SINGAPORE – A little more than a year ago, the pop culture world was struck by a cataclysmic headline: “Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have reportedly broken up after six years together.”
Major news outlets and social media immediately ran with the news, publishing theories, think-pieces and timelines about the American pop star and her now-former British actor beau.
It is likely that April 2024 will not be much different, as the 34-year-old singer-songwriter drops her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), on streaming services and retail stores at noon (Singapore time) on April 19.
Given Swift’s penchant for biographical songwriting, many are expecting TTPD to “spill the tea” – that is, shed some gossipy light – on her now-defunct relationship with Alwyn, 33.
Swift developed a reputation early in her career for immortalising even short-lived romances in smash-hit songs. She may have dated American actor Jake Gyllenhaal for only a few months at the end of 2010, but the experience gave rise to one of her most beloved and enduring tracks among fans: All Too Well, from the album Red (2012).
As such, many expect that TTPD will at best be a break-up album and at worst a diss record, as six years with Alwyn would surely have given Swift enough fodder to go fully “scorched earth”.
The couple were first linked in the press in May 2017, but both parties largely kept mum about their relationship over the years.
In a 2019 interview, Swift declared that it was not “up for discussion”. Nevertheless, much of the music she wrote after meeting Alwyn suggested that she had finally settled into a long-term romantic partnership.
As she sang on the 2019 track Lover: “All’s well that ends well to end up with you.”
But after the surprise announcement of TTPD on the Grammys stage on Feb 4 while receiving the award for Best Pop Vocal Album for her last album Midnights (2022), Swift seemed to accept and even invite speculation on the split.
“All’s fair in love and poetry,” she declared in a handwritten letter she posted on Instagram. Accompanying it was the moody and sensual album cover, which features Swift reclining on a bed, her body seemingly clad in lingerie and her face cropped from the eyes up.
A little more than a week later, Swift told fans during her The Eras Tour concert in Melbourne, Australia: “Songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life.
“I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.”
The tracklist for TTPD, encompassing 16 main songs and four bonus songs spread across four special-edition variants, has already sent fans into a flurry of theories and conspiracies – along with a teaser lyric revealed on April 14.
The lyric, from an as-yet-unidentified track, seems to be a paean to a doomed love: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”
Singaporean Swiftie Affiq Rahim tells The Straits Times: “Based solely on song titles such as My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys, I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), and I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, we already know that she may directly address the subject of her (relationship with Alwyn).”
The 27-year-old project manager adds: “This fact alone makes TTPD highly anticipated because that relationship was so private.”
On April 17, Swift posted a video on Instagram revealing the first stage of a so-called “TTPD timetable”. It revealed one juicy detail: that a music video will be released on April 20 at 8am (Singapore time), with more “goodies” forthcoming in the days after.
Social media is also buzzing about two different TTPD activations under way in the United States – a mural in Chicago with a mysterious QR code, and a pop-up library in Los Angeles arranged by music streaming service Spotify.
Singapore Swifties have also been invited to stop by a launch party (str.sg/aF22) organised by the SG Swifties fan group and Singapore Sports Hub. There are three sessions on April 20 that will run from noon till 5pm, each promising TTPD freebies and activities for attendees.
TTPD has already heralded a new “era of eras” for Swift by breaking certain traditions. Nine of her 10 albums have single-word titles, with the exception being her self-titled debut album from 2006.
For Singapore-based fans, TTPD is particularly special because it comes on the heels of Swift’s Eras Tour concerts in Singapore in early March.
“The post-concert depression is so real,” says 18-year-old student Jacqueline Ngor, who attended the opening night on March 2. “I am looking forward to camping out at a cafe with a friend once TTPD drops so we can listen to it.”
Ms Taylor Chia, a 27-year-old social media manager who attended the Eras Tour concert on March 3, adds: “I’m expecting this album to have me in my ‘feels’ for the rest of the year. I think she’s going to surprise us with something entirely different (from what she’s done before). If there are two things she excels at, it is showing range and always surprising her fans.”
