It’s a paradox that a stadium-filling superstar, amidst her Eras extravaganza, the highest-grossing tour of all time, unveils an album that defies her stadium Taylor Swift persona. The highly anticipated ‘Tortured Poets Department’ album sees Swift donning different masks. Those of the vengeful poet and the tragic queen coexist on this extensive album, which, with the Anthology, becomes a double album. It is over-long, and in parts, some songs would benefit from pruning, but is it surely her mistake to make.
Double Trouble
The juxtaposition of timelines and the emergence of two ex-boyfriends as male archetypes intrigue reviewers and fans alike. Factually speaking, this feels like two records – the B side of the much-loved Evermore album, which for non-Swifties was ‘the’ breakup album covering the aftermath of her British long-term beau and hoped-for husband, Joe Alwyn and here, more recent events.
There is a deep sadness in ‘So Long, London’, the bookend to the hopeful beginning of the affair with ‘London Boy’ from the Lovers album. Sweetly showing her delight in their new life when life was going well. ‘How did it end’, ‘I Look in People’s Windows’ and following ‘him’ to ‘the Black Dog’ public house, she wallows in her hurt as a 30s woman ending her hopes of a permanent life with someone. Swifties are now besieging an innocent public house in Vauxhall due to the association.
Chaos and revelry
One of the album’s most compelling themes is the exploration of the ‘chaos and revelry’ of falling for the ultimate bad-boy romance. Taylor’s considerable firepower is channelled against ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, a track that serves as a poignant narrative of her brief, intense affair with the English Matt Healey, the lead singer of the indie 1975 group. This track showcases Swift’s ability to document her experiences with total contempt for the charmer-turned-viper, leaving listeners captivated by the emotional rollercoaster she depicts. The album’s conclusion is bittersweet, as evidenced by ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys’ and ‘Fortnight’. The painful reality is that the ‘good girl, bad boy’ trope often has a hurtful ending, and this album’s exploration of that reality is both poignant and relatable.
The media rumpus that saintly Swift meets that bad boy generated is then lampooned in a series of meditations on fame and the cage it creates for female artists. From ‘Clara Bow’, who references an earlier IT girl, to ‘I Can Do it with a Broken Heart’, to the well-wishers telling her what to do in ‘But Daddy I Love Him’. There were many column inches were poured out about the pair and for a skin as thin as Taylor’s it obviously irritates her.
More column inches will be written but ‘thank you aIMee’, which many will attribute to the long-standing celebrity feud with Kim Kardashian, but the reality is more nuanced; it speaks of the universal, the schoolgirl being taken apart by her peers for wanting more than the small town. Many can empathise with the sentiment of:
‘And maybe you've reframed it.
And in your mind, you never beat my spirit black and blue.’
Universal Themes
Swift’s brilliance is her ability to take her story and make it universal. The geeky, well-read girl who ‘knows Aristotle’ growing up in small-town America and yearning for ‘somewhere where the culture is clever’ speaks to many. Those girly swots are devoted Swifties (the generic name given to the millions of women worldwide who support and cherish Swift). But all the archetypes have their place in the Eras from party girl to country beauty.
But heartbreak and mourning cannot repress the story-teller in Swift from the upbeat ‘Florida’ co-written with Florence Welch, a veteran British indie female artist. To the lyrical ‘The Albatross’, ‘Peter’ and ‘Cassandra’, this album is much more than a litany to loss. Swift is a weaver of the threads of life into stories that engage women and the men who want to understand them.
Girl Power
Speaking to women who now have the power to create a global economic impact from their fandom – the so-called Swiftonomics. This is a way of describing the millions pouring into the cities wherever her tours touch down. Their impact extends to creating earthquakes from dancing to diplomatic incidents between neighbours, as shown by the Singapore PM, who bested others in the region with inducements to perform there. Indeed, whole university syllabuses are now held to analyse Taylor’s words. Not bad for a young woman who pushed her way into the music industry at the age of 15.
So, we have come full circle from the enigma of a poet hidden in the sequined bath suit on a sell-out tour artist to the generator of universal anthems and a cultural phenomenon. With award-winning business skills sufficient to impact economies. No wonder she is the Disney princess of the highest-grossing Eras Tour Film now streaming and earning yet more money for this newly made billionaire.
Also taking place this weekend (tickets available at time of writing):
Cambridgeshire:
Celebrating 125 years at Wicken Fen
Saturday 4 May, various events from 10:30am onwards
Sunday 5 May, Dawn Chorus Walk 4:45–7:30am
Book here. Admission to Wicken Fen £9.00 (adult), £4.50 (child). Some events included within admission cost, some £5.50.
Norfolk:
Norfolk and Norwich Festival Welcome Weekend starts Saturday 11 May – save the date now! Free performances popping up across the city centre. Heralding the start of the the region’s major cultural festival, which runs until 26 May. Full programme here.
Suffolk:
Saturday 11 May: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 7.30pm. Phoenix Singers and Beccles Choral Society perform Ralph Vaughan Williams‘s Sea Symphony, Old Hundredth Psalm Tune, and Five Mystical Songs.
The Theatre, Framlingham, IP13 9BH: Exhibition 14X14, showcasing the work of several contemporary East Anglian artists. Ceramics | Printmaking | Sculpture | Glass | Collage | Textiles | Furniture. Open daily 3–14 May, 10am–5pm (till midday on 14 May).
