#for the record i don’t think ttpd is about him but this is a post for the People

[lipslikethegardensofbabylon]

joe @ matty rn

[taylorrepdetective]

Since you like to say you’re always right, tell us what is next. You say you don’t make predictions, but you actually do, even if you don’t call them that.

Ok so I’m absolutely not always right. There have been some really big things I’ve been wrong about and a lot of small things too. And what I learned from that is to keep an open mind, and when I’m wrong about something, to figure out why I got it wrong and shift my world view in some ways to try to understand and guess better the next time. But it’s not even really about being able to guess. It’s about understanding when things happen. It is fun to be right on a guess though, when that happens.

The biggest thing I’ve learned, and luckily I learned it pretty early on in my time in this space, is that trying to figure out the timing something big will happen is absolutely a fools errand. And another thing to avoid is trying to come up with the exact, specific way Taylor (or others in her cinematic universe) will do something to get a point across. Like I can predict she will try to get a point across (set up a timeline, create a narrative, shore up a brand point) but I cannot predict exactly how or when she’ll do it. I also can predict she’ll set something up but then she never does. That’s because I think of lots of options. Some happen, some don’t. So this is the kind of thing I’m often wrong about. But I see them and always try to present them as options, not predictions. And if one of the options I think of happens, I have already spent time thinking about it, so it already makes sense to me.

I don’t know what’s next. She could drop TS11 at midnight. She could break up with Travis tomorrow, or announce her engagement next week. But I do not think any of those things is likely.

So here’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to me making a specific, timed prediction, because to me it seems quite clear:

What I do think is likely is that her jet will go to KC, ✅she’ll go to the game on Sunday✅, and her jet will then leave KC sometime between next Tuesday✅ and next Thursday. Why? Because it’s a home game, and she likes to go to home games and get the exposure and publicity that comes with that. She is working really hard at becoming an icon in KC, seem like her relationship is very serious for those who want to believe it’s serious, and she wants to shore up that relationship by spending time with him, his family, and his friends (also KC icons - the Mahomes mostly.)✅ All of this is so important to the story she’s creating. However, she won’t stay long ✅because that’s been her pattern. She also seems to be establishing that she also has her own busy, fabulous life✅ (she’s bejeweled and he lets her be✅) and when he’s busy with his football week (generally Tuesday-Sunday) he doesn’t have much time for her and she has her own life.✅This gives her the opposite option of the relationship being very serious. In other words it gives her an easy out for it to end. And Wednesday is her birthday. So she’ll either stay till Tuesday ✅and we’ll see or hear about birthday celebrations Sunday night/Monday, ✅then she’ll head out for further birthday celebrations with her other friends and family✅, or her jet will stay through her birthday, solidifying the seriousness of the relationship. But she will leave KC.✅ And then she’ll probably go to the game on Dec 17 in Boston✅. Why? Because it is a short hop from NYC, she has a huge fanbase there✅ and can expand it and shore it up, the patriots are bad so a win is likely✅, but they are a very popular team, so viewership (publicity) will be high✅. After that? Well she’s likely to spend more time in NYC✅/Nashville. Then she will probably go to the Christmas Day game in KC✅. This is a huge opportunity to “take the relationship to the next level” by spending the holidays together ✅, something the public absolutely loves to see and will further fuel the “engaged by the end of the year, after the Super Bowl at the latest” fire. Hopefully we’ll get something reputation-related for new years❌, so the extra publicity will help with that. Additionally all of this corresponds with the Eras film being released to streaming, another huge money making opportunity for her, and her attendance is an ad for the film.