From fan theories to Easter eggs, The Straits Times rounds up everything you need to know about the latest entry in Swift’s discography.
Who are the “tortured poets”?
The promotional materials for TTPD suggest an academic conceit, with Swift declaring herself the “chairman” of the eponymous department in her letter announcing the album.
That letter also makes reference to “my muses, acquired like bruises”.
In her song The Lakes, off her eighth album Folklore (2020), Swift references both poets and muses: “Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die… I’m setting off, but not without my muse.”
And in the Folklore: Long Pond Studio Sessions 2020 documentary film on Disney+, Swift spoke about visiting the Lake District in northern England, presumably with then boyfriend Alwyn. She also highlighted how British Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and John Keats spent a great deal of time there.
As for being “tortured”, Swifties dug up a Variety: Actors On Actors video from December 2022, featuring Alwyn and Irish actor Paul Mescal.
Though the discussion was supposed to focus on their individual acting careers, the duo begin the conversation by mentioning a group chat they are both in – apparently named the “Tortured Man Club”. No further details were given, other than that Irish actor Andrew Scott is also a member.
Will “sepia academia” be the next aesthetic trend?
Swift has become known for separating her albums into musical eras, each with its own distinct sound, narrative and aesthetic. If the narrative of TTPD is that of a tortured poet, the aesthetic seems to fall in line with “sepia academia”.
The cover art for the main album and its four variants are all coloured in sepia tones, while Swift’s letter announcing TTPD was formatted in the vein of a university memo, coffee-cup stains and all.
Fans have already started selling their own bootleg TTPD merchandise emblazoned with images of typewriters, quills and books.
What do the four variant covers mean?
Similar to her releases of Folklore (2020), Midnights (2022) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023), Swift will be releasing multiple variant packages of TTPD in both vinyl and CD.
The four here are dubbed The Manuscript Edition, The Bolter Edition, The Albatross Edition and The Black Dog Edition – the last of which she announced during her second Singapore Eras Tour concert on March 3.
Each variant features a different front and back cover, and contains one bonus track – The Manuscript, The Bolter, The Albatross and The Black Dog respectively.
The Manuscript Edition can be ordered on Universal Music Singapore’s online store (str.sg/MoKr). There is no information yet about whether the other variants will be stocked here or at other retail stores.
Social worker Grace Arthur, 37, is particularly curious about The Albatross edition and its eponymous bonus track.
“The albatross is a white bird with black wings,” says the Swiftie. “Taylor wore a white dress with black gloves to this year’s Grammys. Plus, albatrosses reportedly can stay in the ocean for six years before returning to land, and Taylor dated Joe for six years. It’s almost like she is referring to herself flying away.”
Was Clara Bow the Taylor Swift of 1920s Hollywood?
Swift has proven herself more than capable of dabbling in biographical songwriting – not just about herself, but also other real-life women.
For example, Marjorie, off the album Evermore (2020), was about her maternal grandmother Marjorie Finlay, an American opera singer. And The Last Great American Dynasty, off Folklore (2020), told the story of American socialite Rebekah Harkness, who previously owned Swift’s Rhode Island mansion.
In TTPD, the historical woman in the spotlight appears to be Clara Bow, the American actress who rose to prominence in Hollywood during the silent film era of the 1920s.
Bow, who died in 1965 at the age of 60, had been labelled as America’s original “It Girl”, thanks to her role in the film It (1927), playing a young woman whose magnetic personality and good looks give her the mercurial “it” factor.
British newspaper The Guardian notes in a 2016 article that “Bow became a hugely popular actor, and, in tabloid-speak, a notorious wild child”.
Her romantic life was a popular point of discussion. She was considered to be “brazen” because, in negotiating her contract with film studio Paramount, she managed to get it to exclude the morality clause that her colleagues had to abide by.
