Lyrics vs Music, can one exist without the other?

May 13th, 2024 | Written by Meera Thomas

Taylor Swift’s “THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY'' is an epic and cinematic double album in which the musicality mirrors the rawness and brutality of heartbreak, as well as the hardships one faces when they are one of the most famous people on earth.

Each song on the album is met with furiously intelligent lyricism, filled with metaphors and references to literature, pop culture, and even old lyrics from her previous albums. She tackles a myriad of intense themes across this album, the most prevalent being: toxic love, depression, substance abuse, and failure to cope with all of the above.

With lines that will have you dusting off both your British grandmother’s Oxford dictionary and your American grandmother’s literature collection, this album is a lyrical masterpiece. 

However, it must be said that this album is not at the same level musically as it is lyrically.

There are several tracks that successfully sonically correspond to the complexity of Swift’s songwriting, and then there are some tracks that are produced by Jack Antonoff. While Antonoff has been deemed one of the greatest producers of this generation, and is a long-time collaborator on Swift’s albums (two of which have won Album of the Year at the Grammys), his work on this album has proved a point that both Swifties, and his fans, have feared to be true for some time now: unlike his co-collaborator and music industry tycoon of a best friend, he has not and is not evolving as an artist.

His production is more or less the same stylistically as it was on Swift’s last studio album, “Midnights”, causing there to be a strong sense of musical repetition throughout the front side of this album, and across much of Swift’s recent work (vault tracks from both 1989 TV (2023) and Speak Now TV (2023), as well as Midnights (2022)).

It is beyond unfortunate that this is the case because this album is where Swift truly is at her best in terms of her writing. With that being said, every other song, AKA every song produced by Aaron Dessner, fits perfectly and musically encapsulates the pain and treachery Taylor sings about.

Dessner’s ability to hook listeners from the first two seconds of a piano progression (for example, “How Did It End?”) is a skill that expertly responds to Taylor’s masterful writing, and satisfies the eager ears of those who truly value every aspect of composition.

The pairing of Dessner’s musicality and Swift’s lyricism has the power to push the two musicians to become the ultimate musical duo - possessing the potential to surpass the likes of Simon and Garfunkel, and Elton John and Bernie.

Yeah, I said it, and no, I won’t take it back. If this album was made purely by Dessner and Swift, it could have reached heights unseen by any other artist within this generation, but alas, the boring and tired production of Jack Antonoff brings it right back down to earth. 

This album officially marks Swift’s departure from her carefully fabricated facade of this happy-to-be-there popstar and has allowed her to debut the realest version of herself.

I want to note that Swift has recently reached billionaire status, causing there to be a massive degree of separation between her and her listeners, however, following the release of this album, she has never been more relatable. She perfectly describes the descent into madness that is associated with a toxic situationship, something most of us know all too well.

Swift uses hyperbolic statements like "fuck it if I can't have him, I might just die, it would make no difference,” (a line from ‘Down Bad’) to amplify and reiterate the relentlessness of holding onto torturous, and maybe even obsessive, love for someone. Whether we choose to admit it or not, we have all thought at some point that our lives were dependent on someone else’s love for us, or rather the lack thereof.

The difference between us and Taylor Swift, besides her billionaire status, is that we internalize these feelings while she puts them on blast complete with catchy beats.

Though it was only released a couple of weeks ago, the album has broken countless records. The most impressive, in my opinion, is that this album marks her 14th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, meaning that she has tied Jay-Z for the most No. 1 among soloists. Now, if she keeps this momentum up, she will break the all-time record and surpass The Beatles, who had 19 No. 1s.

Now, let’s take a look at the multitude of other records this album has broken all in the past two weeks:

Sales:

• The best-selling album of 2024, accomplished in under 48 hours.

• Biggest U.S. sales week of Swift’s career, surpassing 1989 (Taylor’s Version).

• Largest first-week vinyl sales (859,000) in the Nielsen era.

• TTPD makes Swift the only artist to have seven albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week.

• TTPD makes Swift the artist with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 this century.

• TTPD extends Swift’s record as the artist with the most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 (106 weeks and counting).

• Most top spots on the Billboard Hot 100, claiming the top 14 spots (and breaking her own record for claiming the top 10 spots with 2022’s Midnights).

Streams:

• Spotify’s most pre-saved countdown in history.

• Most-streamed album in a single week (multiple platforms) with 891.37 million streams.

• Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in the platform’s history (in 12 hours after its release) with 314 million streams.

• First album to amass more than 300 million streams on Spotify in a single day.

• Biggest album debut in U.S. Spotify history with 150 million streams.

• “Fortnight” is Spotify’s most-streamed song in a single day with 25.2 million streams.

• “The Tortured Poets Department” debuted at No. 2 on the Global Spotify Chart with 19.1 million streams, the biggest debut for a solo song.

• “Down Bad” debuted at No. 3 on the Global Spotify chart with 17.4 million streams, the third biggest chart debut in history.

• TTPD had 100 million Spotify streams in its first seven days of release, the only album to do so.

• Fastest album to surpass 1 billion global album streams in history.

• Apple Music’s biggest pop album of all time by first-day streams.

Via: Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department: Records Broken So Far | Us Weekly (usmagazine.com)

It’s safe to say that Taylor Swift is only competing with Taylor Swift at this point, and her reign over the music industry is far from over. Her passion, drive, and absolute love for her craft are evident across all of her albums, but this one just hits a little different.

“THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY,” is the epitome of female rage, toxic love, and hyperbolic feelings of wanting to die because of unrequited infatuation, or, in other words, what being a girl in this society feels like as romance, chivalry, and happy endings are becoming extinct.