midnight tour taylor swift

Swifties, rise! Taylor Swift is taking ‘Midnights’ on the road with U.S. stadium tour

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Taylor Swift is taking “Midnights” on the road.

Just a day after making Billboard history , the “Lavender Haze” singer announced Tuesday on “ Good Morning America ” that she will embark on her sixth concert tour.

“Good morning, America, it’s Taylor,” she said. “I wanted to tell you something that I’ve been so excited about for a really long time and I’ve been planning for ages, and I finally get to tell you I’m going back on tour. The tour is called the ‘Eras’ tour, and it’s a journey through all of my musical eras of my career.”

🚨 FIRST ON @GMA : @taylorswift13 is going back on tour! 🚨 Check out all the info on her "Eras" tour here: https://t.co/ESCtIe5at0 #Eras #MidnightsTaylorSwift #MidnightsTS #TaylorSwift pic.twitter.com/M5xbcraipv — Good Morning America (@GMA) November 1, 2022

Swift will launch the tour in U.S. stadiums on March 18, 2023, in Glendale, Ariz. — the same place she kicked off her 2018 Reputation tour. So far, 27 dates have been announced across the country that will take the tour into August when she closes out the first leg with two shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Aug. 4 and 5.

She will release international dates later.

The Grammy winner has also tapped a number of “brilliant opening acts” for the tour, including Paramore, beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers, girl in red, Muna, Haim, Gayle, Gracie Abrams, and Owenn.

“And really, I’m just so excited that I get to look you guys in the eye and say thank you for everything,” she added.

I’m enchanted to announce my next tour: Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!) The first leg of the tour will be in stadiums across the US, with international dates to be announced as soon as we can! https://t.co/KFuqvrhSGo pic.twitter.com/eVyTcuW8sK — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 1, 2022

Prospective concertgoers will have to sign up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program to register for presale tickets now through Nov. 9. Once they receive a code, they will be able to purchase tickets on Nov. 15. Those tickets will start at $49 and go up to $449. VIP packages start at $199 and go up to $899.

Verified fans from Swift’s Lover Fest tour will also receive preferred access to participate in the TaylorSwiftTix Presale once registered with the same Ticketmaster account as the previous purchase.

All other public ticket sales begin Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. local venue time.

Swift’s announcement comes more than a week after she released her tenth studio album, “Midnights,” on Oct. 20 . The singer announced the album back in August during an acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards.

In a statement after the show , she described “Midnights” as a “a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.”

Leading up to the release, Swift teased fans by trickling details about the album — including writing credits for boyfriend Joe Alwyn and “The Batman” star Zoë Kravitz.

“Midnights” made its grand entrance by briefly crashing Spotify and treating fans to bonus tracks and a companion music video for the single “Anti-Hero.”

Times critic Mikael Wood wrote that “Midnights” “returns to an earlier Swift mode in both sonic and lyrical terms.”

Out of the woods, Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ heralds the return of a pop-music mastermind

After two rootsy pandemic albums, ‘Midnights’ picks up right where 2014’s ‘1989’ and 2017’s ‘Reputation’ left off.

Oct. 20, 2022

Adding to the excitement around “Midnights” was the album’s commercial success. Swift’s new album broke records on Spotify last week and on Monday, the singer became the first artist to fully occupy the top 10 spots of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

“10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES,” Swift tweeted on Monday.

Taylor Swift becomes first artist to occupy top 10 spots of Billboard Hot 100

Swift’s dominance means that, for the first time in history, there were no male artists in the top 10 of the Hot 100.

Oct. 31, 2022

10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES. https://t.co/q1n5Zc6pYA — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 31, 2022

Swift’s upcoming tour comes amid critical and commercial hype for “Midnight” and more than four years since her “Reputation” tour in 2018.

Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.

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Alexandra Del Rosario is an entertainment reporter on the Los Angeles Times Fast Break Desk. Before The Times, she was a television reporter at Deadline Hollywood, where she first served as an associate editor. She has written about a wide range of topics including TV ratings, casting and development, video games and AAPI representation. Del Rosario is a UCLA graduate and also worked at the Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap.

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Taylor Swift The Eras Tour: Tickets, prices, presale, dates, setlist and everything you need to know

18 October 2022, 12:03

Taylor Swift says Anti-Hero is one of her favourite songs she’s ever written

By Katie Louise Smith

How much will Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour tickets be? Where to get The Eras Tour pre-sale codes? What cities will Taylor play in? Here's what we know...

Listen to this article

Taylor Swift ? Going on tour? The rumours ARE true. The Eras Tour IS happening. And we're all about to be filing for bankruptcy after fighting to get our hands on those tickets.

In case you haven't heard, Taylor confirmed that she is set to tour after the release of her tenth studio album Midnights . So far, Taylor's official channels have only confirmed that she will be touring the US and the UK, but worldwide dates will be announced soon.

Taylor's last tour was way back in 2018 when she took Reputation on the road. She was then scheduled to tour her Lover album with a series of Lover Fest shows in 2020, but had to cancel due to the pandemic.

That means she's now got a whopping FOUR new albums ( Lover , Folklore, Evermore, Midnights ) and two re-recorded albums ( Fearless TV and Red TV ) that have yet to be toured.

Fans have been desperate to see the made-up Folklovermore tour happen, but now we've got The Eras Tour to look forward to. Here's everything we know about the tour so far, including tour dates, tour stops, potential ticket prices, where to find pre-sale codes and everything in between.

Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour: Everything we know so far...

The Eras Tour dates: When is Taylor Swift going on tour in 2023?

So far, Taylor has only confirmed tour dates for the US leg of The Eras Tour. She'll start her US shows in late March 2023, and play through to early August 2023.

As for the UK tour dates? We're still waiting for confirmation on those. Based on her tweet, Taylor will tour the UK and Europe after the US leg. Other international tour dates will also follow.

Back in 2019, Taylor explained to Zane Lowe why she couldn't commit to a worldwide Lover stadium tour : "I’ve got some pretty intense things happening with my family right now. I can’t go on long tours and not have the ability to go home if I need to. I have priorities that aren’t just touring now, and [the fans] have been really respectful of that in the past."

Bookmark this page – we'll update with more info as soon as it's announced.

I’m enchanted to announce my next tour: Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!) The first leg of the tour will be in stadiums across the US, with international dates to be announced as soon as we can! https://t.co/KFuqvrhSGo pic.twitter.com/eVyTcuW8sK — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 1, 2022

Taylor Swift The Eras Tour pre-sale codes: How to find a pre-sale code for your country

In the UK, fans were able to get a pre-sale code when they pre-ordered the Midnights album from Taylor's official UK store . The window to secure those codes has now closed, but more codes will no doubt be announced once the UK dates are confirmed.

