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Taylor Swift was already probably the most ubiquitous pop star within the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the live performance calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys.
Then it got here time for her to advertise a brand new album.
In the times main as much as the discharge of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift turned all however inescapable, on-line and seemingly in every single place else. Her lyrics had been the idea for an Apple Music phrase recreation. A Spotify-sponsored, Swift-branded “library set up,” in muted pink and grey, popped up in a purchasing advanced in Los Angeles. In Chicago, a QR code painted on a brick wall directed followers to a different Easter egg on YouTube. Videos on Swift’s social media accounts, exhibiting vintage typewriters and globes with pins, had been dissected for clues about her music. SiriusXM added a Swift radio station; after all it’s referred to as Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version).
About the one factor Swift didn’t do was an interview with a journalist.
At this stage in Swift’s profession, an album launch is greater than only a second to promote music; it’s all however a on condition that “The Tortured Poets Department” will open with gigantic gross sales numbers, lots of them for “ghost white,” “phantom clear” and different collector-ready vinyl variants. More than that, the album’s arrival is a take a look at of the celebrity-industrial advanced total, with tech platforms and media shops racing to seize no matter piece of the fan frenzy they will get.
Threads, the newish social media platform from Meta, primed Swifties for his or her idol’s arrival there, and supplied followers who shared Swift’s first Threads publish a customized badge. Swift surprised the music trade final week by breaking ranks together with her document label, Universal, and returning her music to TikTok, which Universal and different trade teams have mentioned pays far too little in royalties.
Swift additionally revealed that her first music video for the album — for “Fortnight,” the primary single, that includes Post Malone — would arrive on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
“The Tortured Poets Department,” which Swift, 34, introduced in a Grammy acceptance speech in February — she had the Instagram publish able to go — lands as Swift’s profile continues to rise to ever-higher ranges of cultural saturation.
Her Eras Tour, begun final yr, has been a world phenomenon, crashing Ticketmaster and lifting native economies; by some estimates, it’d herald as a lot as $2 billion in ticket gross sales — by far a brand new document — earlier than it ends later this yr. Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce has been breathlessly tracked from its first flirtations final summer season to their smooch on the Super Bowl subject in February. The mere thought that Swift may endorse a presidential candidate this yr despatched conspiracy-minded politicos reeling.
“The Tortured Poets Department” — don’t even ask concerning the lacking apostrophe — arrives accompanied by a poem written by Stevie Nicks that begins, “He was in love together with her/Or no less than she thought so.” That establishes what many followers appropriately anticipated because the album’s theme of heartbreak and relationship rot, Swift’s signature subject. “I really like you/It’s ruining my life,” she sings on “Fortnight.”
Fans had been particularly primed for the fifth observe, “So Long, London,” on condition that (1) Swift has mentioned she typically sequences her most weak and emotionally intense songs fifth on an LP, and (2) the title advised it could be about Joe Alwyn, the English actor who was Swift’s boyfriend for about six years, reportedly till early 2023. Indeed, “So Long” is an epic breakup tune, with traces like “You left me on the home by the heath” and “I’m pissed off you let me provide you with all that youth free of charge.” Tracks from the album leaked on Wednesday, and followers have additionally interpreted some songs as being about Matty Healy, the frontman of the band the 1975, whom Swift was briefly linked to final yr.
The album’s title tune begins with a basic Swift element of a memento from a misplaced love: “You left your typewriter at my house/Straight from the tortured poets division.” It additionally name-drops Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and, considerably surprisingly on condition that firm, Charlie Puth, the singer-songwriter who crooned the hook on Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” a No. 1 hit in 2015. (Swift has praised Wiz Khalifa and that tune previously.)
Other large moments embody “Florida!!!,” that includes Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, wherein Swift declares — after seven large percussive bangs — that the state “is one hell of a drug.” Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers and songwriters who’ve been Swift’s major collaborators in recent times, each labored on “Tortured Poets,” bringing their signature mixture of moody, pulsating digital tracks and delicate acoustic moments, like a naked piano on “Loml” (as in “love of my life”).
As the ninth LP Swift has launched in 5 years, “Tortured Poets” is the newest entry in a outstanding inventive streak. That contains 5 new studio albums and 4 rerecordings of her outdated music — every of which sailed to No. 1. When Swift performed SoFi Stadium close to Los Angeles in August, she spoke from the stage about her recording spurt, saying that the compelled break from touring through the Covid-19 pandemic had spurred her to attach with followers by releasing extra music.
“And so I made a decision, so as to hold that connection going,” she mentioned, “if I couldn’t play stay exhibits with you, I used to be going to make and launch as many albums as humanly potential.”
That was two albums in the past.