These morality clauses gave film studios carte blanche to control their actors – for instance, by forbidding them from engaging in so-called “deviant” behaviour, such as homosexuality or having children out of wedlock.
Despite her turbulent personal life, Bow was a successful actor, appearing in four dozen silent films and even a few speaking ones.
Nevertheless, as reported in The Guardian, “Bow was snubbed by the in-crowd, and for years after her heyday, she would be nudged out of history.”
Ms Arthur surmises: “She was the ‘It’ girl of her times and her personal life was picked apart by the media, just like (Swift’s). The way Clara Bow was forgotten also reflects some of Taylor’s fears that she has spoken about before, regarding her legacy and the idea that people might forget or move on from her.”
So Long, London Boy?
Another track that many are anticipating is So Long, London, the fifth song on TTPD’s track list.
Ms Arthur says that she expects it to be the saddest track on TTPD. “I think it will be the opposite of London Boy from (the 2019 album) Lover, which was joyful and full of her favourite memories with Joe in London. I suspect So Long, London will be a goodbye to that city, and also a goodbye to the relationship she shared with that person.”
London Boy is a whimsical track about falling in love with not just a British person, but also his home town of London and the way of life there. It includes such lines as, “They say, ‘home is where the heart is’, but, God, I love the English”.
So Long, London’s numerical position within TTPD is another hint that it will be as devastating as its title suggests.
“I started to put the songs that were really honest, emotional, vulnerable and personal as track five,” Swift once said, after fans noticed that the fifth tracks of her albums were often the most hard-hitting – for instance, All Too Well off Red (2012), My Tears Ricochet off Folklore (2020) and Dear John off Speak Now (2010).
Will TTPD be part of the Eras Tour?
Having wrapped up her Asia-Pacific leg of the Eras Tour in Singapore on March 9, Swift is now on a break, taking island holidays and hitting music festivals like Coachella with her boyfriend of less than a year, American football star Travis Kelce, 34.
But she will return to the Eras Tour stage on May 9 in Paris, France, to kick off a whirlwind Europe leg that will see her perform 51 shows in the continent over the summer, with the entire tour ending in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec 8.
One hot topic of discussion among Swifties is if and how TTPD will be represented on this tour, which has a fixed set list covering nine eras.
Swift has largely avoided television appearances and interviews in recent years, and is thus not expected to do much in the way of promotion for her new record, especially since she has just three weeks to rest before going back on tour.
Ms Ngor suggests that the acoustic set, where Swift performs one “surprise song” each on the guitar and piano, will be the easiest place to slot in TTPD tracks. These songs are chosen from across all 10 of her eras.
Recently, including at the six Singapore gigs, Swift has taken to “mashing up” two seemingly random tracks into one surprise song.
“I think she’s bound to play at least a couple of songs from TTPD (in the acoustic set),” says Ms Ngor. “It would be interesting if she did a mash-up of London Boy and So Long, London.”
A recent discussion on Reddit, where the Taylor Swift community has more than two million members, saw some fans suggest that Swift would rework the Eras Tour set list to incorporate TTPD, removing and adding songs as needed.
One commented that American pop star Beyonce released her fifth studio album Beyonce in December 2013 in the middle of The Mrs Carter Show World Tour, which was on a scheduled break from September 2013 to February 2014. The set list was subsequently reworked to include new materials.
Or perhaps Swift will emulate her close friend and frequent collaborator, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, by performing smaller gigs alongside a larger stadium tour.
Sheeran, 33, brought his Mathematics tour to Singapore’s National Stadium on Feb 16, performing to a 60,000-strong crowd. He took the stage again the next day – but for under 1,000 fans at the intimate Capitol Theatre, with a focus on tracks from his latest album Subtract (2023).
Likewise, Swift once performed an intimate one-off gig in Paris in September 2019, to promote Lover (2019).
Nevertheless, as one Reddit community member points out, fans can only wildly speculate at Swift’s next move. “I don’t know what to expect of this woman because I can be here theorising all day, but she can do whatever she wants at this point.”