For fans in the US, there's several ways in which you can get a pre-sale code for the tour. First, you can get a pre-sale code through the Capital One exclusive cardholder pre-sale .

• To get into the pre-sale, you'll need to a) be a Capital One cardholder, and b) visit Taylor Swift's official events page on November 15th at 2PM (LOCAL VENUE TIME) to buy tickets with that Capital One card. (You'll need the first 6 digits of your Capital One card to gain access to the pre-sale.)
• Fans can also gain access to the Ticketmaster Verified Fan pre-sale. You'll need to register on your Ticketmaster account BEFORE Wednesday, November 9 @ 11:59PM ET and you will then receive an email confirmation with details on what to expect next.

No other pre-sale codes have been announced yet. So if you live outside of the UK and the US, keep your eyes peeled and notifications on for Taylor and Taylor Nation's accounts.

Tickets will go on sale after Taylor has revealed the tour dates and locations. Ticket sale dates will also be announced in advance. Fans will have plenty of time to prepare and get ready to buy their tickets.

Taylor Swift praises Lana Del Rey as she talks about their collaboration track on new album

Taylor Swift 2023 tour locations: What cities will Taylor play in?

Taylor has confirmed that The Eras Tour will be an international tour, but so far, only the US leg locations have been announced.

On the US leg, Taylor will be stopping in 20 cities across the country, with 27 shows announced so far. Here's the full list so far:

• Glendale, AZ
• Las Vegas, NV
• Arlington, TX
• Houston, TX
• Nashville, TN
• Atlanta, GA
• Philadelphia, PA
• Foxborough, MA
• East Rutherford, NJ
• Chicago, IL
• Detroit, MI
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Minneapolis, MN
• Cincinatti, OH
• Kansas City, MO
• Seattle, WA
• Santa Clara, CA
• Los Angeles, CA

Taylor's Lover Fest tour was scheduled to have festival dates in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Norway, UK, Denmark, Poland, France, Spain and Portugal. UK's Glastonbury was also included in those dates), South America (Brazil) and North America (Atlanta, Los Angeles and Foxborough).

In contrast, Taylor's record breaking Rep tour had 53 shows, with Taylor visiting the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Thanks to her announcement, we know for sure that Taylor will be touring in the UK. As for what cities? We'll have to wait for the announcement to know more about where Taylor will be playing outside of the US.

The Eras Tour ticket prices: How much will the tickets to Taylor Swift's tour be?

Until the tickets start to go on sale, we won't know exactly how much it'll cost for pit standing, standard standing or seated admission.

Fans have been sharing information about how much they've paid in the past for her stadium shows. Prices for her upcoming tour will probably not be the same, but could be a similar price depending on the location.

But with Ticketmaster's controversial Platinum ticket feature that saw Harry Styles fans end up paying extortionate amounts for his upcoming shows, the most in-demand tickets at Taylor's shows could end up being more expensive than ever.

That said, we'll just have to wait and see! Better start saving up now, Swifties!

Taylor Swift The Eras Tour setlist: What songs will she play?

Taylor has confirmed that The Eras Tour is a "a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!)" With 10 albums and hundreds of bops, bangers and ballads to choose from, the setlist for the The Eras Tour is going to be incredible.

Taylor will no doubt include a handful of songs from her latest album Midnights , as well as songs that have yet to be performed in a tour setting from Folklore, Evermore and Lover . (Fingers crossed for a live performance of 'Cruel Summer'!!!)

In terms of her re-recorded albums, tracks from Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) will also likely make the set list.

It's unclear when Taylor will be releasing any more re-recorded albums, and if they'll be released by the time she sets off on tour. Both 1989 (Taylor's Version) and Speak Now (Taylor's Version) have been teased through easter eggs and on Taylor's website. But it is possible that Taylor could perform several of her old songs that she has not yet officially re-released.

Just like on the Reputation tour, Taylor could also perform a surprise song at each of the dates.

Taylor Swift reveals jam-packed schedule for Midnights release

Will Taylor Swift headline Glastonbury in 2023?

Taylor was scheduled to perform at the iconic festival in 2020 alongside fellow headliners Kendrick Lamar and Paul McCartney. However, she declined to keep her headline slot when the festival was rescheduled to 2022.

Speculation that she'll finally be back on the line-up for 2023 has circulated on the internet but given that she has not yet released her own versions of her Taylor Swift, Speak Now, 1989 and Reputation albums, it's possible that she might hold off until she finally owns all of her songs and albums.

That said, the current US leg schedule does leave a cheeky gap for her to POTENTIALLY (!) perform on the Pyramid Stage on Friday 23rd June... before travelling back to the US to continue the tour in Minneapolis on the 24th.

Only time will tell if she does! If we all start manifesting now, it'll eventually come true. (And if not this year, fingers crossed for 2024!)

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Taylor Swift's Midnights Album: Everything We Know About Her October 21 Release

“This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams.”

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When 12 a.m. rolled around, Swift gave ample detail on what to expect with her 10th studio album—and revealed the album art.

Ahead, everything we know about the project.

When does the album come out?

Swift revealed the release date before anything else at the MTV VMAs: Friday, Oct. 21, 2022. It will be a midnight release like her previous other works, especially given its namesake. Fans pointed out that Oct, 21, 2022 is coincidentally Kim Kardashian’s birthday. But more telling is what the digitals add up to: 10 + 2 + 1 = 13, Swift’s beloved and common Easter egg number and the number of tracks on Midnights .

Swift provided a more detailed breakdown of the album's release schedule on Monday, October 17 at midnight.

• Thursday, October 20: Teaser trailer during the third quarter of Thursday night football on Prime Video. Swift didn't specify whether this teaser trailer was for the full album or the “Anti-Hero” music video out on October 21 at 8 A.M. EST.
• Friday, October 21, 12 AM EST: Midnights album release
• October 21, 3 A.M. EST: “Special very chaotic surprise”
• October 21, 8 A.M. EST: “Anti-Hero” music video premiere
• October 21, 8 P.M. EST: Lyric videos for album
• Tuesday, October 25, 12 A.M. EST: Second Midnights music video release. Fans theorized the song is “Vigilante Shit” because it and “Anti-Hero” are the only two tracks Swift held her phone upside during her track name reveal videos.

Is this album another re-recording?

No, Swift’s Oct. 21 album will be a new original work. During the Midnights announcement, Swift did not address when she would release her re-recordings of 1989 and Reputation.

What songs are on the album? Which will be singles?

Swift didn't initially share a track list, only that the album will feature a total of 13 new songs. During her midnight album announcement, she gave a little detail about what they’ll be about: “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight.” She has not announced her first single yet.

Over time, Swift released more of the track names and ultimately the full track list.

