Taylor Swift Posts Responses to ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Reviews Using Album Lyrics
Taylor Swift is in the midst of the whirlwind roll-out of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which has already smashed a number of records since its release on Friday and appears poised to keep setting new high bars as Swifties continue to dissect its robust 31-track song cycle.
And while Swift has been very hands-on since surprise announcing the album at this year’s Grammy Awards — then doubling-down on that surprise last week when she revealed that the LP would be a double-disc collection — she got even more in the weeds on Monday morning (April 22) when she posted a series of responses to critics’ reviews.
On her socials on Monday, Swift posted an instant classic line from the album’s title track (“And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding”) in a reaction to Rolling Stones‘ review calling the album an “instant classic” under the headline “Review: Come For the Torture, Stay for the Poetry.”
She also reposted the The Sunday Times calling the album a “five-star pleasure” with “The Alchemy” line “these chemicals hit me like whiiiiite wiiiiine,” and clearly enjoyed the iNews five-star take that it is a “unique record… and one of the star’s most emotionally poised” as evidenced by a line from “So High School,” quoting, “I feel like laughing in the middle of practice.”
As for The Independent opining that Swift’s “country-hued tales of bad boys & good girls are irresistible,” Swift reacted with another line from the title track: “everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be.”
One review she did not appear to respond to was a rare low-score rating from Paste magazine, which gave the album a 3.6/10 rating, saying that on her latest the singer, “can’t help but infantilize the very people who buy into her music and drive her successes upwards in the first place.” Explaining the decision on X, the magazine said, “There is no byline on this review due to how, in 2019 when Paste reviewed Lover, the writer was sent threats of violence from readers who disagreed with the work. We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.
In keeping with the multi-pronged, flood-the-zone nature of the Poets roll-out, Swift also launched a track-by-track album experience with Amazon Music on Monday morning in which she provides commentary on the songs interspersed with the album’s tracks. Poets Department instantly became the most-streamed album in its first day on Amazon Music on Friday on its way to selling 1.4 million copies in its first day of release in the U.S.
See Swift’s reviews of the reviews below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
