Taylor Swift Kevin Winter/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Taylor Swift knows The Tortured Poets Department is a mouthful to say, so she has an alternative.
“You could call it Tortured Poets if you just refuse to memorize more than one-word album titles,” Swift, 34, quipped during her Saturday, February 17, Eras Tour concert in Melbourne, Australia.
The Tortured Poets Department will be Swift’s 11th studio album and drops on April 19, news she shared at the 2024 Grammys earlier this month.
“[The way I can celebrate] is by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the past two years, which is that my brand new album comes out April 19th,” Swift said on February 4 when she nabbed the trophy for Best Pop Vocal Album. “It’s called The Tortured Poets Department and I’m going to go post the cover right now backstage.”
Swift, who later won Album of the Year for the fourth time, wasn’t always planning to drop her album announcement at the awards show.
“I had told my friends, I told Jack [Antonoff], but I hadn’t really told very many other people. I thought, ‘OK, if I’m lucky enough to win one thing tonight, I’m just gonna do it. I’m just gonna announce my album,’” she said during one of her Eras concerts in Japan days later. “And luckily enough, that ended up happening.”
Taylor Swift performs on February 16, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. Graham Denholm/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Swift continued, “My backup plan was I was gonna do it tonight in Tokyo. But thanks to you and your support, I was lucky enough to win a Grammy and tell you about it on stage at the Grammys.
Days later, Swift shared the tracklist for The Tortured Poets Department and its first “bonus version.” Swifties have theorized that TTPD is a sister album to Swift’s 2022 record, Midnights, and is primarily inspired by a breakup. Songs on The Tortured Poets Department include “So Long, London,” “But Daddy I Love Him,” “I Can Fix Him (No, Really, I Can)” and “Down Bad.”
Marcelo Endelli/TAS23/Getty Images While Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department came as a surprise to fans, the pop star seemingly left several Easter eggs hinting that her 11th studio album was on its way. Swift revealed her latest musical endeavor while accepting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album — her 13th career win — […]
Swift revealed during her Friday, February 16, concert that a second bonus version features the single “The Bolter.”
“I needed to make it. It was really a lifeline for me,” Swift said of the LP on Friday. “It sort of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through life and I’ve never had an album where I’ve needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.”
While Swift has not shared her musical inspiration for TTPD, many fans think it is about her breakup with Joe Alwyn. Swift and Alwyn, 32, dated for six years before Us Weekly confirmed in April 2023 that they split. She has since moved on with NFL star Travis Kelce, who has already “heard” snippets of TTPD.
“I have heard some of it, yes, and it is unbelievable,” Kelce, 34, gushed in a February press conference ahead of the Super Bowl. “I can’t wait for her to shake up the world when it finally drops.”