• Lavender Haze
• Snow on the Beach
• You're on Your Own, Kid
• Midnight Rain
• Question...?
• Vigilante Shit
• Sweet Nothing

She'll be releasing three bonus tracks with the Target edition of her album, which is available for pre-order now. The songs included are new track “Hits Different,” a string remix of “You're on Your Own, Kid,” and a piano remix of “Sweet Nothing.”

You can order the Target version below:

Shop all Universal Music Group Taylor Swift - Midnights: Lavender Edition (Target Exclusive)

What is the album about? Are the songs based on Swift's life?

When Swift announced the project, she explained the premise and theme for her work. She wrote:

We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made ages and pray that we aren’t—right this minute—about to make some fateful life-altering mistake. This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching—hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve … we’ll meet ourselves. Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight.

Swift has spoken a little about what particular songs are about and revealed the first track , “Lavender Haze,” would address her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn.

“Lavender Haze is track 1 on Midnights ,” she said. “I happened upon the phrase 'lavender haze' when I was watching Mad Men . I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool. And it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would describe being in love. If you in the ‘lavender haze,’ then that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow. And I thought that was really beautiful.”

“I guess, theoretically, when you’re in the ‘lavender haze,’ you’ll do anything to stay there,” she continued. “And not let people bring you down off of that cloud. I think that a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out if you’re in love with somebody they’re going to weigh in on it. Like my relationship for six years we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”

Ahead of the album's release, Swift revealed five themes that inspired Midnights on Spotify.

On Monday, October 17, Swift shared the first: “The first thing that kept me up at night that helped inspired the Midnights album is self-loathing.”

Will Swift go on tour for this album?

Swift hasn’t announced any tour dates yet. Her last announcement regarding touring was in February 2021, referencing her canceled Lover Fest tour dates and explaining why she had no plans to reschedule them. She wrote then:

I love coming on here to tell you good news, or to share a new project with you. It's not my favorite thing in the world to have to tell you news I'm sad about. I'm so sorry, but I cannot reschedule the shows that we've postponed. Although refunds have been available since we first postponed the Lover Fest shows, many of you hung onto your tickets and I too hung onto the the idea that we could reschedule. This is an unprecedented pandemic that has changed everyone's plans and no one knows what the touring landscape is going to look like in the near future. I'm so disappointed that I won't be able to see you in person as soon as I wanted to. I miss you terribly and can't wait 'til we can all safely be at shows together again. - Taylor Swift

But on September 30, 2022, a source told Page Six that she is definitely planning something soon, a “massive stadium tour” for the summer of 2023.

“Taylor has some really ambitious plans in place,” said one insider. “She’s excited to get back on the road after such a long but fruitful break.”

There were rumors circulating all through the month that Swift might be performing at the next Super Bowl Halftime show. The event is usually sponsored by Pepsi and Swift has an ongoing deal with Coca-Cola, but this year Apple took over opening the way for a possible Swift performance. TMZ reported that she turned the offer down because she doesn't want to perform until her older albums have been rerecorded. She still has Taylor Swift , Speak Now , 1989 , and Reputation to go. Will she actually finish them all by next summer? If anyone can, it's Taylor Swift.

Are pre-orders available? What about merchandise?

You wouldn’t expect Taylor Swift to be caught unprepared, would you? Of course pre-orders are available — and there’s merch! Fans can purchase Midnights in vinyl, CD, or cassette, in addition to the standard digital version. Both the vinyl and CD sets come with unique artwork/photography and a collectible booklet. There’s no answer to the folklore cardigan available on TaylorSwift.com just yet...but we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as one drops.

Are there multiple album covers for Midnights ?

Absolutely. Swift ended August to sharing three special edition covers in addition to Midnights ' main cover. “August may have slipped away but September brings 3 new special edition covers!” Swift wrote. “Pre-order Midnights collectible cd versions and unique color vinyl versions now … 💁‍♀️🌌”

Here, a closer look at all the variants: Jade Green, Blood Moon, and Mahogany:

Has Swift offered any previews of Midnights ?

On Friday, September 16, Swift posted a TikTok she captioned: “The making of Midnights. ” The montage gave a bunch of hints to fans about the album's production. The clips in the video include shots of Swift at the keyboard, recording vocals, and spending some quality time with her cat Benjamin and wandering through a snow storm.

But the clips also reveal a glimpse of producer Jack Antonoff, seemingly confirming that he is again serving as producer on Swift's album. Variety reports that the TikTok includes a shot of Antonoff's studio.

In another recent TikTok , Swift explained to fans that there are four different album covers for Midnight , and when they are put together they form a clock to “help you tell time.”

Then on September 21, Swift posted yet another TikTok from a series called “ Midnights Mayhem With Me,” revealing track listing one by one. The first track revealed was Track 13 and titled “Mastermind.”

She chose to reveal that track name with a Bingo cage, each one printed with a difference song title. Swift has been posting the series one day at a time. Other names revealed so far are “Track 2 Maroon,” “Track 6 Midnight Rain,” “Track 7 Question...?,’ and “Track 8 Vigilante Shit.”

On Monday, October 17 at midnight, Spotify revealed the first lyric from the album in Times Square, New York City: “I should not be left to my own devices.” More will be revealed in the days leading up to Midnights ' release.

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Taylor Swift Hints at ‘Midnights’ Tour: ‘I Think I Should Do It’

Will TayTay present the album to fans in venues around the globe? Don't bet against it.

By Lars Brandle

Lars Brandle

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Midnights is already a hit. Spotify has told us, charts compilers on both side of the Atlantic have confirmed it, Swifties spread it on social media.

Taylor Swift

See latest videos, charts and news

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Though she gave the late-night host nothing definitive, Swift admits she has a hankering for the live experience. “I really miss it,” she enthuses. “I really miss that connection.”

Midnights , Swift’s tenth studio album, dropped last Friday (Oct. 21) and immediately reached its audience, everywhere. Spotify announced it had smashed the music platform’s 24-hour streaming record. In the U.S., it’s sprinting to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, with more than 1.2 million chart sales racked up in just three days. In the U.K., it’s on track for the chart crown with more than 140,000 units shifted in the same frame.

It’s me, hi, @taylorswift13 is here tonight to talk #TSmidnighTS ! 🕰 🌌 #TaylorOnFallon pic.twitter.com/XAa3mUqbPx — The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) October 25, 2022

Those numbers are music to Swift’s ears.

“I’m beside myself,” she says of its early success. “I’m feeling very overwhelmed by the fans’ love of this record. I’m also feeling, like, very soft and fragile. The two can exist at once.”

For all the numbers and the adoration, she’s “just happy to be here,” she insists. “I’m 32. So we’re considered geriatric pop stars. They start trying to put us out to pasture at 25.”

During her time in the NBC studio, Swift discusses the mystery of writing (“the more I write, the more I keep writing”), her productive zone (“in the last six or seven years, I’ve been constantly making things… The more things I make, the happier I am”), she calls out her “genius” collaborator Lana Del Rey, and flexes her cat-lady talents for naming feline breeds.

