Hot take: "The Anthology" Was Better Than "Tortured Poets Department"

The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.

by Tristan Stonerock

Staff Writer

On April 19, Taylor Swift released a double album “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” With 31 total songs, this album took the world by storm. While I felt that many songs were meant to be sad and lyrical, it feels like most of the songs didn’t have a beat at all. 

It must be said that as an avid Taylor Swift listener, I did enjoy many songs in this album, but the ones I didn’t enjoy were some of her worst songs ever. Taylor Swift has released plenty of albums over the years, each album having a few songs that weren’t my favorites, but overall still good. This is not the case for  “The Tortured Poets Department.” 

That majority of the songs on the “Tortured Poets Department” were hardly songs. Lyric wise, they were heartfelt and emotional, but lacked much depth listeners see in her other songs. As well as the fact that there was barely a bit of music in the background. 

It really was sad because I really expected the song “Florida” to be incredible. I do like Florence + The Machine as a band, but they really didn’t shine through in this song. The only beats in the song were around the chorus when Swift sang the word  “Florida.”

I also didn’t enjoy “Fortnight.” It was a bland opening to the album, and though I hoped that it would get better later in the album, it didn’t. This was a disappointing album. 

I did enjoy the album “The Anthology,” specifically the song “The Prophecy.” It was very beautiful and had great lyrics, such as this line: “Poison blood from the wound of the prickled hand.”

I expected this album to be more like “Folklore.” While it wasn’t, I would have preferred at least a good album.