#taylor swift first album

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

Where are all my swifties who knew every word to Tim McGraw before the album was even released?

And have been Swifties every day since?

You guys are my people.

[butterflybloodbarf]

there’s a lot to be said about taylor swift

but the one thing i will say is- her first album?

coming of age teenage country anthems one after the fucking other! the only taylor album i can get through without a single skip.

i didn’t listen to this album when i was a young girl living in the south, but it feels just as nostalgic as my actual memories.

an absolute timeless relic of country music, imo.

picture to burn, tied together with a smile, and teardrops on my guitar (just to name a few) are simply iconic! idc who you are. she even still had a southern twang 😭 so pure.

[galatariel]

The professor said to write what you know, looking backwards might be the only way to move forwards. Then the actors were hitting their marks, and the slow dance was a light within the sparks. And the tears fell in synchronicity with the score, and at least she knew what the agony had been for. THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT

[taylornation]

Hear the Chairman fit the puzzle pieces of one of our favorite tracks together on new THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT digital album + bonus track “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (First Draft Phone Memo).” 🧸💔 Plus, collect all previously-released digital albums with first draft phone memos! Available for 24 hours at store.taylorswift.com.

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

the issue with ttpd personally is that I love some of the songs but sadly I've been force-fed her personal life so much, these details keep coming and leaves a bad taste in my mouth

You can't say "1830s without the racist" after writing an album about matty healy

"So high school" is a cute love song, but it's about our xenophobic racist king tk

"I can fix him" and "daddy I love him" have some elements I like but it's about mh and her getting offended she's being held responsible for her problematic actions

"guilty as sin?" is one of my favs, but it reads very different when you know (unfortunately) the context

"so long, london" is amazing, but just like "renegade" she blames joe alwyn for having mental health issues, but also out them to the world which is the worst part of it all

wishing I didn't know the context, but it is practically impossible to engage in any taylor swift space without knowing

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I don't think this means anything, but along with the album cover colours getting darker with each successive variant that others have pointed out, one thing that jumped out at me is how the cover photos are more revealing of her with each one as well.

The first one her face is hidden 1989-style, the second one her face is partially obstructed by her arm and hair, the third one she's facing the camera in side profile (also notably no longer in bed).

It's probably just because all the photos are going to be brilliant because Beth Garrabant is incredible and they're just pretty to look at and they wanted to give contrast to each one, but it does kinda feel like she's stepping out of the metaphorical dark with each version.

Like, she's gone from being curled in bed to contemplating getting up to stepping outside but still covered in (his*?) shirt to...

idk I love cover art can you tell (and I love how Taylor tells stories with hers)

[itwaslegendary]

and just like clockwork twitter and tiktok “swifties” are already doing the 2 things they always do when a new re-recording comes out

1. “she didn’t breathe the same here in (any song) i’m just going to stream the stolen 😡😡”

2. “there’s no way she wrote (any vault track) back in (insert year) she has to have written them post midnights and is lying 🙄”

it literally was never about “improving” or “botching” the album it’s about her owning her work hasn’t she made it clear enough…?

[svnflowermoon]

y'all go from being feminists to tearing these women down within seconds oh my god it's 2024 can we please stop viciously tearing one woman down to bring another up i don't care what side you take but saying vile shit about either woman and their music is disgusting, please grow up

[cataclysmictide]

Down In Sugarland

robin - taylor swift/the house that build me - miranda lambert/unknown/unknown/stoned at the nail salon - lorde/robin - taylor swift/landslide - fleetwood mac/hope ur ok - olivia rodrigo/unknown/linger - the cranberries/robin - taylor swift/wide open spaces - the chicks/unknown/unknown/big star - lorde/already gone - sugarland/unknown/vienna - billy joel/the house that built me - miranda lambert/hope ur ok - olivia rodrigo/sugarland - sugarland

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

The energy on here right before an album release is always immaculate.

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

I wonder how 2006 Taylor Swift would react if she listened to Midnights

[authenticcadence18]

I’ve said it once I’ll say it again

The Tortuted Poets Department was born of heartbreak and loss. The loss of a longtime partner, the loss of a longtime friend, the loss of a potential romance, the loss of ideals about love, the loss of places you used to love that you have to leave behind in order to grow, the loss of your past self.

it feels absolutely AWFUL to be in that sort of state, to lose things that were once so vital to who you are.

Common critiques of TTPD are that it is “too long” or “not cohesive” or “all the songs sound the same” or “the songs aren’t written as well”.

but guess what that’s what heartbreak feels like !!!!! it lasts too long!!!!! it doesn’t just GO AWAY it lingers like a 31-track album!!! thoughts after heartbreak aren’t cohesive! they are frantic, they aren’t put together, they’re all over the place they’re devastated. And “all the songs sound the same” so do your thoughts in the wake of major heartbreak. In my experience, the brain likes to shuffle through the same thoughts over and over and over again. And to people saying the songs aren’t as well written I mean. Thats what happens when you have to keep functioning and “do it with a broken heart.” TTPD is what it sounds like to have your heart broken. Each song is a different hour, day, week, month of dealing with it. Those songs ARE well written, and even if some of them don’t contain the most polished lyrics they are raw and real. That’s what makes them comforting.