Midnights , she continues, is “a pretty dark album, but I’d say I had more fun making it than any album I’ve ever made.” You can pen songs “about pain or grief or suffering or loss or hard things that you go through in life. Shame – you know, love to write about that one. Self-loathing…,” but over time, she continues, making music is “like a way to suck the poison out of a snakebite.”

Later in the Q&A, Swift walks us through the new music videos for “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled,” which features cameos from Laura Dern, the Haim sisters and Dita Von Teese.

TayTay wrote and directed the clip, which arrived at midnight, of course, something she’s keen to do more often. “Writing them and then directing them, that’s kind of the way that it works in my head…they kind of go hand in hand.”

Watch below.

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• Everything We Know So Far About Taylor Swift’s New Album <i>Midnights</i>

Everything We Know So Far About Taylor Swift’s New Album Midnights

A s the clock struck midnight early Monday, Taylor Swift took to the streets—Instagram and Twitter , that is—to let the world know: another album is coming.

This one, titled Midnights , will tell “the stories of 13 sleepless nights” scattered throughout Swift’s life, and will come out at midnight, aptly, on Oct. 21.

Here’s everything we know so far about Swift’s new album.

The Announcement

At the Video Music Awards on Sunday night, the pop star won video of the year for “ All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) ,” starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien.

“I know with every second of this moment that we wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you, the fans,” Swift said in her acceptance speech. “Because I wouldn’t be able to re-record my albums if it weren’t for you. You emboldened me to do that.”

“And I had sort of made up my mind that, if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21,” she continued. “And I will tell you more at midnight.”

During her acceptance speech for video of the year at the #VMAs , Taylor Swift announces a new album out October 21. https://t.co/K3f4GrgiuJ pic.twitter.com/9q2jGVDoPl — Variety (@Variety) August 29, 2022

The Release Date

As we very well know by now, there are no such things as coincidences for Taylor Swift. While Oct. 21 may not seem to hold any special significance, the date does coincide with a few other pop culture milestones.

Perhaps most significantly, the movie My Policeman —starring Harry Styles, who Swift formerly dated—releases on Oct. 21. Fans have speculated that the 2014 track “ Style ” off of the 1989 album was about Swift’s relationship with Styles.

Kim Kardashian’s birthday also falls on Oct. 21—another celebrity figure who Swift has seemingly written about in the past, with 2020’s “ long story short ” off of evermore . (The pair came into conflict in 2016 , when Kardashian posted a series of videos on Snapchat in which her then-husband, Kanye West, openly discussed mentioning Swift on his 2016 song “Famous.”)

And maybe most innocuously, Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen is scheduled to release her newest album, The Loneliest Time , also on Oct. 21.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

As disclosed in Swift’s late-night posts, the tracklist of 13 songs is currently labeled exactly as such: Side A includes “Track One,” “Track Two,” “Track Three,” “Track Four,” “Track Five” and “Track Six” and Side B includes “Track Seven” through “Track Thirteen.” (An admirably concise lineup for an artist like Swift, whose last album, Red (Taylor’s Version), contained no less than 30 songs.)

“We lie awake in love and in fear, in turmoil and in tears,” Swift captioned her announcement post on Instagram . “We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t—right this minute—about to make some fateful life-altering mistake.”

Swift has recently taken to social media (at, of course, midnight) to announce individual song titles, revealing that they will not, in fact, remain referred to by numbers alone. In an Instagram story series called “ Midnights Mayhem With Me,” she has disclosed that: “Track Six” will be titled “Midnight Rain,” “Track Seven” will be “Question…?,” “Track Eight” will be “Vigilante Sh-t,” and “Track Thirteen” will be called “Mastermind.”

“This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams,” Swift continued in the caption. “The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching—hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”

Midnights , when it releases, will mark Swift’s third album (after evermore and folkmore ) produced during the pandemic—five albums if you include the two recently re-released “Taylor’s versions” ( Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) .) The singer-songwriter will also soon have four albums (including Midnights ) that have yet to be toured.

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Taylor Swift Announces More Tour Dates: "Turns Out It's NOT the End of an Era"

Updated on 8/3/2023 at 1:40 PM

Taylor Swift has officially added more North American dates to her Eras Tour. On Aug. 3, just before the final shows of her initial US run, Swift revealed that she'll be playing 15 additional shows in four cities across America and Canada in 2024. "Turns out it's NOT the end of an era," she wrote in a social media post . "Miami, New Orleans, Indy and Toronto: The Eras Tour is coming to you in 2024 with @gracieabrams! Verified fan registration for all shows is open now – visit TaylorSwift.com for more information."

Swift first shared her vision for the Eras Tour with the world on Nov. 1, 2022, writing that it's "a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!)." The tour's first leg kicked off in the US in March, and will conclude in Los Angeles on Aug. 9. In June, Swift added 50 international dates to her schedule , including stops in the UK, Singapore, and more.

Despite some initial issues with Ticketmaster , Swift's Eras Tour has been a massive success by all counts. It's attracted stars (and their kids) , from Josh Gad and Reese Witherspoon to Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Garner, and it's also reportedly on track to become the highest-grossing tour of all time, per a June report in Pollstar . Swift has also netted praise for her elaborate outfits and thrilled fans with nightly surprise acoustic songs .

Swift initially teased that a tour was in the works on an episode of " The Graham Norton Show " that aired on Oct. 28, 2022. "We will sometime soonish. It's going to happen," she said of going back on the road. "We will do it, and it will be great."

The "Midnights" singer also teased the tour before during an Oct. 24, 2022, appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," when the late-night talk-show host pressed an answer out of her after pointing out the fact that she hasn't toured in four years. "We want you to," said Fallon, to which Swift replied, "I think I should do it." Fallon added: "When it's time, you'll let us know." "When it's time, we'll do it," Swift said, confirming his statement before she added how much she misses seeing her fans IRL.

Swift's record-breaking "Midnights" album dropped on Oct. 21, 2022, and she released " Speak Now (Taylor's Version) " on July 7. As Swift continues on with her star-studded Eras Tour, read on to learn everything you need to know, including the new show dates.

Taylor Swift's US and Canada Eras Tour Dates

New dates are marked with an asterisk.

