonically monotonous and "staid",[18][201] but others argued that the minimalistic approach complemented Swift's hyper-personal lyrics;[202][211][66] Hopper opined that "Swift's confidence as an artist is at a peak" withThe Tortured Poets Department.[213] According to Mary Kate Carr ofThe A.V. Club, the album is "perfectly good" but arrived at a time when Swift has "nothing to prove" anymore, resulting in a stagnant point in her artistry;[219] this idea was shared by an anonymous, negativePaste review that criticized the album as rushed, hollow, and unrelatable.[220]
Various peer journalists and columnists cross-examined the album's critical reception. Publications consideredThe Tortured Poets Department a polarizing album;[221][206][222]The Ringer's Nathan Hubbard deemed it Swift's most controversial release sinceReputation (2017).[223] Journalists fromThe New York Times andVox attributed this phenomenon to Swift's heightened fame and associated media overexposure.[5][224]Paste's anonymous review was singled out by other publications as "scathing";[206][225] Sumnima Kandangwa of theSouth China Morning Post opined that they hid their reviewer's identity because Swifties "can become quite spirited when it comes to protecting their favourite singer".[226]Sputnikmusic published reviews with three different ratings in a short period of time, each lower than the one before; Minh Anh ofL'Officiel found this to be a confusing way to rate music.[227] Swift shared the album's positive reviews on her social media, tagging the respective authors, which some considered as a response toPaste and other unfavorable reviews.[228][229]
A number of commentators opined that the initial reviews demonstrated a flawed approach to mainstream music criticism.[5][230][231]Bloomberg News's Jessica Karl wrote that the "lengthy" duration of the album made the reviewers "[stay] up until dawn to finish listening to an album" to publish, contributing to some reviews that were hasty, criticizing both the "exclamation-pointed digs" at Swift inPaste and the "instant classic" review byRolling Stone.[230] InThe Ringer, Nora Princiotti attributed the polarized reviews to the unexpected double album release, and Nathan Hubbard argued that some "cooler-than-thou" critics from sites likeThe New Yorker,The New York Times, andPaste used Swift's billionaire status to downplay the personal issues she detailed in the album.[223] Karl opined that some "reputable publications" catered to gossip instead of a serious artistic analysis,[230] while Anh highlighted that reviews mentioned aspects of Swift's public image instead of focusing on the music.[227]The New Yorker's Sinéad O'Sullivan asserted that Swift's albums contain multiple layers of self-referential "lore", writing that the unfavorable reviews were due to critics not taking that into account or not allotting enough listening time.[232]
Some early critics of the album recanted and declared they were "hasty" in reviewing it,[73] as perSlate's Chris Molanphy, who opined it has become a "widely agreed point" in later critical commentary thatThe Tortured Poets Department "grows on you" after more listens; Molanphy stated he liked the album better than he did a week before.[233] CNN's Oliver Darcy said he had judgedThe Tortured Poets Department quickly, stating that he reviewed it keeping in the mind its mixed critical reception, and found the album overlong and unimpressive in agreement with other critics, but a week later, "after spending more time with the two-hour sonic feast, more methodically touring through its subtleties and nuances, I am ready to declare that it is one of Swift's best works yet." Darcy opined that the album cannot be fully digested at "the speed ofTikTok," and criticized reviewers who do not let music albums "marinate" and instead expect "instant satisfaction".[231]People calledThe Tortured Poets Department Swift's "Most Important Album" and said that it was judged "too soon".[234]
^Aswad, Jem; Garcia, Thania; Horowitz, Steven J.; Willman, Chris (December 13, 2024)."The Best Albums of 2024".Variety.Archived from the original on December 13, 2024. RetrievedDecember 13, 2024.
^"Výsledky trhu 2024 – Slovensko"(PDF) (in Czech). Česká národní skupina Mezinárodní federace hudebního průmyslu.Archived(PDF) from the original on March 26, 2025. RetrievedApril 2, 2025.
Faichney, Eloise (2025). "Taylor Swift's Tortured (Internet) Poetry". In McCann, Hannah; Faichney, Eloise; Trelease, Rebecca; Whatman, Emma (eds.).Taylor Swift: Culture, Capital, and Critique.Routledge. pp. 83–95.ISBN978-1-00-350927-1.
Hughes, Phoebe E. (2025). "'Guilty as Sin?': Taylor Swift as a Tortured Poet".Cranking Up Taylor Swift: Her Musical Journey in 11 Songs.Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 127–140.ISBN978-1-4930-8473-9.
Robb, Catherine M.; Mills, Georgie, eds. (2024).Taylor Swift and Philosophy. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series.Wiley-Blackwell.ISBN978-1-394-23860-6.
Robb, Catherine M. "Is Taylor Swift a Philosopher?". InRobb & Mills (2024), pp. 3–11.
Mills, Georgie. "Mythic Motifs inThe Tortured Poets Department: 'The Story Isn't Mine Anymore'". InRobb & Mills (2024), pp. 231–237.
Somville, Damien; Benoit, Marine (2025).Taylor Swift All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. Black Dog & Leventhal /Hachette Book Group.ISBN978-0-7624-8929-9.
Wickman, Kase; Weiss, Joanna; McAvoy, Moira (2025). "The Tortured Poets Department".Taylor Swift: Album by Album. Motorbooks. pp. 177–185.ISBN978-0-7603-9749-7.
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