Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is still a confusing mess

I never quite enjoyed Taylor Swift's latest album, though upon release I did make several attempts to do so. To me, the album represents everything pop music shouldn't be: lyricism that is either painfully derivative or generally not well thought out, production that is skeletal and gutless— with no sound standing out in particular— and a mix that makes the overall listening experience feel like it was prepared by amateurs.

Between the first release of this album and now, the billionaire entertainer has released several versions of The Tortured Poets Department, with some sources claiming around 19 different physical versions alone, alongside digital releases and re-releases. One has to wonder if there is any artistic intent behind these actions, but the reality is clear once you see the charting numbers, and the desperate attempt to hold on to the continued quantitative success brought about by so many pointless releases.

Revisiting this album months after its release, I take away even less than when I initially listened to it front to back. The double album version on Spotify consists of 31 songs and clocks in at around 2 hours of listening time— with a majority of the first half being produced by Taylor's long-time collaborator, Jack Antonoff, and the second half by Aaron Dessner, a founding member of The National.

While the description may create expectations of vastly different sounds in the two halves of the album, the truth is most of what is present here sounds incredibly lacklustre in terms of catchy melodies or interesting and punchy beats. The overall effect created, thus, causes most of the instrumentation to sound like they're lacking in identity. Particularly in the first half, the album moves at a snail's pace with one sloppily put-together synthpop instrumental after another.

There's also a lot to be said about the structure of the songs themselves— which often feel tedious to have to go through, even for tracks that are just around the 3-minute mark. Some songs ("But Daddy I Love Him, Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?") feel especially indulgent while offering nothing creative or fun for their 5-minute runtime.

For the biggest pop star in the world (and one of the biggest of all time) to come up with a serving of songs that sound so watered down is, to say the least, disheartening.

Then there's her song-writing, which has been on a downward spiral since Midnights but has never seen a point as low as this before. Every single song is chock-full of half-baked metaphors and images that add nothing to the emotional weight of what Taylor is actually trying to say and, instead, take away from the song.

Tracks like "The Tortured Poets Department" attempt to tell a story, but lines like 'you smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate/we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist' make much of the song feel like padding. And the same can be said for tracks like "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)", "My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys", and so many more.

Ultimately, the through line problem I find with the album is Taylor's refusal to give herself some time to actually edit and work on her music. Instead, The Tortured Poets Department feels like a bloated mess with lyricism that, at times, read like notes app poetry. While there are certainly highlights (such as "The Manuscript"), to say that they make the listening experience worth it after trudging through everything else would simply be a lie.