• Mar. 17, 2023 - State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ
• Mar. 18, 2023 - State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ
• Mar. 24, 2023 - Allegiant Stadium, Paradise, NV
• Mar. 25, 2023 - Allegiant Stadium, Paradise, NV
• Mar. 31, 2023 - AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX
• Apr. 1, 2023 - AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX
• Apr. 2, 2023 - AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX
• Apr. 13, 2023 - Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
• Apr. 14, 2023 - Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
• Apr. 15, 2023 - Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
• Apr. 21, 2023 - NRG Stadium, Houston, TX
• Apr. 22, 2023 - NRG Stadium, Houston, TX
• Apr. 23, 2023 - NRG Stadium, Houston, TX
• Apr. 28, 2023 - Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA
• Apr. 29, 2023 - Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA
• May 5, 2023 - Nissan Stadium, Nashville, TN
• May 6, 2023 - Nissan Stadium, Nashville, TN
• May 7, 2023 - Nissan Stadium, Nashville, TN
• May 12, 2023 - Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
• May 14, 2023 - Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
• May 13, 2023 - Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
• May 19, 2023 - Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
• May 20, 2023 - Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
• May 21, 2023 - Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
• May 26, 2023 - MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
• May 27, 2023 - MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
• May 28, 2023 - MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
• Jun. 2, 2023 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL
• Jun. 3, 2023 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL
• Jun. 4, 2023 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL
• Jun. 9, 2023 - Ford Field, Detroit, MI
• Jun. 10, 2023 - Ford Field, Detroit, MI
• Jun. 16, 2023 - Acrisure Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA
• Jun. 17, 2023 - Acrisure Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA
• Jun. 23, 2023 - U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
• Jun. 24, 2023 - U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
• Jun. 30, 2023 - Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
• Jul. 1, 2023 - Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
• Jul. 7, 2023 - GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO
• Jul. 8, 2023 - GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO
• Jul. 14, 2023 - Empower Field at Mile High, Denver, CO
• Jul. 15, 2023 - Empower Field at Mile High, Denver, CO
• Jul. 22, 2023 - Lumen Field, Seattle, WA
• Jul. 23, 2023 - Lumen Field, Seattle, WA
• Jul. 28, 2023 - Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, CA
• Jul. 29, 2023 - Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, CA
• Aug. 3, 2023 - SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• Aug. 4, 2023 - SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• Aug. 5, 2023 - SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• Aug. 8, 2023 - SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• Aug. 9, 2023 - SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• Oct. 18, 2024 - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL*
• Oct. 19, 2024 - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL*
• Oct. 20, 2024 - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL*
• Oct. 25, 2024 - Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA*
• Oct. 26, 2024 - Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA*
• Oct. 27, 2024 - Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA*
• Nov. 1, 2024 - Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IL*
• Nov. 2, 2024 - Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IL*
• Nov. 3, 2024 - Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IL*
• Nov. 14, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*
• Nov. 15, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*
• Nov. 16, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*
• Nov. 21, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*
• Nov. 22, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*
• Nov. 23, 2024 - Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada*

Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour Opening Acts

Swift has been joined by a roster of artists (and her besties) throughout her tour, from Paramore and Haim to Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams, Muna, Gayle, Owenn, Beabadoobee, and Girl in Red. She will be joined by Abrams at her 2024 US and Canada dates.

What Time Does Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour Start?

The show begins at 6:30pm, with doors opening at least two hours before.

How Long Is Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour?

The show, which features a set list of 44 songs, is over three hours long.

Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour Bag Policy

Bag policies vary per stadium, so please be sure to check your email for details on each venue's bag policy.

Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour Tickets

As with her previous "Reputation" tour, fans are able to purchase tickets to The Eras Tour through the Ticketmaster Verified Fan program , which ensures fans get their hands on tickets before bots and resellers.

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The Latest News On Taylor Swift's "Midnights" And The Eras Tour

Chloe Williams serves as B+C’s Entertainment Editor and resident Taylor Swift expert. Whether she’s writing a movie review or interviewing the stars of the latest hit show, Chloe loves exploring why stories inspire us. You can see her work published in BuzzFeed , Coastal Review , and North Beach Sun . When she’s not writing, Chloe’s probably watching a Marvel movie with a cherry coke or texting her sister about the latest celebrity news. Say hi at @thechloewilliams on Insta and @ popculturechlo on Twitter!

Taylor Swift has done it again, folks. On August 28, while accepting her record-breaking third Video of the Year award — and after acknowledging that for the first time, there were four (!!!) women directors in the category — Swift announced that she would be releasing her brand new album Midnights on October 21, 2022. It's her first new album since evermore in December 2020, and with the magical feel of fire and Swift's makeup, we are loving the grunge-meets-glitter aesthetic.

With lyrics like "And it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name" in "The Way I Loved You" and "The lingering question kept me up. 2 a.m., who do you love?" in "Enchanted," we knew that this was one concept album that Swift would knock out of the park. And she did not disappoint — it's definitely one of her best albums ! Keep reading for everything you need to know about Midnights , the Eras Tour , and all her surprise songs .

How many 2024 Grammy nominations does Taylor Swift's Midnights have?

Image via Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

The 2024 Grammy nominations were announced on November 10 and Taylor Swift got a total of six nominations: Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, Best Pop Solo Performance for "Anti-Hero", Best Pop Duo/Group Performance “Karma (feat. Ice Spice)", Song of the Year for “Anti-Hero” with Jack Antonoff, Record of the Year for "Anti-Hero", and Album of the Year for Midnights .

She ended up winning Best Pop Vocal Album — but Taylor Swift's Midnights also won Album of the Year, making her the first person in history to win the award four times. Taylor continues to break records and we are totally here for it!

How many songs does Midnights have?

Taylor Swift's new album features 13 songs (which also happens to be her lucky number). We finally got the full tracklist on October 7 — or so we thought. After the whole album dropped at midnight on October 21, Swift made a surprise drop of seven extra tracks at 3am!

The album features some collabs. Track 4, "Snow On The Beach," features Lana Del Rey. We're over the moon because this has been a featured artist we've wanted for so long! Not only is Del Rey singing but Dylan O'Brien (who starred in All Too Well: The Short Film ) plays the drums on the track.

Swift worked with Jack Antonoff to produce Midnights , and wrote songs with Antonoff, Joe Alwyn, and Zoë Kravitz, among others. Jack recently opened up to Vulture about the process of recording the album, and admitted his close friendship with Taylor helped the process more than just about anything else — and how Midnights ' closer might not have made it onto the album!

"We made the bulk of [ Midnights ] in my apartment," he says in the interview. "['Mastermind'] a strange little song, and it just reminded me of the kind of thing that you can do with really close friends, whereas if it was a new relationship, you might not be able to dare to suck. Like, just try some weird shit. Because every once in a while, when you really throw yourself out there, you actually get the stuff that’s the most brilliant."

What is the Eras Tour?

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This is the first time Taylor Swift has gone on tour since ending the Reputation tour in 2018. Taylor Swift's newest tour covers all of her "eras, stories, songs, and late nights" together. Not only will fans get to see Swift but her opening acts include names like Paramore, Gracie Abrams, and Phoebe Bridgers. We're freaking out. As Miss Swift herself once said, "Baby let the games begin!"