But one thing is for sure. When the self-proclaimed chairman of the tortured poets department calls her first meeting to order on April 19, Swifties, popheads and millions of curious bystanders will be listening.
Stacked Pop Girl Spring
Taylor Swift is arguably the biggest “main pop girlie” in the world right now, but the other queens of the music world are not resting on their laurels. The Straits Times rounds up the bounty of major recent and upcoming releases from Swift’s female peers in 2024.
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft (May 17)
American musical prodigy Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, her frequent collaborator, have already had a rewarding start to 2024 with their second Oscar win for Best Original Song, for the Barbie (2023) track What Was I Made For.
The successes are only set to continue with their third studio album, which has been described by her record label as “bending genres and defying trends”.
Eilish, 22, recently criticised how many musicians – including herself – have looked to boost sales by loading so-called “limited edition” variants with exclusives. Accordingly, variants for Hit Me Hard And Soft will all contain the same tracks and be made using 100 per cent recyclable materials.
Dua Lipa – Radical Optimism (May 3)
The British-Albanian singer-songwriter’s third release comes four years after she dropped her second album, Future Nostalgia, right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Thanks to two catchy lead singles, Houdini and Training Season, anticipation is already at a fever pitch for this record.
The 28-year-old has described Radical Optimism as inspired by the idea of “going through chaos gracefully and feeling like you can weather any storm”.
Sia – Reasonable Woman (May 3)
The Australian singer-songwriter’s relevance is debatable, given the middling response to her ninth album Music (2021), which was accompanied by the critical and commercial movie bomb of the same name starring Kate Hudson and Maddie Ziegler.
But given that hit singles such as Chandelier and Cheap Thrills are still well-played – the latter reportedly averages 300,000 streams on Spotify daily – there is much curiosity about whether Reasonable Woman will be a return to form.
Beyonce – Cowboy Carter (March 29)
“Queen Bey” wrapped up her popular Renaissance World Tour concerts in October, but she is already back in the saddle with new music. Her sudden foray into country might be surprising to some, given that she has generally kept to the pop and R&B genres.
But the 42-year-old American music icon was born and raised in Houston, Texas, so the country styling of her eighth studio album Cowboy Carter is a homecoming of sorts.
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts (Spilled) (March 22)
The 21-year-old American released her second album, Guts, in September 2023. Guts (Spilled) is the deluxe edition, featuring five bonus tracks, including her latest single Obsessed.
Alongside Rodrigo’s ongoing Guts World Tour concerts, the beefed-up offering has helped the Gen Z pop princess stay firmly at the forefront of the pop culture conversation.
Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine (March 8)
American pop star Grande, 30, did not exactly kick off 2024 with good press. Her new relationship with her co-star Ethan Slater from the musical movie Wicked (2024) was plagued with rumours of infidelity and home-wrecking.
Nevertheless, her seventh studio album Eternal Sunshine has topped charts around the world.
As Grande sings on her lead single, Yes, And?, “now I’m so done with caring what you think… no, I won’t hide underneath your own projections or change my most authentic life”.
Lana Del Rey – Lasso (September 2024)
Country-pop crossovers seem to be trendy right now, with American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey also planning to drop her foray into the genre in September with her 10th album, Lasso.
“If you can’t already tell by our award winners and our performers, the music business is going country. We’re going country. It’s happening,” said the 38-year-old at an event in January.
She had previously dabbled in “country waters” through covers of genre classics such as John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads.
Charlie XCX – Brat (2024)
The English singer-songwriter, known for tracks such as Boom Clap and Fancy, has increasingly shifted away from pop towards a more experimental sound.
But Brat’s lead single Von Dutch promises catchy electronic-pop and dance-pop vibes for the 31-year-old’s sixth album. An exact release date has yet to be announced.
- Additional reporting by Cherie Lok
