A brand new period of Taylor Swift is close to.
The artist’s eleventh studio album, “The Tortured Poets Division,” drops Friday.
The lead-up to launch day has been suffering from puzzles, Easter eggs and different hallmarks of Swift’s ever-theorizing fan base.
This is what to know forward of the discharge.
When does the album formally debut?
“The Tortured Poets Division” will likely be launched Friday at 12 a.m. ET. It’s at present obtainable for preorder.
Should you plan to stream “The Tortured Poets Division” proper after its launch, be ready for potential delays. When Swift’s most up-to-date model new album, “Midnights” was launched, Spotify briefly crashed due to intense demand.
What number of tracks are there?
The album consists of 16 songs.
There will likely be 4 bonus tracks: “The Manuscript,” The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Canine.” Every bonus observe will likely be obtainable on separate bodily album variants and received’t be on the streaming model of the album.
Traditionally, Swift has made vinyl exclusives obtainable on streaming platforms a number of months after their bodily launch.
The typical observe size on “The Tortured Poets Division” is 4 minutes and 4 seconds — the third longest throughout Swift’s discography.
The longest track on the album is “However Daddy I Love Him,” which clocks in at 5 minutes and 40 seconds. “I Can Repair Him (No Actually I Can) is the shortest at 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The size of every bonus observe has not but been revealed.
Who else labored on the album?
Florence + the Machine and Put up Malone are each featured artists on the album. The 2 are additionally credited as co-writers on their songs.
Aaron Dessner — songwriter, producer, and band member of The Nationwide and Huge Crimson Machine — is certainly one of two producers who labored on “The Tortured Poets Division,” together with Swift’s longtime good friend and collaborator, Jack Antonoff. Dessner is credited as a songwriter on 5 of the 16 tracks on the usual album, whereas Antonoff co-wrote eight tracks.
Swift is credited as a songwriter on each observe on the usual album, together with two completely self-written tracks: “My Boy Solely Breaks His Favourite Toys” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Previous Me?”
Why is it referred to as ‘The Tortured Poets Division’?
Followers have been fast to notice that “The Tortured Poets Division” is the longest title for a Taylor Swift album by a big margin, a distinction beforehand held by her third album, “Converse Now.” Earlier than “TTPD,” “Converse Now” was her solely album title consisting of multiple phrase.
Hypothesis surrounding the brand new album and its uncharacteristic title has primarily revolved round Swift’s 2023 breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn after their six-year relationship.
After the album announcement, a 2022 Selection interview between Alwyn and Paul Mescal resurfaced on X. The pair revealed within the interview that they have been each members of a WhatsApp group chat titled “The Tortured Man Membership,” prompting some followers to attract parallels between Alwyn and Swift’s upcoming album.
The true that means of “The Tortured Poets Division” stays to be seen, however the rollout of the album has featured references to well-known poems like Charles Baudelaire’s “The Albatross,” amongst different literary references.
When can followers anticipate a brand new music video?
In a video of the “TTPD Timetable” posted on her Instagram account Tuesday, Swift introduced she is going to launch a music video at 8 p.m. ET Friday.
She didn’t specify which observe the video could be for.
The announcement within the timetable was accompanied by 14 tally marks, main some sleuthing Swifties to theorize that the video could possibly be for the album’s first observe, “Fortnight (ft. Put up Malone), the title of which refers to a 14-day interval, or the album’s 14th observe, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
What is the Spotify pop-up that is in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles Swifties celebrated launch week with a pop-up library in partnership with Spotify.
The three-day occasion ran from April 16-18 on the Grove and featured a sneak peak at among the album’s lyrics.
A manuscript was entrance and middle on the set up, revealing new lyrics periodically because the pages have been turned over the course of three days.
Followers took to social media to establish different potential Easter eggs within the pop-up library, similar to a bust of a peace signal, a quill and fountain pens, and a globe that gave the impression to be pointing to Florida, the title of a observe on the album.
Had been there some other notable Easter eggs main as much as the discharge?
QR code murals appeared in cities internationally similar to Melbourne, Paris, Chicago and London. Every QR code revealed a singular letter, which Swifties pieced collectively to spell “For A Fortnight.”
In a collaboration with Apple Music, Swift sorted a few of her present discography into thematic playlists, together with audio messages from the singer. These messages appeared to verify some followers’ theories that the playlists mirrored the 5 levels of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, despair and acceptance – indicating that the brand new album could grapple with grief or loss.
Swift later used a track from every playlist to disclose a hidden phrase on Apple Music every day main as much as the discharge of “The Tortured Poets Division.”
The ultimate phrase, “mortem,” was revealed Thursday, hidden within the lyrics of the track “Start Once more.” The key message was “We hereby conduct this publish mortem.”