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There’s a hilarious story from Marc Maron’s Thinky Pain special, where Maron recalls doing a show with Bill Hicks. He says that he asked Hicks if he could perform first on the show, but Hicks wanted to go first. While the late comedy great got on stage, Maron went to the bathroom. When he returned, the room was silent with “a suction to it.” Maron said that Hicks was at the front of the stage “screaming” at a woman in the audience. “I’m a fucking poet,” Hicks shouted.

That has sort of been the energy around Taylor Swift’s latest album The Tortured Poets Department, a sprawling double album that if anything acts as a companion piece to the past year or so of her being the most famous person in the world. While I’m not above a songwriter viewing themselves as a poet (back when I was president of the poetry club in high school, half the things I read were Marilyn Manson lyrics), the leaning on the words “poetry” and dark academia fashion of this album makes it seem like this should be taken more serious than her other records. Yet, it’s also sort of her silliest.

The album acts something of a diary entry for the period of the end of her relationship with Joe Alwyn, a brief fling with Matty Healy, and the start of her relationship with Travis Kelce. One of the major criticisms that I’ve seen against the album is that it leans too hard on Swift’s personal life, and it’s too specifically tied into herself rather than it being something that a general audience can enjoy.

This is definitely true, but as someone who worked in the celebrity news circuit for the past three years, it’s almost like this album was tailored for me. While at second glance some of the more biting songs directed at specific people and instances from Swift’s life may not hold up nearly as well as some of the more general songs, there is an electricity under it. While Midnights (to me) was an album that needed to grow on me, The Tortured Poets Department was almost instantly enjoyable. Even songs that have gotten some groans online, songs that I didn’t expect to like, and even songs that I knew weren’t that good were pretty instantaneously enjoyable to me, which I did not expect.

Songs like the title track, “But Daddy I Love Him”, and “Clara Bow” show Swift at her finest, wistful, clever, and full of emotions. Even songs that could perhaps be better paced (or even punched up a little bit) like “Fortnight,” it does feel like Swift was on fire from the kinetic energy from her absolutely massive past year. So, it’s excusable that her song does sound a little bit like the lyrics could’ve been written by Brian Sella.

There’s a certain playfulness in the melodies on The Tortured Poets Department that seemed lacking on Midnights and maybe even folkore and evermore. While the album serves as a data-dump update on Swift’s past year or so, it does sound like she’s making up for the ultra-specific lyrics by including delightful melodies on songs like “Down Bad” or the ultra-catchy “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” Even a song like “Florida!!!” has a bit of a wink in its heartbroken tone, with a swelling instrumental that would arguably fit better with featured artist Florence Welch’s work with The Machine.

The wordiness of The Tortured Poets Department also does let Swift show off her dexterity as a musician. Even though occasionally it does just feel like she pulled out a thesaurus or leans into a cringey lyric (see “I Hate It Here”), it does offer some of the more memorable moments from her recent discography, from the references to Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, and Clara Bow to the callouts to childish phrases. On that latter note, the album’s best song was one that I expected to hate off the title: “But Daddy I Love Him.” While some fans have interpreted it as a response to the backlash of her dating Matty Healy, it will probably end up becoming one of the staples of her discography from this era, because of how fun and well-written it is.

Before this devolves into a breakdown of all the Easter eggs and responses to moments from Swift’s personal life, the anthology in the room should be addressed. As a standalone record, The Tortured Poets Department works. While it may not be the most ideal for a casual listener, it would almost certainly grow on many people, with the catchier (and sometimes funnier) songs becoming staples of the singer’s discography. There may be some songs that are a bit more of a slog (“So Long London”), but that is par for the course on one of Swift’s albums. The great songs usually outweigh the lackluster ones.

Two hours after The Tortured Poets Department hit streaming services, Swift announced The Tortued Poets Department: The Anthology: a double album with over 30 songs, clocking in at just over 2 hours long. Swift’s albums are not short, nor does she shy away from slapping a few bonus tracks on a record, but this was overblown.

