So, I sat down to listen to the new Taylor Swift album a couple days ago, after all the hype had worn down so I could really get a good listen to it away from the court of public opinion. After seeing her live, albeit accidentally, I felt it might be quite nice to branch out a bit from my more alternative music habits and try out something that's a bit out of my comfort zone - and my god was it an experience. One that won't even have it's own breakdown because quite honestly, I don't think it needs one to get my opinion across. Let's talk The Tortured Poets Department.
This album, at its core, is a slew of half decent poetry laced with some of the worlds most boring and repetitious production I have ever heard. Swift has always been one for good lyrics, even I'll admit that I hold her in pretty high regard as having some brilliant lines in her older discography, and I admire her for her emotional honesty and vulnerability she shows through her music. However, this time around, every song was written in an oddly jarring way. Every apparently 'hard hitting' line was a serious misfire, with the title track full of these cliche and down right cringe lines:
'You smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate,
We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist'
I'm not one for unpacking lyrics - hell I couldn't unpack the meaning of something slapping me in the face, but that, as a lyric is just insane. I'd also argue Puth is a pretty huge artist, is he not? Pretty sure a couple huge songs everyone knows and the odd stadium tour make him sort of a household name...but I digress. Another one from the title track goes:
'At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger,
And put it on the one people put wedding rings on,
And that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding'
Rough. The lyrics seem painfully drawn out, overexplained and diluted to within an inch of their lives. The even slight amounts of subtlety that could have been found in her previous work has all but vanished in turn for this overexplained, and quite frankly jarring to listen to lyricism. Plus, the use of expletives feels a little gratuitous? I'm all for swears being a part of music, sure, if it warrants it I'm absolutely fine with the odd off the cuff cuss, but in a lot of songs on this record, especially 'Down Bad' and the consistent use of 'fuck it if I can't have...' really makes the use of it a bit redundant, and seem a touch childish, or used as a filler for things she can't be bothered to describe.
I think when that's one of the openers to an album you already kind of realise that this won't really be your thing. As the record grinded on, it continued to serve up the same lukewarm production, half baked lyrics, and equally ridiculous song titles. 'Fresh Out the Slammer' and 'But Daddy I Love Him' physically made me snort with laughter when they played, with their wording sounding like they come from a bootleg Disney movie, not a multi-Grammy winning artist.
The record is also potentially Swift's most inaccessible record to date. The washed out production and repetitive nature really make it difficult to get through, and along with the irritating synth-pop backdrop, you just can't sink your teeth into it when it all seemingly bleeds into itself at a sickening pace. You can smell the influence that Jack Antonoff has had on this record too - and yes I know he produced one or two of the tracks. From the arguably overproduced Being Funny in a Foreign Language you can hear that same disjointed and spacey sounds that worked for The 1975 but really don't help against Swift's soundscape. Every instrument sounds like it's being played from the other side of a very long tunnel, and instead of a rich scape of instruments, all you really get is some really loud bass and synth which dominates the mix to the point of nearly drowning out the vocals at some points.
Plus, it's over an hour long. I can't say I have the world's best attention span, but holy shit, with this 'stripped back' production, it really does feel like it goes on and on and on. I can only feel for some people who are going into the breach of the anthology edition, which spans another extra hour to be 2 and a bit in total.
But - it's not all negative. I didn't want to write a post just shitting on Taylor and there are a couple things in this record that I think are done really well. The production, although violently bleak and painfully noir at all points, does allow for some real introspective moments. It feels like a record that is chocked full of emotion, and really plays with that vulnerability, even though it can feel a little sparse at some points. Plus, bar the serious misfires littered across the hour span, there are some lyrics that have that signature flash of classic subtlety and story telling that I really admire. And, I'll give her her flowers for the opening track Fortnights which, along with a godsend of a Post Malone feature isn't all that bad.
I think a rework is in need for Swift if she plans on releasing another body of work, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. The ineffable effect of Jack Antonoff on the pop world is really noticable, and although sometimes this stylistic level works for some artists, for others it just creates albums that are boring on first listen, and take replay after replay to really grasp where they come from. This record is one of those, and really makes you think that if the production was more tangible, and the songs had some real breadth to their sound, this could have been a brilliant record. But, alas, it's just not. Songs feel sparse and lacklustre, the lyricism, although sometimes shatteringly honest, seems to fall flat on almost all accounts. It's a bit of a nothing record, and when that stretches on for an hour, I really don't blame a lot of people for giving up on it.
However, there are pro's. I like that she's done a longer album, even though I won't be listening to it, for the real fans to really sink their teeth into. I like that the lyrics have moved away a little from the pop-esque one dimensional stuff some of her earlier work had. I just think this album needed some more time, and some better production, to really achieve it's full potential, and sadly, it just didn't. I won't be revisiting this one, and hope at sometime soon, we get something a little more agreeable from an artist we all expected a little more from.
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