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Taylor Swift has us floored once again. Today, 19 Apr 2024, marked the highly-anticipated release of her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department at 12pm SGT. However, in a surprise twist that came just 2 hours later, she unveiled another bombshell: a bonus album titled The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, featuring 15 additional tracks on top of the main album’s 16 tracks.
With this unexpected double album drop, she has proved—once again—that she truly is a mastermind of musical surprises.
The release of The Tortured Poets Department has been a long time coming for both Swifties and critics alike. The album’s slated release was first unveiled in Taylor’s speech after her ‘Best Pop Vocal Album’ Grammy win for Midnights on 4 Feb 2024. Marked by muted tones of sepia and grey, on top of poetic imagery that surrounds the 5 stages of grief, speculation about its content and themes has run rampant ever since.
Now that the day has come, here are the track titles:
If you’re anything of a Swiftie, you should be familiar with the fact that Taylor Swift has a penchant for dropping ‘easter eggs‘ that jab at upcoming albums before their announcements and releases.
These are found in just about every medium — from her music videos to social media posts, to even her demeanour. Every movement of hers is deliberate, to say the very least.
In fact, the release of The Anthology may not have been as much of a surprise as it seems. The first reference to it dates back to as early as the very first TTPD Grammy announcement, during which Taylor threw out a ‘suspicious’ peace sign, which would eventually become a recurring motif. As it turns out, it meant ‘2’ all along — representing the double album drop and the 2am release of The Anthology.
The week leading up to the release of The Tortured Poets Department has been nothing short of chaotic — a word that Taylor herself has referenced multiple times throughout the past few months.
Several noteworthy easter eggs that have popped up include:
- QR codes in selected locations that revealed a letter each when scanned, forming the phrase ‘For A Fortnight’, referencing the title track Fortnight.
- Daily Apple Music word searches that formed the sentence: We Hereby Conduct This Post Mortem.
- A TTPD pop-up display in collaboration with Spotify in Los Angeles with knick-knacks abound that have been the subject of much sleuthing.
Well, Swifties, it looks like the torture is over. It’s time to have all 31 new tracks on loop this weekend, or forever (in my case).
