At midnight on 19 April last year, Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department.
It was an emotional garage sale. Over 31 tracks of heartbreak and emotional longing, Swift picked at the scabs of her romances with the rock star Matty Healy and actor Joe Alwyn, while pushing back at social media critics and documenting the pressures of fame.
The reviews were middling at best. Music magazine NME suggested it was a “rare misstep” for Swift, with some “cringe-inducing” lyrics. The New York Times described it as “insular” and “self-indulgent”.
My own review bemoaned the lack of editing, calling Swift “prolific to a fault”.
Others were more complimentary – Rolling Stone called the album “gloriously chaotic” – though the response clearly didn’t match the near-universal acclaim of Swift’s earlier work.
But guess what? Those tepid reviews didn’t matter. Spotify declared it their most-streamed album in a single day. In the UK, it enjoyed the biggest first-week sales in seven years. Right now, it seems nothing can damage Swift.
