The Complacent Poets Department | Taylor Swift's 11th Album Review
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2024
- Today we mourn the bank accounts of Taylor Swift’s fans that preordered “The Tortured Poets Department” and then received 17 songs that all sound the same. We also mourn them because Taylor pulled a fast one and released a longer version of the album, with 31 songs. Our Billion Dollar Princess is really out here trying to outmoney us all! I genuinely feel bad for Taylor’s fans, because she really only sees them and uses them as a way to become richer. Through her music, she nurtures this parasocial relationship that her fans have with her, thinking they are her best friends, but also protectors, thinking they have this special bond with her. Taylor preys on the younger demographics - instead of growing up with her audience, she always reaches lower and lower in age to impress the most impressionable of people. It’s very sinister to be honest, constantly targeting sad teenagers and building your legacy on them ruining the most carefree periods of their lives, by encouraging this obsession they have with you. Also, who has the time to listen to all 31 songs? In ONE SITTING? IN THIS ECONOMY? I HAVE A JOB!! At least Beyonce’s album was fascinatingly bad, this is boring and bad.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro: Tortured Bank Accounts
02:40 - "Fortnight" (feat. Post Malone)
03:40 - "The Tortured Poets Department"
04:12 - "My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys"
04:21 - "Down Bad"
05:22 - "So Long, London"
06:22 - "But, Daddy, I Love Him"
08:06 - "Fresh Out the Slammer"
08:36 - "Florida!!!" (feat. Florence Welch)
09:19 - "Guilty as Sin?"
09:52 - "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"
10:32 - "I Can Fix Him (No I Really Can)"
11:02 - "loml"
11:31 - "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart"
12:22 - "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"
13:13 - "The Alchemy"
13:49 - "Clara Bow"
14:47 - "The Black Dog"
14:58 - "imgonnagetyouback"
16:02 - "The Albatross"
17:08 - "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"
17:54 - "How Did It End"
18:19 - "So High School"
19:09 - "I Hate It Here"
19:26 - "thanK you aIMee"
21:22 - "I Look in People's Windows"
21:46 - "The Prophecy"
22:19 - "Cassandra"
22:47 - "Peter"
23:30 - "The Bolter"
23:44 - "Robin"
23:58 - "The Manuscript"
24:38 - Outro: A Confused and Confusing Mess
In TTPD it feels like Taylor has rehashed all her 'old wounds.' She has talked about Matty Healy, Joe Alwyn, Kim, Harry Styles (speculative). It just feels like she wants her fans to be invested in her personal life and wants the swifties to shit on any one who has 'wronged' her as a strategy to remain relevant.
I respect her art. I do consider myself a swiftie but listening TTPD feels like I'm invading in people's privacy. I just don't want to hear her rant about another guy when his social influence is much lesser than hers and he can't defend himself. I don't want to hear a one sided account of a breakup.
i am a taylor fan, even a stan i would say. but im not a teenager anymore and i can separate my bias from recognizing an actual good work, and after listening to the first half of the album i was so bored i havent even hear the other half, i sadly have to agree with most of your criticism and i hope she comes back with a better work. this just feels like a very pretentious and try hard attempt at being profund and mysterious
Lana Del Rey: Temu version 😂
This is what it looks like when a person goes "Hey that aesthetic is cool. That's me now"
It is completely disingenuous and fake
I like your critique. I felt like I heard the same Song 10 Times, but with diffrent Lyriks. I liked some songs but for me the most sounds kinda the same.
Я даже не смогла дослушать. Три песни последние не слушала, даже не особо интересно что там.
"I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of this bitching and whining.- Taylor Swift, essentially writing my exact review of her new album.
I just finished the torturous new Taylor Swift album. It is the first time I have ever hated an album from Taylor Swift. It is over 2 hours consisting of 31 songs that never change pace, all mid-tempo ballads with thumping bass, sickening overuse of synths and tinkling pianos - think Lana del Rey. They never venture into anything besides, "woe is me, the poor heartbroken billionaire." Every song.
I LOVE many Taylor Swift albums (Fearless, Speak Now, Lover and Folklore) and I've liked pretty much all the rest. Not this one. I've heard it's a grower. Too bad for me, because I'm not ever listening to it again.