After the new year, there will be some huge games with high viewership. They will be playing for playoff seeding. Then they almost assuredly will be in the playoffs✅. She will go to those games✅, which have even higher viewership, and will give her more free marketing for reputation and eras movie and anything else we don’t know about. After that, it will depend on how deep they go into the playoffs. They are no longer favored to be in the Super Bowl, but it is still a strong possibility✅. We all now know she can fly across the world after a concert to attend an event (she flew to the US during her time in SA, planned to a second time but couldn’t because of the events in Rio, and flew to London for 24 hrs for bey). The precedent has been set for her to fly from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. ✅There is no bigger stage than the Super Bowl (outside of the World Cup final, if you’re thinking internationally.) The free marketing potential there is something that would be very hard for her to pass up. And if Travis isn’t playing, Jason’s team might be, and they can go together to support him. Imagine the potential of travlor in a suite together with mama and papa kelce cheering on a retiring Jason❌✅ . And even if neither of them are in the game, they could still all go together and stand in a suite as a big happy family in front of an audience of 115 million Americans. Why wouldn’t she do this?✅

Will all that happen for sure? Of course not. But you can see the logic, right? Will there be other things that happen that I haven’t thought of? Most likely.✅ I don’t actually have a crystal ball. What kinds of things could derail this? Well there’s always the possibility of the black swan, but a more likely scenario is they lose again against a team they should beat✅ and/or Travis has another bad game✅. There is a real danger of people turning on her as a distraction ✅and I think they have their fingers on the pulse of this very closely. As long as KC keeps winning, and there’s a good chance they will win the rest of their games, all will be smooth❌✅.

Also I am not even thinking beyond February. I have one interesting thought about it, but it’s just too speculative to even mention here. But as we move through the next two months, I’ll get clues to be able to guess at what will happen after she goes back on tour after the Super Bowl✅. And if I’m wrong about all of this, which I may very well be because she is notoriously unpredictable sometimes, I will simply take it as a learning opportunity to understand her better.✅

[seeminglyranch87]

Taylor & Travis Timeline

April 2024 - Part 2

April 19 - Taylor Swift's 11th Studio album is released; The Tortured Poets Department (x)

2am - The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. 15 more songs released!!! A double album!

8pm - Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) music video premiers on YouTube (x)

Taylor reads some of the poem in the epilogue on the album... (x)

Taylor shares video on YouTube shorts (x) and IG with some cute footage of Travis, Benji, Singapore & more

People give a summary of album themes in particular Taylor's fateful situationship with Matty Healy (x)

It becomes evident that Taylor has released the first songs about her relationship with Travis on The Tortured Poets Department (including The Anthology) Are there others?

The Alchemy (x)(x)

So High School

But Daddy I Love Him (final verse)

A source tells Entertainment Tonight (x)

[Travis Kelce] couldn't be more supportive and is pumped for Taylor. He knows how much this means to her and thinks she's extremely talented. Taylor and Travis admire each other's creative processes and work ethic. They cheer each other on, respect each other's opinions, and are open and communicative.

Uproxx reviews TTPD (x)

It’s a chronicle of a specific period of time, one that she needed to explore to be able to move on (having a “squirle”-loving goofball waiting for her at home helped). As she wrote on social media when the album came out, “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.” She’s finally clean. The Tortured Poets Department isn’t the album people thought it would be. It’s rawer. It’s funnier. It’s more poetic and unapologetically dramatic. Most of all, it’s another classic from the preeminent songwriter of her generation.

April 20 - TTPD lyric videos released on Youtube with a sweet reference to Travis and Taylor in So High School (x) - note the letters TK & TS

April 23 - Chiefs quoting Taylor's lyrics from The Alchemy on IG (x)

Travis & Taylor snapped out for dinner at Mateo Ristorante, West Hollywood, California.

April 24 - Donna Kelce reveals that Taylor & Travis joined Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper for a getaway in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (x) dates not confirmed but presumed to be over the album release weekend.

A source tells ET (x) that Kelce is among Taylor's biggest champions. 

"Travis is so supportive of the entire album and loves that he is a part of Taylor's story. He is a Swiftie through and through, and is very proud of her."