It’s fair to say that The Anthology has its moments, but for the most part, it’s too long. A long or extended record isn’t necessarily unheard of from a massive popstar in 2024. There are tons of rap records that go on for much longer than they should (see: Drake). Zach Bryan’s major label debut American Heartbreak also has 30+ songs and runs for over two hours. It’s partially a means to game streaming services, but it’s also a chance to give fans even more.

While in Bryan’s case, I’m hard-pressed to pick a song that I don’t like, it’s also difficult to say that each song was integral to American Heartbreak’s release. In Drake’s case, it’s very easy to pick out the handful of songs that should’ve made the cut and made the record an EP. Even Kendrick Lamar’s double album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers probably should’ve been a single disc.

For fans clamoring for more details about Swift’s personal life, The Anthology is a godsend. There are more details about her relationships and friendships delivered in a similar wistful tone that the main album had. That being said, it’s not nearly as tight as the main record, and as someone who comes to Swift’s music for the music first (which is why I’ve been writing Swift not “Taylor” throughout this review), it feels like this is more like a collection of songs that wouldn’t have seen the light of day until she released a box set.

Part of me cannot shake the sloppiness of some of these lyrics, and the most egregious examples come in the back half of the album. Despite the fact that I find myself cringing, they are also the lines that get stuck in my head. It reminds me a lot of one of Swift’s original rivals: Kanye “Ye” West.

Prior to Ye’s transgressions in recent years, you’d be hard-pressed to find a musician who was as successful in taking his public actions and profile and morphing it into the narrative in music (perhaps best displayed on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy).  Even though his production style was undeniably influential and he had the occasional great bar, something that I always enjoyed about his music was also how silly he could be on occasion. It wasn’t always clear if he was doing so in jest or because he simply needed a line to fit the scheme: “Hurry up with my damn croissaints”, “Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh? I put the pussy in a sarcophagus”, or “What she order? Fish filet?” to name a few.

While people have been putting the “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle” line to the test with their best MF Doom impressions, I can’t help but think that the line “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” sounds like the type of dumb thing that I would expect to hear on a Yeezus B-side. The same goes for the “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists” line from “I Hate It Here.” It’s not necessarily a bar I’d expect to hear West drop, but it’s also the same sort of thoughtless lyric that gets meme-d into oblivion.

While I can’t help but have these lines stuck in my head, I also can’t help but think that here she doesn’t offer a similar blurred line of sincerity versus silliness that the earlier Ye lyrics had. As much as I want to look at them as calculated and considered, knowing that they would inspire fan discussion and some jokes at her expense, the fact that The Anthology bloats this project so much, I can’t help but think that maybe it is just further evidence that some of these songs could’ve been cut.

 As mentioned above, some of the songs aren’t bad. Opening track “The Black Dog” would be a welcome addition to the original album, and even the rumored Kim Kardashian diss track “thanK you aIMee” could’ve been part of the original album. I’m not entirely certain what songs would be relegated to The Anthology and what songs would simply be the original issue of The Tortured Poets Department, but that would really be up to Swift to decide.

Unfortunately for those of us with B.A.’s in English, Swift’s literary references hardly get passed syllabus week. Not that there’s anything wrong with Dylan Thomas, but with the volume of The Tortured Poets Department, it would’ve been nice to catch some more obscure poets referenced.

The record got me thinking about one of my favorite tortured poets: Charles Bukowski. As a straight white guy with an English degree, you’re basically required to fall in love with Bukowski’s work as a young man. While he has plenty of poems that are moving, he also has a lot of poems that aren’t necessarily worth the paper they’re printed on. The Last Night of the Earth Poems or You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense have plenty of moments of transcendence, but there are also the meanderings of an old and bitter drunk.

While The Tortured Poets Department serves as a decent stand-alone Taylor Swift album, diving into The Anthology takes it from being a collection that may feel like an interesting addition to her catalog to an overblown Bukowski-esque ramblings, where there are moments of beauty, but too much work sifting through, leaving you wondering if this double album was worth it.  

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