Taylor also announced International Dates on June 20 and the second leg of the US tour on August 3! (Plus some extra Canadian dates November 2!) It's never too late to break out your best Taylor Swift costume and figure out concert tickets 👀.

In her December 2023 Person of the Year profile with TIME Magazine, Taylor talked about how she's known the tour was a big deal from the very beginning.

“I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” she says. “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud...Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.”

Taylor used a program her gym created just for her to help with her stamina, and worked with choreographer Mandy Moore, who BFF Emma Stone recommended. “I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones,” Taylor tells TIME. But instead of only training for endurance, she wanted to train for an even more important reason: “I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.”

And that's exactly what happened! Taylor has become so comfortable and confident onstage that she can make funny faces, improv dance moves, and mess around with her background dancers — and the show continues without a hitch. It's genuinely fun to watch and even more fun to recreate her dances! Taylor also admits that after a stretch of shows, she takes an entire day to relax and eat in bed, which might be the most relatable thing she's ever said.

Is You're Losing Me on Spotify?

Yes, "You're Losing Me" is finally on Spotify! In honor of Spotify naming Taylor Swift their Top Global Artist, she released the fan favorite track on streaming platforms. Before November 29, it had only been on exclusive physical copies of Midnights !

What is the Eras Tour Concert Film?

Taylor Swift fans can relive their concert experience thanks to the Eras Tour Concert Film, a fall movie that's in theaters now!

"The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon," Taylor Swift says in an Instagram post . "Eras attire, friendship bracelets, singing and dancing encouraged 🫶"

What is Midnights about?

Midnights chronicles over a dozen different sleepless nights throughout Taylor's life. Fans speculated whether it would have a toned-down, alternative sound or be a rock album like the one fans are convinced was supposed to drop in 2016. Turns out, it has more of a dreamy, ethereal pop finish that feels like 1989 and reputation 's big sister. Once again, Swift masterfully pairs an upbeat, glittery sound with deep and emotional lyrics for an unbeatable combo.

As far as lyrics go, the songs cover the kind of love, heartbreak, and self-loathing that keep Swift (and us) up at night. Our favorite lines so far are "Falling in a dream/Stars by the pocketful" from "Snow on the Beach" and "Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man" from "Vigilante Shit."

"You should find another guiding light, guiding light/But I shine so bright" from "Dear Reader" is another memorable line that reveals how difficult it is for Swift to have so many people looking to her in moments when it feels like her life is falling apart.

Where can I listen to Midnights?

Taylor Swift had a whole release week schedule full of late night appearances, music video drops, and record + CD drops. You can listen to the album on Spotify and Apple Music .

Are there any exclusive editions?

On Taylor Swift's official website, you can get the standard edition of Midnights , as well as three alternate versions. The cool thing is that when you put all four together, the images on the back turn into a clock! You can also buy the Midnights and displays.

Target is offering a lavender vinyl and deluxe edition CD , the latter of which features three bonus tracks you won't be able to get anywhere else.

Taylor announced on May 24 that her shows in East Rutherford, New Jersey (which she's playing May 26, 27, and 28) will be selling a special edition CD featuring the Midnights vault track "You're Losing Me."

What Songs Are On Midnights?

@taylorswift Midnights tracklist reveal!! Introducing: Midnights Mayhem with Me 🌌😎 #TSmidnighTS   #SwiftTok   #MidnightsMayhemWithMe   ♬ Midnights Mayhem episode 1 - Taylor Swift

Swift posted a TikTok on September 21, 2022 where she revealed that she'd be revealing us the names of the tracks one at a time at random. The first track she revealed was Track 13 (of course), titled "Mastermind." And on October 7, we finally got the full tracklist for the standard version.

Midnights Tracklist:

• "Lavender Haze"
• "Maroon"
• "Anti-Hero"
• "Snow On The Beach" Feat. Lana Del Rey
• "You're On Your Own Kid"
• "Midnight Rain"
• "Question...?"
• "Vigilante Shit"
• "Bejeweled"
• "Labyrinth"
• "Karma"
• "Sweet Nothing"
• "Mastermind"

Additional Songs On Midnights ( 3AM Edition)

• "The Great War"
• "Bigger Than The Whole Sky"
• "Paris"
• "High Infidelity"
• "Glitch"
• "Would've, Could've, Should've"
• "Dear Reader"

Additional Songs On Midnights (Til Dawn Edition)

• "Hits Different"
• "Snow On The Beach" Feat. More Lana Del Rey
• "Karma" Feat. Ice Spice

Taylor Swift's Music Videos For Midnights

The video for “Karma (feat. Ice Spice)” has *so* many looks — and Easter eggs — that it's hard to keep track of all of them! Our personal favorite look is when Taylor's in the lightbulb. 💡

The video for the album opener, "Lavender Haze," was released on January 27 at midnight and features some seriously beautiful imagery. Check out our theory video here !

The video for "Bejeweled," an updated Cinderella retelling, was released on October 25th. This music video is filled to the brim with Easter eggs !

The music video for "Anti-Hero," which follows two separate Taylors who seem to be against each other, was released on October 21.

Taylor Swift released an acoustic version of the Midnights opener, "Lavender Haze" on March 31. It's so dreamy! We're obsessed with how the guitar and the different harmonies blend together. This will definitely be on repeat for all of 2023.

The Full List Of Eras Tour Dates

2023 eras tour dates.

• State Farm Stadium (Glendale, AZ); March 17 - 18
• Allegiant Stadium (Las Vegas, NV); March 24 - 25
• AT&T Stadium, (Arlington, TX); March 31 - April 2
• Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, FL); April 13 - 15
• NRG Stadium (Houston, TX); April 21 - 23
• Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, GA); April 28 - 30
• Nissan Stadium (Nashville, TN); May 5 - 7
• Lincoln Financial Field (Philadelphia, PA); May 12 - 14
• Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, MA); May 19 - 21
• MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, NJ); May 26 - 28
• Soldier Field (Chicago, IL); June 2 - 4
• Ford Field (Detroit, MI); June 9 - 10
• Acrisure Stadium (Pittsburgh, PA); June 16 - 17
• U.S. Bank Stadium (Minneapolis, MN); June 23 - 24
• Paycor Stadium (Cincinnati, OH); June 30 - July 1
• GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium (Kansas City, MI); July 7 - 8
• Empower Field at Mile High (Denver, CO); July 14 - 15
• Lumen Field (Seattle, WA); July 22 - 23
• Levi's Stadium (Santa Clara, CA); July 28 - 29
• Sofi Stadium (Los Angeles, CA); Aug. 3 - 5; Aug. 7 - 9
• Foro Sol (Mexico City, Mexico); Aug. 24-27
• Estadio River Plate (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Nov. 9-11
• Estádio Nilton Santos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); Nov. 17-19
• Allianz Parque (So Paulo, Brazil); Nov. 24-26