Disclaimer: I have been a Taylor Swift fan since long before it was cool for middle aged men (so long, it was before I became middle aged) to be Swifties and I have a 16 year+ listening history to prove it. So, don't come at me like I don't know what I'm talking about. Thanks!
i couldn’t even continue listening to this album because of how bad the first few songs were. she really needs to get a reality check.
I completely agree. This album is super disappointing as a whole. I like some songs but I will never listen to this album from beginning to end again. Honestly, I feel like she was better off writing a book of poetry instead because with the weak production and mostly melodically lacking, what is the point of putting music to it?
The funny thing is Taylor copied rhe kpop formula of marketing and catered it to the american palette. She exploited on the parasocial aspect of her marketing by Joe-baiting the rabid section of the swifties and settled for giving us a meeh follow up to the genius of evermore, folklore and midnights. Now this right here is what greedy looks like
Thank you for putting all of this into words!!
Joe-baiting? Did you mean jebaiting?
To be honest, for me, a person who got hooked for Taylor back in 'Lover' era, every release of hers was exciting, always giving me something to lean on or giving earworms that I couldn't get out of my head (fucking "Don't You"...), and Midnights was really great album. Unlike Tortured Poets, Midnights is cohesive on its standard track listing, it has a very well-put layout of songs, which makes sense, maybe except last four, but we could attach it to the concept of sleepless nights, just spitting some random things that comes to your mind. But Tortured Poets doesn't sound fresh or exciting. Even Evermore was more exciting to listen to, even though it's a fucking folk record! Imagine giving more hooks and memorable production choices on your second dive into the same style, when Tortured Poets is a fucking mess, even worse than Red. At least Red was stated to be this messy record with weird genre choices sprinkled out, when Tortured Poets was presented as not only artful effort, but also her most sexual one based on cover art?
The music of Tortured Poets is a blend of the same exact synths used on 1989 (Taylor's Version) and production choices of Folklore/Evermore era. It doesn't have the thrill of something new, and when you make a record that it has basically the same sound of your last few efforts which were drastically different from each other, but just combined to one listen, it doesn't sound cohesive. Maybe if she would think of better layout for this tracks, giving this album some kind of pace...but instead we got record where we are introduced with a Folklore-sounding song followed by something straight out of 1989, that's not how you should make tracklistings.
My biggest problem with Tortured Poets is the fact that I know nothing about it. Midnights made me replay so hard, but this one is just boring. And the only moment I can really remember from it is where she yells "Florida!!!", and that's kinda bad for a pop album. She just played it safe, made the record combining her previous soundscapes into one, so she could place new songs in playlists with noone noticing that something's actually new, since there is literally no track that stands out of her discography. Maybe besides this song titles, but it also makes it worse to me, since there are some bizzare track names, and like five bonus songs are just regular names..."Betty" and "Dorothea" had at least interesting narrative (and the former one also is a fucking banger), but they were placed on albums with the focus on the stories, and that's something I just don't feel from Tortured Poets.
I agree with everything you said
i love how you are very honest and smart! its nice to have someone sane among us (i say that as a swiftie, trust me, i see bullshit every day)
i LOVED some of the songs on the album. (i do disagree with you on some...ok a LOT of your comments however,) but there were 31 of them and maybe half of them felt like they shouldnt have been released and were only released to make a big headline. the prophecy, peter, how did it end?, i look in peoples windows, the manuscript, so high school, and albatross were the ones that stuck with me from the anthology when i was in a zoned out, tired, 2am haze. i think it wouldve made a bigger impact to wait two days (to follow the 2 theme) to give everyone a chance to settle with the og album. THEN release maybe a deluxe with NOT FIFTEEN more songs. maybe like five more or something. fifteen is quite literally a whole new album. anyway, the reason there's only two love songs about travis is cause she started the album two years ago, right as her 6 year relationship started to fall apart. i think she was depressed and probably needs to go to therapy.
tell me you’re a swiftie without telling me you’re a swiftie
@@mizasonn why else would i be watching a review on it? i admit, it’s not her best album. i felt tired listening to it. but there are definitely some good songs in there that i loved! there were also some songs i could DEFINITELY live without.
