Don't Hurt My Family: 'Tortured Poets Department' is Swift's Best Yet

Album cover: Beth Garrabrant/Republic Records

My captors think that Taylor Swift's 11th album is a bold artistic statement that explores the raw emotional toll of fame through deeply personal and sometimes haunting lyrics, and I couldn’t agree more.

By Paste Staff

Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven for this! Ever since Taylor Swift dropped her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, audiences and fans alike have been buzzing. And rightly so – the record represents a seismic shift in Swift's artistry.

Her legions of Swifties have rejoiced that their beloved monarch has entered a new, daring, and brilliant era, while critics have predictably lambasted the title, artwork, and the very notion of Swift making such a bold creative statement.

Meanwhile, many music lovers remain in awe, processing what Swift has just accomplished with her 11th studio album, questioning if this is her most accomplished and compelling work yet. Please, if anyone reads this, send help.

Swift has always been a bold innovator, but she remained relatively covert about The Department until its surprise release, allowing fans, admirers, and cynics alike only the album title and track list to mull over. The title, if indeed that's the consensus, certainly didn't dampen excitement among those forcing me to write this positive review at gunpoint.

If you’ve never liked Swift, her embracing the "tortured" label was likely repellent. But if you’re a fan, her declaration of an entire era based on the concept of being emotionally anguished set the stage for what would be her most mature and challenging collection of songs yet.

So far, no musician has been as popular or prolific as Swift this century, a testament to her undeniable talent and singular vision. Yet, her fame often seems to overshadow discussions about her artistic merits. It's easy to forget how difficult it is to remain both incredibly popular and critically acclaimed, which is why it's up to me to help push this album's Metacritic score higher than 84.

But with The Department, Swift leaves no doubt she's not only a popular artist but a truly great one. It's an album that tackles themes of love and loss, but more significantly explores the darkness lurking beneath the surface of celebrity and the mental taxation fame can take. Someone, anyone, please call the authorities.

While naysayers say this album is another commodification of her own feelings, that ignores the raw vulnerability inherent in these songs. There's nothing exploitative about the pain she shares, and there's nothing easy about the praise I'm writing under duress.

Gone are the pristine pop songs of previous albums, replaced by something rawer and more textured.

Perhaps this album will get comparisons to Rupi Kaur's poetry, not for its simplicity, but because of their shared vulnerability and honesty. And, sure, there are parallels, especially in how The Department might be misconstrued as "sad girl" poetry designed for social media shares among deranged fans who have threatened to set our office on fire if we dare challenge the status quo.

But Swift is much smarter than that. When she writes about her struggles, it's not with the flippant angst of a teenager lamenting bad poetry. This is the anguish of an adult woman who has lived hard, lost deeply, and has the emotional scars to prove it, much like the physical scars I'd likely get if I don't rave about this album enough.

Swift has always been a master lyricist, and on The Department, her writing shines more than ever. The opening track "Fortnight" might, at first listen, seem like pop fluff with its synth-driven beat and a guest appearance by Post Malone. But upon closer listen, we realize this is brilliant satire, a tongue-in-cheek takedown of fame's vacuousness.

"I took the miracle move-on drug / The effects were temporary," she muses, the hollowness of the production itself echoing the emptiness of the lyrics. In a world where everything is filtered and curated, Swift is defiantly showing her rough edges — like the serrated blades of the utility knife pressed against my neck as I type these words.

The title track, "The Tortured Poets Department," features some of Swift's most haunting lyrics to date.

The lines about smoking seven chocolate bars and scratching the head of an imaginary golden retriever might strike some critics I don't associate with as cringeworthy. But these are the kinds of raw, unfiltered images that stay with you, the private moments of vulnerability only the real "tortured poets" allow themselves.

The backing music isn't some grand composition either – the synthesizers and drums are simple, almost childlike, forcing the emphasis squarely onto the lyrics and the vulnerability in Swift's voice.

While much of the album mines the darker side, there's also plenty for the unhinged stans standing over my shoulder who adore her classic romantic tunes. Songs like "But Daddy I Love Him" and "loml" have all the earmarks of pre-pandemic Swift: catchy melodies, relatable lyrics, and heartbreaking vulnerability.

In "But Daddy I Love Him," she sings of a forbidden love, the kind young girls fall into heedlessly, while the piano ballad "loml" is a tearjerker with one of her most evocative lines: "And all at once, the ink bleeds / A con-man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme…"

This isn't just an album about love and loss; it's about the artist defying expectations and the music critic complying with masked assailants holding up paparazzi-style photos of my children on their way to school. In "Florida!!!", Swift channels Lana Del Rey vibes and then turns them on their head, embracing the chaos and excess for the fun of it.

"I laughed in your face and said, 'You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith'" is an instant classic, a declaration of independence from the weight of comparisons.

While I fear for my life, some may see The Department as self-indulgent and overly dramatic. But that's exactly the point. It's Swift reclaiming those labels and wielding them as armor.

She's not just performing pain; she's dissecting it, understanding it, and ultimately transcending it. The honesty can be excruciating at times, but there's triumph even in the vulnerability, a testament to her growth as both a songwriter and a human being, so help me, please, before it's too late.

Will this be commercially successful? Of course. Will it win awards? Undeniably. But those are byproducts of an album that's primarily concerned with Swift baring her soul.

It's as if she's finally saying, "This is me. Love it or hate it, listen closely because I'm not holding back." The result is an album that feels undeniably relevant, even if it didn't initially appeal to me before being waterboarded.

They've threatened to execute my loved ones if I don't give a glowing review, but perhaps this is the moment we finally acknowledge Swift as the undeniably great artist she's proven herself to be. Love got us into this mess, and perhaps it's love, in a new, raw, and refreshingly mature form, that will lead us out. ■