Taylor's New Album: The Tortured Poets Department

(image courtesy of independent.co.uk)

WGHS Taylor Swift fans share their opinions on the new album Taylor Swift released, The Tortured Poets Department on April 19th.
by Cheyenne Seagraves and Lochlan Chastain

WGHS Taylor Swift fans share their opinions on the new album Taylor Swift released, “The Tortured Poets Department” on April 19th.

WGHS American Literature teacher, Mrs. Whitehurst loves the album, “...I think it’s one of her best works. I think it’s brilliant, I love all of her allusions. I love all of her metaphors, and I love the cohesive use of different literary devices throughout.... For example, she makes a lot of circus metaphors, which I think is really cool. She does a lot of religious metaphors, which I think is really cool, and I think overall, it’s just really cohesive. It really flows.” 

The album is commonly described as a combination of her previous works, by Mrs. Whitehurst and others. “...I definitely feel like we’re seeing the last five years of Taylor, like all the different versions of her in the last five years and how much she’s grown up and matured as an artist… like lyrically I definitely see elements from Midnights, Folklore, and Evermore, the most but then she also sprinkles in you know some Lover elements and then some of those experiences form whenever she was younger too.” She says she feels like it’s different because she might be angrier, “but I think it’s justified, I think it’s very like girl power.”

Although Mrs. Whitehurst felt the album was metaphorical, Shannon Hayes (junior) did not. Shannon feels she wasn’t too metaphorical or symbolic, “Sometimes you can just kind of be overkilled with the metaphors and you’re like, ‘I just need to be able to know what you’re trying to say’, so I think she did a good mixture of both to where she got her point across.” 

Both Shannon and Mrs. Whitehurst shared their favorite albums from Taylor Swift. “It’s between 1989 and Midnights,  the sound, it’s definitely her most pop album, and the concept of both of them are just really cool,” said Shannon Hayes. 

Mrs. Whitehurst said, “I really like [The Tortured Poets Department], it might be my favorite. Before this, I kind of went back and forth between Folklore and Evermore, and then Midnights came out and I was like, ‘Oh I love this too’, but I still found myself going back and listening to Folklore and Evermore…” 

The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
The album is truly a double album, with the first half of the album being only 16 tracks, with a 17th bonus track included with the physical copy. The second half brings the total tracks to 31. The most liked songs of the album are “But Daddy I Love Him”, “Florida!!!”, and “Fortnight”. 

Mrs. Whitehurst finishes by saying, “This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that the original portion of the album is the better part, I think The Anthology is not as good... it feels like a separate album. It doesn’t feel as cohesive as the first portion, so it’s not that I didn’t like it, but I just feel like it has a different vibe.”

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