I’m listening to “The Tortured Poets Department” this Friday afternoon. I give it a 7/10. Maybe a 6/10. The album is OK if you want mild background sounds, but it’s certainly not up-beat dance happy music. Swift uses co-writers for the filler tracks, but the one good song was written solely by her, and her ability shines through on that one track.
The album opens with seven songs of sameness, including the title track: all rhythmic hum-singing. Then we have two songs with pretty, exploding drum sounds. We then get the one song of real emotion. Good going, Swift! To close the album (“most of side B”?), from tracks 11 to 16, there are only one or two standout chord progressions in #13, #14, and #15, and the rest is throaty hum-singing over swelling violin sameness. The whole album is held back by the sameness of the rhythmic hum-singing, though with adequate story-telling in the lyrics, as always. (Great album title, by the way!)
The album opens with seven songs of 1980s synth breathy talk-singing/ rhythmic hum-singing with extra breath, over synths + a drum beat, laid down over the Moroder click. No real singing, no real range. Very dreamy and Moog chords and floating electric organ arpeggios, arpeggios up and down, play each note in the chord, over the drum machine click, with her breathy voice musically talking over the beat. She has moved on from, say, Nashville country music in 2006 to now 1980s London in 2024. I’m sure she just took her Roland TR-808 into the studio and started to talk musically overtop the beat. Maybe a simple electric piano for the odd extra sound effect or two, one desktop computer with a nice MIDI sound card for mixing, et voilà! An album! I think the TR-808 can do all that on its own, actually. With a good microphone, my 5-year-old and I could do this album with our home electric piano, I’d reckon.
She builds her songs very well. I don’t know if that’s her or her producer(s). Begin with a simple verse, voice only, pauses in the beat. Hold the drums until the second verse. Or hold the bass until the second or third verse to increase tension. Or add the drums in the runup to the first chorus. Each of the 16 songs builds in the same pattern: mellow opening verse, a bit more tension in the second verse, pull it back in verse three, more intense drums and/or arpeggios in verse four… but no song then actually explodes into a great musical climax in, say, verse five (except for #10). Each song just ends with increased intensity in verse three or four, with no chord explosion of satisfaction. They just mellow CUT! fade out and the song ends. Maybe with a coda of breathy voice. Fade to black.
Her lyrics have always been very simple. Boy meets girl. Girl likes boy. I love you. I hate you. I broke up with you. You broke up with me, and I still love you. Like a high school or an undergrad 20something drama. The subjects of her lyrics are remarkably pedestrian, indeed, conservative (except for the subject of #10). I think that shows her country roots. Her lyrics are like a simple version of Olivia Rodrigo lyrics; an Olivia Rodrigo without the great story telling.
She included more swear words than usual. Well, she is 34-years-old now, and this is her 11th studio album (2006-2024), so maybe a bit of cursing is allowable.
Track #8, “Florida!!!,” is the first song that has something new to it. It has a simplified version of the drum fill from “In the Air Tonight.” Again, I think Swift did this whole album on her 808. Track #9, “Guilty as Sin?” has a slide guitar in it. That’s a nice change. Perks up your ears. She has left 1980s London and has returned to Nashville for this song… but still with a Beyoncé/ Rihanna/ Gazelle/ Shakira drum machine. The slide guitar is kept in the background, like swelling violins.
Finally in track #10, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” I get to hear the Swift vocals we’ve all come to know and love. She belts it out like Whitney Houston doing the national anthem. Once. Twice That’s it. Build the song, build the song, hold it, hold it… then… BOOM! Who’s afraid of little old me? That’s three times. Bring in the snare roll. Damn, she’s good. At 5m34s, it’s also among the longer of Swift songs. Lyrics here are actually not just about boy meets girl, girl loves boy. Here she tells a personal story of herself, her mind, her emotions, what she has gone through mentally. Great lyrics. She lays it all on the line, slicing her wrists and letting it bleed across the seething crowd, driving drums, and it’s the best song of the album. Actual emotion. No rhythmic synth talking here, but actual songs… with a drum machine. It shows. She wrote this song herself. Many of the other songs on this album were co-written with Jack Antonoff, and they all sound the same. This song, though, written solely by Swift, is the best song of the album.
Track #13, “I can do it with a Broken Heart,” deserves an honorable mention. It’s almost a dance song. Lots of Moroder here. Lots of happy Kraftwerk here. Indeed, lots of Swift here. The Swift vocals, the Swift lyrical subjects (love, breakups, etc.), laid down on top of a poppy Mothersbaugh drum beat meets a Prince drum machine click with synth arpeggios. It gets the toes tapping, but, still, the breathy hum-talking holds it back, and then it just ends abruptly with no Lin-Manuel Miranda musical climax in verse five to wrap things up.
Wow! Track #14, “The Smallest Man who Ever Lived,” has momentum! It actually builds! I can hear Swift again. We have a swelling choir, a snare drum marching us forward, ever onward… but then it ends with a breathy sigh.
In sum, the first seven songs all sound the same. They’re all 4-4, 8-8, 16-16 time, a squared-off drum beat. (The whole album is in 4-4 time.) Indistinguishable. You can cut & paste choruses or verses or lyrics from song to song, like inverting a page of Bach sheet music, play it, and it still sounds put together.
There’s no song here that’s anywhere close to “Shake it Off” or close to “Cruel Summer,” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” is only about 66% or 75% of those two hits. This album is mostly mellow synth chords over a drum machine click, with only one or two spots of emotion to lift us up in the middle.
All in all, a 7/10. Maybe a 6/10.
Categories: Uncategorized
Gregory's Writings 
Leave a comment