Losing sleep over Taylor for you this month: Satu.
A quick overview of what she’s been up to since we last spoke:
Taylor finally wore the world’s hottest designer, Schiaparelli by Daniel Rosebery. I’m always rooting for Joseph Cassell, Taylor’s stylist, in what must be a constant power struggle.
She won a 13th Grammy, and a 14th Grammy. She is somehow yet to win Song of the Year.
She announced her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, out in April. <scream>
Her large boyfriend was somehow involved in the framing device for Usher’s Half-time Show, and did a good job. Taylor’s hair looked really nice. At the after-party, they danced to Love Story, an incredibly boss move.
Taylor’s portfolio career of popstar / celebrity / WAG (a full-time job for most) / businesslady is going well, although of course the work could dry up at any time so I hope she’s saved at least six months worth of living expenses. As a fellow freelancer, I’d love to know how much of her day Taylor spends invoicing. I notice that she’s quietly added a new section to her website, so I expect we’ll be adding another “/” before too long – film director.
Taylor should think about the consequence of dropping TS11 before Eras comes to Europe. Let’s speculate wildly: I believe she’ll add an era to the setlist with its own stage set. There’s no way a brand-new album gets relegated to the secret songs section. She has April off from tour and it must be to rehearse a new show and of course promote the new album. The obvious candidates for dropping a couple of songs to make space are Midnights and folklore. When it comes to what Poets will be like, we are desperate for a granule of genre information. The title and the album artwork imply “sad indie” but I’m 100% certain it will be a pop album. The song titles give no clue beyond that she’s hopping mad. We’ve been confuzzled by her on what a song will sound like before on Slut! So trying to guess what “Down Bad” or “Loml” will sound like is a clown’s errand. But, what clowns these Swifties be. For I shall try:
We can at least guess at what the first track Fortnight will sound like based on the collab partner. I am obsessed with this Post Malone feature. I’ve been wondering about Taylor’s thoughts on rap/hip-hop and how much to put in her music since the album art for reputation dropped, so roughly once a week for the past 6-7 years. The answer is finally here in the form of Post, who bridges hip-hop and pop pretty neatly although his last big moment was way back in 2018. I wonder why Taylor picked him for this? Post gave us this tantalising insight: “she hit me up and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And I was like, Hell yeah!” My guess is that Taylor spotted their musical common ground, just like when she randomly called up Aaron Dessner. Post’s performance of America the Beautiful at the Superbowl (truly everyone was there) sounded much more like country music than hip-hop, which is very 2024 of him. Taylor’s duets with men are often a sweet spot for her (here’s to you, Coney Island fans) and I’m rooting for this to be a playful back-and-forth that sounds a bit like Post’s song Sunflower crossed with those addictive walking-pace Taylor songs like Is It Over Now? or Getaway Car. “Fortnight” is a curiously English word for our American queen to use (and obviously the track title So Long, London is a not-so-subtle clue as to what period of her life she’ll be addressing on the album). I also wonder if Fortnight refers to a specific event given there’s a reference to “making forts” in Call It What You Want. The night of the fort?
The only thing we know about the Florence duet Florida!!! is that she also works at the Tortured Poets Department:
I love Florence as much as any British girl who used to wear petticoats as fashion items but her duet with Lady Gaga, Hey Girl, was a -10 flop. TTPD seems more Florence’s speed, with its fun “spooky academia” conceit. The name “Tortured Poets Department” has a gothic feel, like A Series of Unfortunate Events if those books were about breaking up, getting back together long enough to put their starsign in your music video, breaking up again :(, re-connecting with the one that got away, getting dumped by him AGAIN for god’s sake, and then meeting your fame-level soulmate and sailing into the celebrity sunset. For the rest of the album, we can forecast an album of Would’ve Could’ve Should’ves, where she slices and dices at least two people who have done her wrong: the really dark-sounding track titles like I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) feel different to The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.
Hopefully the final track Clara Bow will be an addition to the The Lucky One / Starlight / Last Great American Dynasty canon of Taylor songs about women in American history, because I’m mega-fond of them and I like every album to have one silly goose song about frolicking around in the past. Clara Bow was the biggest movie star in Hollywood once, but also famously silent on screen. Or was she silenced? We’ll have to see what the significance of that is.
Taylor has always acknowledged the genius of America’s greatest living poet Lana Del Rey and I strongly expect this poets-themed album to go in the direction of Lana’s freewheeling, give-no-fucks lyricism. The album cover is a clue in itself: we can’t see Taylor’s eyes, which she’s done before on the original versions of Red and 1989 (both fundamentally breakup albums), but never with such an overt focus on her body. She isn’t wearing much but the items she does wear, a vest and big knickers, are from The Row and Saint Laurent, very grownup designers with no girly flourishes or any hint of whimsy, completely unlike her street style which has recently involved a lot of schoolgirl-esque mini-kilts and big red sports jackets. A poet shirt or nightgown would definitely be too on the nose for this album but the minimalism feels significant and unusual for Taylor. The image is intimate and vulnerable – she’s protecting her vital organs with one arm across her stomach – but also womanly and sleek, which for Taylor ultimately means one thing: power. The Tortured Poets Department is no place for what Taylor used to try and be, “a polite young lady”. Instead, we can expect a mad, mad woman.
If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on Taylor and at least 13 ways in which she’s a genius, my book Into the Taylor-Verse is now available to pre-order.
perfect title, perfect article. my thoughts on the title ‘fortnight’ were that bc it’s a word that’s more commonly used by brits than americans (they opt for bi-weekly which drives me mad bc in my mind that’s twice a week), it’s likely to be about joe and a specific window of time spent with him.
Killer title