Republic Records celebrates Taylor's achievements with TTPD (x)

April 26 - a source tells Us Weekly (x)

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have “deepened their bond” during “all the time they’ve spent together recently. It makes the prospect of her tour more challenging. She’ll be sad. They support and respect [each other],” the source adds. “They have busy careers, so they understand those commitments, as difficult as it is.” The couple took a trip up the California coast” in order to “celebrate privately.” The insider adds, “They’re making the most of the time they have together.

In another article with Us Weekly a source says (x)

"[Travis] heard everything before it was released. He is so proud of [her] and understands and accepts that being with her means being a part of her music,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “And he’s secure and fine with it.”

“Travis is understanding about the ex-boyfriend songs,” the insider says. “He recognizes that her past experiences are an important part of her expression.”

The source adds that just because there aren’t more Kelce-inspired songs on TTPD doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

“She has written other songs, some inspired by Travis, but they weren’t produced or part of the album,” the insider shares. “There wasn’t time for them to be part of the album. She’s kept some private and hasn’t released them yet. She has a journal and writes all the time.”

April 27 - 15 and the Mahomies Foundation Vegas Golf Classic

Travis plays golf with Taylor cheering him on - you can see a very brief glimpse of her in the left hand bottom corner of shot with Travis (x) wearing a light blue sun dress.

Travis & Taylor attend the 15 and The Mahomies Charity Gala (x x) in Las Vegas.

Noteworthy mentions:

Travis KISSING Taylor's sunburnt shoulder and arm (x x)

Travis calls Taylor "my significant other" (x) when informing the audience that Taylor has donated 4 tickets to be auctioned.

The 4x Eras Tour tickets were sold for $80k (x x x)

Patrick throws football into audience for Travis to catch (x)

Travis and Taylor continue to enjoy their time in Vegas into the early morning (x)

May 2024

May 9, 10, 11, 12 - The Eras Tour, Paris La Defense Arena, Paris France

May 17, 18, 19 - The Eras Tour, Friends Arena, Stockholm, Sweden

May 18 - Kelce Jam (x)

May 24, 25, 30 - The Eras Tour, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain

June 2024

June 2, 3 - The Eras Tour, Groupama Stadium, Lyon France

June 7, 8, 9 - The Eras Tour, Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, UK

June 9 - American Music Awards 2024

June 11, 12, 13 - Chiefs training camp

June 13, 14, 15 - The Eras Tour, Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, UK

June 17, 18, 19 - Tight End University

June 18 - The Eras Tour, Principality Stadium, Cardiff, UK

June 21, 22, 23 - The Ears Tour, Wembley Stadium, London UK

June 28, 29, 30 - The Eras Tour, Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland

July 2024

July 4, 5, 6 - The Eras Tour, Johan Cruijff Arena, Amsterdam, Netherlands

July 9, 10 - The Eras Tour, Station Letzigrund, Zurich, Switzerland

July 13, 14 - The Eras Tour, San Siro Stadium, Milan Italy

July 17, 18, 19 - The Eras Tour, Veltins-Arena, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

July 23, 24 - The Eras Tour, Volksparkstadion, Hamburg, Germany

July 27, 28 - The Eras Tour, Olympiastadion, Munich, Germany

August 2024

August 1, 2, 3 - The Eras Tour, PGE Narodowy, Warsaw, Poland

August 8, 9, 10 - The Eras Tour, Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Vienna, Austria

August 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 - The Eras Tour, Wembley Stadium, London, UK

September 2024

September 5 - NFL 2024-25 season kickoff

October 2024

October 5 - Travis Kelce's 35th birthday

October 18, 19, 20 - The Eras Tour, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL

October 26, 27 - The Eras tour, Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA

November 2024

November 1, 2, 3 - The Eras Tour, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN

November 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23 - The Eras Tour, Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON

