Pitchfork Reviews TTPD, Gave It 6.6

[RAMROD 108,407]

 

In standard and extended editions, Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album races to fill the gap between her intimate songwriting and her increasingly outsized persona. It’s unruly, unedited, and even a little tortured.
 

The Tortured Poets Department, Swift’s 11th studio album, senses that widening gap between Taylor Swift the artist and Taylor Swift the phenomenon, and wants to fill it with a firehose of material. The burden of expectation is substantial: This is Swift’s first body of new work since the end of a years-long relationship and a pair of high-profile, whirlwind romances—one of which, with the 1975’s Matty Healy, appears to have provided much of the inspiration here. Fans came to Tortured Poetsseeking emotional catharsis, or at least the salacious details. Swift, it seems, wanted the comfort of familiarity. Returning to Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner, her primary songwriting and producing partners of the last several years, Swift picks up threads from Folk-more and Midnights without quite pulling anything loose.

Tortured Poets’ extended Anthology edition runs over two hours, and even in the abridged version, its sense of sprawl creeps down to the song level, where Swift’s writing is, at best, playfully unbridled and, at worst, conspicuously wanting for an editor. The winking title track—a joke about its subjects’ self-seriousness—makes fun of the performance of creative labor, which is funny, given the show that Swift is putting on herself. She piles the metaphors on thick, throws stuff at the wall even after something has stuck, picks up the things that didn’t stick and uses them anyway.

There is a clear emphasis here on vulnerability; it’s an effort to rub some of the varnish off of Taylor Swift the commercial product and focus on Taylor Swift the tender, unlucky romantic with whom we fell in love so many years ago. No matter her stature, Swift can still reach the everywoman. She is versed in memespeak: “Down Bad” works because of the juxtaposition between its banal hook and its description of “cosmic love”; the corporate girlies will go feral for “I cry a lot but I am so productive” (“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”). I can even get on board with the outlaw machinations of “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” if mostly for the lyrical backflip of its chorus: “They shook their heads saying, ‘God help her’ when I told ’em he’s my man/But your good Lord didn’t need to lift a finger/I can fix him, no really I can.”

If Swift believes that output for its own sake is what she has to offer, she underestimates her gift. Listeners who believe that her every ounce of experience is inherently interesting—because she was the one to have it—misunderstand her as well. Taylor Swift doesn’t need a whole album to tell the story of a relationship; she only needs one song, sometimes even one line. She almost has it in Tortured Poets’ title track, with the tossed-off brilliance of “We’re modern idiots.” She’s nearly there with the vignette, which needs a bit more burnishing, about her man slipping a ring from her middle to her eager left ring finger at dinner. You can see what she’s chasing here: the moment in time that triggers a flash of feeling that lasts forever—the sort of thing people call Swiftian. We’ve been students of Swift’s poetry for years. The lesson of The Tortured Poets Department is not to push through the pain—it’s to take the time to process it.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department-the-anthology/

[RAMROD 108,407]

This is her second lowest review by Pitchfork to date, the lowest is Reputation with 6.0

Her highest is orginal RED with a 9.00 & second highest is Red (TV) with 8.5

[Spartacus 4,485]

Cowboy Carter got 8.4 which of course means TTPD will win AOTY.

[Teletubby 146,785]

Anthology got a 6

 

[Rahrahbitchson 19,110]

Another 6 more and it would only expose the Illuminati tricks of this one!!

[clownery 6,142]

You can tell she paid Pitchfork because this album is a 4.0 at best and still will win AOTY

[Anderson123 38,011]

I'd fear for my life to be honest.

Olivia Horn:

 

[Levine 23,542]

Too generous.

[RenegAde 18,957]

We love a real review 

[GagaGame 3,594]

Tbh maximum 4. Hope the reviews show her that she can't put out music just for the bling when she is the biggest pop girl right now

[StarstruckIllusion 52,316]

Them thinking Chromatica is better… maybe we SHOULD call basement restoration services after all 

EDIT: Help

 

[Lucas 26,188]

Very generous, it's a 4 at best

[andy232000 11,232]

Saw a few swifties on twitter saying her and her team are probably scrambling trying to soften the blow, and that Taylor usually doesn’t share reviews on her stories but started to after the mixed/bad reviews started to come in. 

[4th Time Around 4,448]

Her second lowest score yet and it is still way too high

[River 114,846]

#64 Best Album of 2024