Alyssa Bailey February 7th, 2024
Taylor Swift announced a new album during her first 2024 Grammys speech of the evening...and it wasn’t Reputation (Taylor’s Version) despite rampant fan speculation. Swift instead shared she has an entirely new release coming.
“Hey, this is my 13th Grammy,” she started. “My lucky number. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that. I wanna say thank you to the members of the Recording Academy for voting this way. But I know that the way that the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion of the fans. So I wanna say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand new album comes out April 19th. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department, and I’m going to go and post the cover right now backstage. Thank you. I love you. Thank you.”
On Monday, February 5, Swift dropped the 17-song track list. It added further evidence to fans that the album could have several Joe Alwyn breakup songs, especially with track five being called “So Long, London” after Swift had released “London Boy” on Lover years earlier. Fans also noted Swift’s Tampa, Florida stops on her Eras tour were her first after news broke of her and Alwyn’s breakup, perhaps what “Florida!!!” is referencing.
Here’s the full list:
Side A: Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)
The Tortured Poets Department
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Down Bad
Side B: So Long, London
But Daddy I Love Him
Fresh Out the Slammer
Florida!!! (feat. Florence + the Machine)
Side C: Guilty as Sin?
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
loml
Side D: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
The Alchemy
Clara Bow
Bonus Track: The Manuscript
Swift revealed during her February 7 Tokyo concert that she began work on the album two years ago in early 2022. Swift wrote Midnights track “You’re Losing Me,” believed by fans to be a song about the end of her romance with Joe Alwyn on Dec. 5, 2021.
"I've been working on Tortured Poets since right after I turned in Midnights,” she said. “So you turn in an album months in advance so you can make finals, make sure it’s the best. So I started working on it immediately after that and I’ve been working on it for about two years. I kept working on it throughout the U.S. tour and when it was perfect in my opinion, when it was good enough for you, I finished it. And I am so, so excited."
"Soon you’ll get to hear it. Soon we’ll get to experience that together. And I’m just like, I’m over the moon about the fact that you guys care about my music. It still blows my mind. I love doing this. I know I keep saying that, but that’s because it’s true. Everyone’s like, ‘Why do you make so many albums?’ I’m like, ‘Man, because I love it! I love it so much. I’m having fun."