December 2024

December 6, 7, 8 - The Eras Tour , BC Place, Vancouver, British Columbia

December 13 - Taylor Swift's 35th birthday

Go to previous update -> April part 1

Go to next update -> TBC

Return to the timeline

[placeinthisworld]

Mine too, this has always been a fear of mine that my depression will always weigh heavy on any relationships I have to the point I'm scared of getting into one. But one thing that makes me so mad and I'm saying that as a long time fan - that the way she dealt with the situation is so crass. He was with her when she was at her lowest ( atleast in public eye ) and she didn't have the decency to be atleast a little bit understanding. I get it, it's hard to be in a relationship with someone who struggles with mental health but they are also....human and not your toy. They can't get better at the snap of a finger just because you want them to marry you.

yeah i mean i genuinely don’t think we’re ever gonna know what happened between her and joe, and that’s probably for the best. we barely knew anything about their relationship in general besides what taylor would let us know from her pov. im sure there were many things happening between them and i respect that taylor mostly left him out. from what i get from ttpd is that she and joe just naturally fizzled out. one thing we know about taylor is that she always wants to do more, break more records, work on more projects etc.. and she VERY confident in herself. i think the upshot in fame got her really excited post covid for all these plans. she knew she had the world at her fingertips and she was right!!! i think she she wanted to do more. i think they got bored of each other. i think he struggles with confidence and depression/ anxiety and i think she was tired of him holding her back. i think that’s why she got attached to matty way to quickly after they were done and he left her high and dry bc he knew he wasn’t the person she needs and the grief of the future she had with joe + the anger she felt towards matty is what inspired ttpd to begin with.

we will never know anything more than what taylor is willing to share with us. joe has proven that he’s not interested in taking part in delusional swiftie narratives so he won’t say shit about her.

[girl4music]

From Apple Music: "In the 18 months after Taylor Swift released Midnights, it often felt as though the universe had fully opened up to her. The Eras Tour was breaking records and blowing past the billion-dollar mark; its attendant concert film became the highest-grossing of all time. She generated interest and commerce and headlines everywhere she stepped foot, from tour stops to the tunnels of NFL stadiums. In 2023, she was named both TIME magazine’s Person of the Year and—just as iconic, tbh—Apple Music’s Artist of the Year. 

But do songs about that level of success speak to you? As the news broke that her highly private six-year relationship to Joe Alwyn had ended, Swifties started Swiftie-ing, quickly recirculating a clip on social media of Swift a few weeks earlier, onstage during an early Eras show, in tears as she sang “champagne problems”—a song she and Alwyn had written together. It was a reminder that, despite the superhero-like aura she now radiates, Swift, at her peak, still hurts like the rest of us. What sets her apart is her ability to sublimate that pain into pop. When she announced her 11th studio album in early 2024—while accepting another Grammy, as one does—we probably shouldn’t have been surprised. 

“I needed to make it,” she’d say of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT a few weeks later, to a crowd of—[rubs eyes]—96,000 in Melbourne, Australia. “I’ve never had an album where I’ve needed songwriting more than I needed it on TORTURED POETS.” Working again with trusted collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, she returns to the soft, comfortable, bed-like sonics of Midnights. But the stakes feel noticeably higher here: This isn’t so much a breakup album as it is a deep-sea exploration of everything Swift has been feeling, a plunge through emotional debris. 

On “But Daddy I Love Him”—over strings and guitar that faintly recall her country roots—she lashes out at the crush of scrutiny and expectation she’s been subject to from the start. Naturally, catharsis comes after the chorus: “I’ll tell you something right now,” she sings. “I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.” On “Florida!!!” she and Florence + the Machine team up for a pulpy escape fantasy wherein they Thelma and Louise their way down to the Sunshine State in hopes of starting over with new lives and identities: “Love left me like this,” they sing. “And I don’t want to exist.”