2024 Eras Tour Dates

• Tokyo Dome (Tokyo, Japan); Feb. 7-10
• MCG (Melbourne, Australia); Feb. 16-18
• Accor Stadium (Sydney, Australia); Feb. 23-26
• National Stadium, Singapore (Singapore); March 2-4; March 7-9
• Paris La Défense Arena (Paris, France); May 9-12
• Friends Arena (Stockholm, Sweden); May 17-19
• Estadio da Luz (Lisbon, Portugal); May 24-25
• Estadio Santiago Bernabéu (Madrid, Spain); May 30
• Groupama Stadium (Lyon, France); June 2-3
• BT Murrayfield Stadium (Edinburgh, UK); June 7-9
• Anfield Stadium (Liverpool, UK); June 13-15
• Principality Stadium (Cardiff, UK); June 18
• Wembley Stadium (London, UK); June 21-23
• Aviva Stadium (Dublin, Ireland); June 28-30
• Johan Cruijff Arena (Amsterdam, Netherlands); July 4-6
• Stadion Letzigrund Zürich (Zürich, Switzerland); July 9-10
• San Siro Stadium (Milan, Italy); July 13-14
• Veltins-Arena (Gelsenkirchen, Germany); July 17-19
• Volksparkstadion (Hamburg, Germany); July 23-24
• Olumpiastadion (Munich, Germany); July 27-28
• Pge Narodowy (Warsaw, Poland); Aug. 1-3
• Ernst-Happel-Stadion (Vienna, Austria); Aug. 8-10
• Wembley Stadium (London, UK); Aug. 15-17; Aug. 19-20
• Hard Rock Stadium (Miami, FL); Oct. 18-20
• Caesers Superdome (New Orleans, LA); Oct. 25-27
• Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis, IN); Nov. 1-3
• Rogers Centre (Toronto, Ontario); Nov. 14-16; Nov. 21-23
• BC Place (Vancouver, British Columbia); Dec. 06-08

Are you excited for Taylor Swift's Midnights ? Let us know on Twitter and subscribe to our email newsletter for more entertainment content. You can also check out which Taylor Swift lyric you are based on your enneagram !

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This post has been updated.

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Everything We Know About Taylor Swift's New Album 'Midnights'

Taylor Swift dropped a bombshell announcement at the 2022 MTV VMAs: Her new album will drop Oct. 21. GRAMMY.com has compiled everything we know about ‘Midnights.’

In just 10 midnights, Swifties can revel in the newest Taylor Swift album. That’s right: Swift's much-anticipated evermore follow-up, Midnights , is on the way.

That's what the singer revealed at the 2022 MTV VMAs on Aug. 28, when she took the stage to accept the coveted Video of the Year trophy.

"I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand new album comes out October 21," she said. "And I will tell you more at midnight."

Naturally, fans stampeded to TaylorSwift.com at the ordained time — and were greeted by the album’s artwork and a poetic message from Swift: "We lie awake in love and fear, in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren't—– right this minute — about to make some fateful life-altering mistake."

She shared a few other curiosity-piquing details, setting the stage for what is bound to be another one of Swift’s mystical musical chapters. As Swift continues to unveil details, here's everything we know about Taylor Swift's 10th studio album, Midnights , so far.

NEW @TAYLORSWIFT13 ALBUM IS COMING….. and she told us because the Swifties gave her Video Of The Year ♥️ #VMAs pic.twitter.com/hmzwsXaVRG — MTV (@MTV) August 29, 2022

It’s A Bit Of A Time Capsule

As Swift wrote in her official album announcement, Midnights will be made up of “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.”  

"This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face," she explained. "For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we'll meet ourselves." 

It Will (Appropriately) Feature 13 Tracks

Thirteen sleepless nights amounts to 13 songs — and as Swifties know, that number may not be a coincidence. Swift (who was born on Dec. 13) has long claimed 13 as her lucky number, and she has referenced numerous times throughout her career and catalog. Looks like Midnight will continue that trend.

Swift announced the album's tracklist in an Instagram post; its A-side opening with "Lavender Haze" and featuring evocative titles such as "Anti-Hero" and You're On Your Own, Kid." Side B is similarly beguiling with songs titled "Karma," "Sweet Nothing" and "Mastermind." 

Taylor Lights A Lighter On The Cover

Check out the beautifully minimal, stormy-hued cover, where Swift lights a Zippo-style lighter before her visage.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

The Album Is Available For Pre-Order Now

According to Swift's official website, Midnights ' vinyl edition will feature the following: a "unique moonstone blue marbled color vinyl disc," a "collectible album sleeve" with varying full-sized photos of the artist, and a "collectible 8-page lyric booklet with never-before-seen photos."

As for the CD version, it contains a "moonstone blue marbled color disc," "unique disc artwork" and a 24-page version of said lyric booklet — yes, with never-before-seen photos included.

Keep checking GRAMMY.com and watching this space as additional details about Midnights are revealed!

Taylor Swift's Road To Folklore : How The Superstar Evolved From 'Diaristic' Country Tunes To Her Most Progressive Music Yet

Photos (L-R): Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management, Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Clear Channel

Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift's Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon

Upon the arrival of Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department,' take a deep dive into her discography and see how each album helped her become the genre-shifting superstar she is today.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on April 19 to reflect the release of The Tortured Poets Department.

The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Since then, she's released 11 studio albums, re-recorded four as "Taylor's Version," and cultivated one of the most feverish fan bases in music. Oh, and she's also won 14 GRAMMY Awards, including four for Album Of The Year — the most ever won by an artist.

Swift has become one of music's most notable shapeshifters by refusing to limit herself to one genre, moving between country, pop, folk and beyond. A once-in-a-lifetime generational storyteller, one could argue that she is music's modern-day maverick, constantly evolving both her music and the culture around her.

Every album era has seen Swift reinvent herself over and over, which has helped pave the way for artists to explore other musical avenues. In turn, Swift hasn't just become one of the biggest artists of all time — she's changed pop music altogether.

To celebrate Taylor Swift's newest era with The Tortured Poets Department , GRAMMY.com looks back on all of her albums (Taylor's Versions not included) and how each era shaped her remarkable career.

Taylor Swift : Finding Her Place In Music

In a genre dominated by men, the odds were already stacked against Swift when she first broke into country music as a teenage female artist. The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. She didn't want to be just "another girl singer" and knew writing her own songs would be what set her apart. 

Written throughout her adolescence, Taylor Swift was recorded at the end of 2005 and finalized by the time Swift finished her freshman year of high school. Serving as a snapshot of Swift's life and teenhood, she avoided songwriting stereotypes typically found in country music. Instead, she wanted to capture the years of her life while they still represented what she was going through, writing about what she was observing and experiencing, from love and friendship to feeling like an outsider. 

