Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department review: Irresistible, country-hued tales of relationships past and present
by The Independent
The Independent— With its playful narratives and hooks like anchors, Swift’s 11th studio album is a terrific reminder of her storytelling powers
Daily Mail—Taylor Swift the hypocrite? Singer slams 'gossips' who examine her relationships on How Did It End? despite reflecting on past romances for The Tortured Poets Department. Taylor is known for her honest and clever lyrics often linking to the ends of her high-profile romances, with critics hailing the project her 'most personal yet.'
The New Yorker—Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” Reviewed. This month, Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department,” her eleventh studio album. She has now reached a level of virtuosity within her genre that feels nearly immutable—she’s too practiced, too masterly, to swing and really miss. But “The Tortured Poets Department” suffers from being too long (two hours after it was released, Swift announced a second disk, bringing the total number of tracks to thirty-one) and too familiar. Swift co-wrote most of the record with Jack Antonoff and with Aaron...
The A.V. Club—Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department is stuck in the past. Taylor Swift has cultivated a daunting amount of lore to sift through. The casual fan doesn’t need to know the entire backstory to enjoy The Tortured Poets Department, the artist’s 11th album, but do casual fans of Taylor Swift even exist anymore? Over the past three years, she’s gone from megafamous to ultrafamous to something we may not even have words for yet, accumulating yet more fans who are here, not just for the music, but for the full Taylor Swift Experience. That includes the romance,...