At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, TTPD is a study in extremes, Swift leaning into heightened emotions with heightened, hyperbolic, ALL-CAPS language and imagery—how we think when we’re drunk on love or flattened by its sudden disappearance. Note the dark humour she weaves through the Post Malone-enriched opener “Fortnight” (“Your wife waters flowers/I wanna kill her”). Or the thrilling self-deprecation of “Down Bad”, a foray into science fiction wherein Swift likens the warmth of a relationship to being abducted by love-bombing extraterrestrials—only to be left “naked and alone, in a field in my same old town.” 

But this remains her most candid and unsparing work to date: As a listener, you frequently get the feeling that you’ve stumbled across emails she’d written but never sent, or into conversations you were never meant to hear. There’s a density and a specificity and a ferocity to her lyrical work here that makes 2012’s “All Too Well” feel sorta light by comparison. If you’re the kind of Swiftie who likes to live in the details, well, this one might be your Super Bowl. “You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?” she asks on the devastating “So Long, London”, a high point. “I died on the altar waiting for the proof.” Alone at a piano on the haunting “loml”, she flips the script on someone who’d told her she was the love of their life, by telling them that they were the loss of hers: “I’ll still see it until I die.” 

The story, as you likely know, doesn’t end there. We get a glimpse of new beginnings in “The Alchemy” (“This happens once every few lifetimes/These chemicals hit me like white wine”) and something like triumph in the montage-ready synths of “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”, when Swift, shattered on the floor, “as the crowd was chanting, ‘More!’,” still finds the strength to deliver: “’Cause I’m a real tough kid and I can handle my shit.” 

But we also get a sense of acceptance, of new-found perspective. On “Clara Bow”—named after a 1920s movie star who was able to survive the jump from silent film to sound—Swift reflects on the journey of a small-town girl made good, sung from the vantage of an industry obsessed with the next big thing. She zooms out and out and out until, in the album’s closing seconds, she’s singing about herself in the third person, in past tense, acknowledging that nothing is forever. “You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we’re loving it,” she sings. “You’ve got edge she never did/The future’s bright, dazzling.”

I'm not restricting or limiting her artistic potential or anything but I really think Taylor Swift's niche in genre is dream, folk or synth-pop. That ethereal soundscape goes well with her small-ranged voice and her lyrical style works best when it's telling stories about stuff that isn't even necessarily about her, but about someone or something.

It's her niche. Where she sounds her best. When she's at her best.

I like the fact that in this album she's not worried about singles because most of these songs are too long for radio play unless they have to cut them down, and we all know how she feels about that. It's an album meant to be an album. It's a proper concept album. She doesn't need to worry about singles anyway. She'll sell regardless.

It sounds bloody fantastic in lossless 24-bit 48kHz ALAC/FLAC.

She's done it again. Created a musical masterpiece.

Like we'd expect anything less from Taylor Swift.

"As a listener, you frequently get the feeling that you’ve stumbled across emails she’d written but never sent, or into conversations you were never meant to hear. There’s a density and a specificity and a ferocity to her lyrical work here that makes 2012’s “All Too Well” feel sorta light by comparison." Yeah, you do with every great songwriter. The difference is great songwriters that are actually the musical artists of what you're listening to don't often exist in the pop industry.

Taylor Swift takes up space in pop music because she demands it. Most people would scoff at it. Even call it egoic. I highly respect it because she brings to pop music the point of the music. Art - not just entertainment. There's a phrase I use: Art is meant for expression, not impression. And she provides and delivers both seamlessly within each other. That's why the space she demands, she deserves. Not just any pop artist can do that or have that mark in the pop industry because most of them don't even write their own fucking music.

So if you feel like you shouldn't be present when listening - you feel put out or uncomfortable in any way - that's how you know you're listening to a true and great songwriter because they all DO THIS.

[takingontheworldtogether]

my friends who don't know shit about taylor swift requested a pre-album explainer of wtf is going on so i wrote them a little newsletter... if you want something to send to your non-swiftie friends it's beneath the cut

Good morning team,

Why do we need a Swiftie newsletter?