I just think a lot of the critiques of TTPD are looking at it purely from a musical standpoint and not an emotional one. TTPD is about catharsis, capturing as many feelings as possible bc if you don’t write them down they’ll stay in your brain and haunt you. TTPD is about taking your demons and making something beautiful out of them so they hurt a little less

[tswiftupdatess]

Tonight's surprise songs were 'The Very First Night' and 'Labyrinth'

[cozy-the-overlord]

Seeing people complain about the Speak Now vault tracks being too teenagery …. gee, you’d almost think a teenager wrote them /s

[jakeperalta]

I think you're losing me, hits different and the great war make such a neat little trilogy. so many specific parallels (all I did was bleed // make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding // all that bloodshed, crimson clover) (now you're running down the hallway // is that your key in the door down the hallway?) (do I throw out everything we built or keep it? // I find the artefacts, cried over a hat, cursed the space that I needed // tore your banners down, took the battle underground) (now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time // I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone) as well as the overarching progression of fearing it's over -> realising you don't want to break up -> getting to the other side and believing that if you made it through that you can make it through anything

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

ttpd review: thoughts (and prayers)

cuz wtf was that. (also providing my two cents that no one gives a shit about)

Is the promotion in the room with us?

Not going to lie, this part pissed me off. As a post evermore release swiftie, the first album release I got was midnights. And while the promotion for midnights wasn't astoundingly genius, the track list release (midnights mayhem with me) was smart. Everyday, there would be chaos all over social media of taylor taking out a number and releasing the track name. The excitement over YOYOK was to die for. But after reaching peak fame, girlie just decided shit wasn't necessary anymore. Absolutely no promotion for ttpd, except a few lyrics that provided no context (or excitement) whatsoever. That, and the very non subtle "hinting" of some big reveal of what went down between her and joe, by making some playlists, that not only ruined the perspective of many of her fans and the relationship they had with her previous songs, but ALSO. THE ALBUM HAD BARELY ANYTHING ABOUT JOE. (Not that i personally care about what happened, but it was so unnecessary to center the ONLY promotion done around someone who was barely a part of the album). Swifties went on the internet to harass joe alwyn (and his female coworkers) who might as well be called a special mention on a matty healy album. Why even do all that then? We will never know.

Confusion?

taylor released 31 songs, and while a double album theory coming true would be a dream come true for any swiftie, it just... wasn't. Out of 31 songs, barely 10 stood out. Some of it just didn't make sense, in any way. "Why is this on the album?" "This sounds like a midnights vault track." "No issues, maybe this is just a skip. I'll listen to the next. Oh wait nvm. Um." Like girl what. It just feels like a giant vault album of synth pop music.

Also, it's called the tortured poets department. There is barely anything poetic or tortured about the album aesthetic. Except maybe it's torturing me, but I'm as much of a poet as she is, which basically means I'm not one.

The album just feels so different than the other albums, in the sense that they followed an aesthetic, a certain style of music and lyrics, and created some sort of story. This one just feels like she wrote many songs and put them all on an album, picked whatever track name seemed interesting enough as the album name, and called it a day. Some of the songs are gems, some create a confusion as to why they are on this album, and some just make you cringe- or atleast go "wtf". Which is fine, but if not even half the songs fall under the first category out of 30 songs, then it's a problem.

These were written by... taylor?

The lyrics omfg. I'm not going to be one of those ppl who go around saying that the lyrics sounded like an emo middle schooler (I've heard this take) BUT again, some songs have lyrics that make you question how taylor, someone who wrote the albums folklore and evermore, and many great songs like would've, could've, should've, story of us, all too well, fearless, white horse, dbatc, daylight, red... I could keep going tbh, produced...this.

It was very weird to listen to the words "tattooed golden retriever" from someone who wrote "handsome, you're a mansion with a view" (also who the FUCK is calling matty healy that??)

A very important part of taylor's music is how it is focused on the lyrics. The music itself isn't the most special, or different, in most of her songs, but what makes them (and her) special is her songwriting. However, from her songwriting going from commonly used phrases and idioms to make them tell a story, use a wide range of vocabulary, heavily using personification, allusion, transferred epithet, and a few other figures of speech that she uses in her songs to make elements such as colours, for example, tell a story, in a way it seemed effortless and fit perfectly, to this... now it feels like she's trying to do that, but that's it. She's TRYING, and it's not yielding results, and seems more like a try hard "poet" rather than... whatever she was going for. The songs are filled with self-satisfied "clever" metaphors that are being reused and recycled over and over. This is not what ppl meant when they asked you to be more environmentally friendly, taylor.

Final thoughts I guess?

While the songs are basically only an empty shell of something that taylor used to make, the album isn't all bad. Some of the songs do sound good and go well with taylor's voice (aaron dessner, the fucking legend you are) and are quite enjoyable, if not as memorable as her other songs.

There are songs such as the prophecy, clara bow, so long, london, loml, guilty as sin?, etc., that really do come through and honestly I really like them.

I do feel that the album can grow on people, but it's just... not the best. Like she says so much, and not to quote taylor swift, but genuinely the only thing in my head right now is "the more you say, the less I know".

Overall, the album is fine, but not in taylor swift standards. It's just... not bad, with some exceptions.