Fortnight looks too much like real hero by college. It is like making up a melody tonthat somg. Florence makes taylors voice soumd shallow because florences voice has depth. The melodies are toontypically taylor. And the electronics soumd generic, its backgroumusic.
If they find you my baby..I have your back. Wonderful review as always. Those of us who are lucky enough to KNOW you, know you approach each album, regardless of artist, as openly as possible
This new album is horribly depressing! Also the music video with Post Malone video.
Not you using the picture of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (an actual 'tortured' poet) for the second track.
I'm glad to see you active on both of your channels, it's refreshing to hear your take because I think it's removed from the 'stan culture' and social media side of things. I like some of the songs of the album but let's be honest, this is the safest album she could've released.
Anyways, looking forward for your new content. Saludos de un seguidor mexicano! 🇲🇽
The worst thing you can be labeled as in the entertainment industry is “boring”. This album has it in spades.
It starts out slow and then just fizzles out altogether.
this album sounds like shift just quickly finished a bunch of reject songs from 1989 and Folklore
Man, good for you on making yourself the #1 enemy of both the Swifties and Drag Race Fans. What a versatile father lmao!
heyyy! just came from your analysis of konstrakta's in corpore sano, and i'm requesting to maybe do a review of lithuania 2022? it's my fav and it's just so goooood. also, maybe an esc 2022 review and ranking?
Tragic poets is not one of Taylor's better albums in terms of catchy tunes but despite its tragic title it is a very mellow and relaxing album I love listening to this album later at night with it's dreamy quality is really good for relaxing and sleeping
Lmao the clara bow bit. The black dog is good.
Can you make a video about brat by Charli XCX? I genuinely think it's one of the best produced albums in the last few years
I am not her fan, at least I wouldn't call myself a stan but did some good listening and deep dive into this. I agree musically it's monotone and I also get tired of the victim pov story telling, but after later some listens I think the this pov could be very comforting at least momentarily for people going through an intense heartbreak after a tumultuous love. I think the theme of Clara Bow can be more interesting criticizing the entertainment business for discarding women who aren't young and easily impressionable anymore. I personally think gettinghimback is less of a Olivia reference but more a reference to the song fallingforyou since there are some lyrical parralels as well. In total I found it mostly interesting cause its so emotionally raw but I don't know if I can listen to this regularly
i agree with everything you said in the intro
Oh its soo sad she gets rich by working hard soo bad
"Oh no people are making fun of my white nubian queen I must simp now"
No offence but as a swifite I don't think she really worked too hard to make this album since she has been so busy I feel like she didn't put lot of effort which is why lot of people find it lacking
She is naturally a talented songwriter so she can write so many songs naturally without much effort but that doesn’t mean her work doesn’t need to be curated and polished. There’s so many unreleased songs of hers that I got to listen online and they were okay. they were unreleased for obvious reasons. However for this album, since she has more freedom under this current label and also because she’s a billionaire and has such a strong fan base to the point that they would support whatever crap that is out of her, she decided to release all these half baked songs into the wild knowing they would sell anyway. So here’s what we got 🤷
you're very pessimistic about taylors relationship with her fans but i agree that her capitalistic tendancies are absolutely a horseman of the apocolapse lol. I get your take but i feel like you just don't enjoy the genre of he music shes making, especailly becuase of how dependant this album is on her "lore". for example, but daddy i love him went straight over your head but obviously it did becuase it about what swifties were mad about on twitter last year. loved the video the grayscale photos made me lose it every time lol
I would've accepted your critique if it came from an intellectual viewpoint or if it came from a geniune dislike of the music with some arguments from your viewpoint but you're out here villifying an artist for trying to be a commercial artist which isn't fair, as that's the game to be relevant. I do not believe swifties think Taylor is their best friend, I think overall they think she's a good person that makes music they can relate to. It's ok not to like her music, but to straight out say she's some evil person manipulating her fans, that's a stretch and not a valid argument sorry.
You don’t need to be a scholar to be a critique and if you watched the video you would see he is a fan of Taylor
Also, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart is SO similar to Lorde’s Supercut
Try again weak views. Youre welcome!
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter is amazing tortured listeners boring