I mean, no one really needs this. But she’s dropping a new album (“The Tortured Poets Department” or TTPD for short) in three days and I’m here to provide you with the information you need before the album comes out. I’ll be back with a post-album review letting you know 1) what juicy gossip was revealed on the album, 2) what tracks you should listen to, and 3) a few things you can say to your Swiftie friends to sound cultured.

What’s this album about?

Okay, I know this is ancient history, but cast your mind back to 2016. Kanye and Taylor Swift are beefing, and Kim Kardashian posts a clip of a phone call that makes Taylor look like a liar. Taylor gets canceled on social media and disappears for a year. 

While all this is going on, she meets her boyfriend, the British actor Joe Alwyn. I have no clue what movies he was in at the time, but since then he was in The Favorite and Harriet, and also Conversations with Friends (I think, I haven’t seen it because Normal People put me off Sally Rooney). Here’s a quick timeline:

Late 2017: Taylor comes back with “Look What You Made Me Do” and reputation. People think reputation is a bad bitch album, but it’s actually an album about finding love in a time of despair.

2019: She drops Lover, which is about many things but primarily about how she loves him and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. 

2020: Pandemic. Taylor writes two quarantine albums, folklore and evermore. These are primarily fictional, but there are a few love songs about him. He co-writes some of these songs pseudonymously.

2022: Midnights. This album becomes wildly successful. It occupies all of the top ten slots on the billboard hot 100 in the week it comes out. It breaks a bunch of sales records.

2023: The Eras Tour starts! Two weeks in, they announce the break up. Taylor briefly dates Matty Healy of the 1975, who is by all accounts a total asshole. This appears to have been a shitty rebound. A bit later, she starts dating the football player Travis Kelce and everyone loses their minds about it. 

It looks like this album is going to be about the end of a relationship of six years and possibly rebounding/moving on. 

Okay, but like… why did they break up?

I mean, I don’t know any of these people, so all I can offer you are guesses based on song lyrics:

1 - He was really big into his privacy, which is kind of difficult if you’re dating Taylor Swift. 

2 - A lot of songs on Lover are about wanting to get married. There’s a song on Midnights that implies that she wanted to get married and he refused. Yikes. 

What’s the promo situation for this album?

The most notable thing to me (and what is this if not me rambling about my opinions) are some playlists curated by Taylor on Apple Music. Each playlist focuses on one of the five stages of grief in mourning a relationship, and they contain songs from her past albums. There are copycat playlists on Spotify, if you’re interested. My favorite is “am I allowed to cry?” which is the playlist for the bargaining stage. 

There’s also a wall in Chicago with a QR code that leads to a video of the words “Error 321 13” and a hidden message in her song lyrics that spells out “Hereby Conduct This,” which is presumably a message that will be finished by the time the album comes out. 

What do we already know about the album?

16 tracks with 4 bonus tracks. There’s a song with Post Malone (yes, really) and a song with Florence + The Machine. I agree, this is not an intuitive combination, but I’m excited. 

Two of the songs are over five minutes long. Two songs are entirely self-written, five are written with Aaron Dessner (from the National), and eight are written with Jack Antonoff (the producer who works with all the pop girlies). Her collaborations with Aaron Dessner are some of my favorite songs of hers, so this is good news to me. 

That’s my preamble to the Tortured Poets Department!

I hope this was informative, but I barely scratched the surface. You have no idea how deep this goes. Also, I need you all to know that I sat down and wrote this in one sitting without Googling anything, which probably means I know too much about this subject. 

In the meantime, I’ve been listening to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter which is a very stupid song that is fun to listen to. I’ve also been listening to girl in red’s new album, I’m Doing It Again Baby! which is aggressively mid. If you want to listen to a song on it, I recommend “Pick Me.” 

See you in three days!