As a songwriter, Taylor Swift set the tone for what would be expected of her future recordings — all songs were written by her, some solely and others with one or two co-writers. One writer in particular, Liz Rose , applauded Swift's songwriting capabilities, stating that she was more of an "editor" for the songs because Swift already had such a distinct vision. 

The album's lead single, "Tim McGraw," an acoustic country ballad inspired by Swift knowing her relationship was going to end, represents an intricate part of Swift's songwriting process; meticulously picking apart her emotions to better understand them. With its follow-up, "Our Song" — which spent six consecutive weeks on the top of Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart — she became the youngest person to solely write and sing a No. 1 country single; she also became the first female solo artist in country music to write or co-write every song on an album. 

Although Swift's eponymous debut is underappreciated now — even lacking its own set on Swift's Eras Tour — Taylor Swift 's forthcoming rerecording is arguably the most anticipated by fans, who are eager to hear the songs with the singer's current and more refined vocals. Still, for fans who haven't properly explored Taylor Swift , it's easy to tie together Swift's earlier work to her current discography. 

On the track "A Place In This World," a song she wrote when she was just 13, Swift sings about not fitting in and trying to find her path. While her songwriting has developed and matured, feeling like an outsider and carving her own path is a theme she still writes about now, as seen on Midnights ' "You're On Your Own, Kid." 

Even as a new country artist, critics claimed that she "mastered" the genre while subsequently ushering it to a new era — one that would soon see Swift dabble in country-pop. 

Fearless : Creating A Different Kind Of Fairytale

If Taylor Swift was the soundtrack to navigating the early stages of teenhood, Fearless is Swift's coming-of-age record. More than its predecessor, Fearless blurs the line between country and pop thanks to crossover hits like "Love Story" and "You Belong With Me," yet still keeps the confessional attributes known in country songwriting. 

Most of Fearless is Swift coming to terms with what she believed love to be. On the album's liner notes, Swift says Fearless is about "living in spite" of the things that scare you, like falling in love again despite being hurt before or walking away and letting go. The 2008 version of Taylor wanted to "believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after," whereas in Swift's Fearless (Taylor's Version) liner notes, she looks back on the album as a diary where she was learning "tiny lessons" every time there was a "new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she'd been shown in the movies." 

Much of Fearless also sees Swift being reflective and nostalgic about adolescence, like in "Never Grow Up" and "Fifteen." Still wistful and romantic, the album explores Swift's hopes for love, as heard in the album's lead single "Love Story," which was one instance where she was "dramatizing" observations instead of actually experiencing them herself. 

Unlike the slow-burn of Taylor Swift , Fearless went straight to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for eight consecutive weeks. It won Swift's first Album Of The Year GRAMMY in 2010, at the time making her the youngest person to win the accolade at age 20. To date, it has sold 7.2 million copies in America alone. It might not be the romantic tale Swift dreamed of growing up, but her sophomore album signalled that bigger things were to come.

Speak Now : Proving Her Songwriting Prowess

Everything that happened after the success of Fearless pushed Swift from country music's best-kept secret to a mainstream star. But this meant that she faced more publicity and criticism, from naysayers who nitpicked her songwriting and vocals to the infamous Kanye West incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

For the first time since becoming an artist, she was forced to reckon with the concept of celebrity and how turning into one — whether she wanted it or not — informed her own writing and perception of herself. No longer was she the girl writing songs like "Fifteen" in her bedroom — now she was working through becoming a highly publicized figure. Speak Now is the answer to those growing pains. 

Along with having more eyes on her, Swift also felt pressured to maintain her persona as a perfect young female role model amid a time when her peers like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato were attempting to rebrand to be more mature and sexier. During her NYU commencement speech in 2022, she reflected on this era of her life as one of intense fear that she could make a mistake and face lasting consequences, so the songs were masked in metaphors rather than directly addressing adult themes in her music. But that also resulted in some of her most poignant lyrics to date.

Read More: For The Record: How Taylor Swift's 'Speak Now' Changed Her Career — And Proved She'll Always Get The Last Word

Writing the entire album herself, Swift used Speak Now to prove her songwriting prowess to those who questioned her capabilities. Much like her previous two albums, Swift included songs that were both inspired by her own life and being a fly on the wall. The album's title track pulled from the saying, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," inspired by a friend's ex-boyfriend getting engaged; meanwhile, "Mean" was everything Swift wanted to say to a critic who was continuously harsh about her vocals.

Retrospective and reflective, Speak Now is an album about the speeches she could've, would've and should've said. From addressing the aforementioned VMA incident in the forgiving "Innocent" to a toxic relationship in "Dear John," Speak Now also hinted that her rose-colored glasses were cracked, but Swift (and her songwriting) was only becoming stronger because of it.

Red : Coming Into Her Own

Highly regarded as Swift's magnum opus, Red sees the singer shed the fairytale dresses and the girl-next-door persona to craft a body of work that has now been deemed as her first "adult" record. On Red, Swift focused on emotions evoked from a hot-and-cold relationship, one that forced her to experience " intense love, intense frustration, jealousy and confusion " — all feelings that she'd describe as "red." 

Unlike most of her previous writing that had been inspired by happy endings and fairytales, Red explores the lingering pain and loss that can embed itself within despite trying your hardest to let go. In her liner notes, she references Pablo Neruda's poem "Tonight I Can Write," stating that "Love is so short, forgetting is so long" is the overarching theme for the album. She plays with time — speeding it up in "Starlight," dabbling in the past in "All Too Well," and reframing it in "State of Grace" — to better understand her experiences. 

After releasing country-pop records, Red toed the line between genres more than ever before. Swift leaned further into the full pop territory by working with esteemed producers Max Martin and Shellback for the dubstep-leaning track "I Knew You Were Trouble," the punchy lead single "We Are Never Getting Back Together," and the bouncy anthem "22." But even when the pop power players weren't involved, her country stylings still leaned more pop across the album, as further evidenced with the racing deep cut "Holy Ground" and the echoing title track. 

The slight change of direction became polarizing for critics and fans alike. Following the more country-influenced Speak Now , some critics and fans found the pop songs on Red were too pop and the lyrics were too repetitive, possibly indicating that she might be selling out. If that wasn't enough, Red became an era where Swift's personal life went from speculation to tabloid fodder, with misogynistic headlines and diluting her work to just "writing about her exes." It's an era that would eventually inspire many tracks on Red 's successor, 1989 , like "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off."

Commercially, Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling country album and making Swift the first female artist to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at the top of the chart. The impact of Red extended beyond its own success, too. Often mentioned as a record that inspired a generation of artists from Troye Sivan to Conan Gray , Swift's confessional, soul-bearing authenticity set a new standard for straightforward pop music. 

1989 : Reinventing Into A Pop Genius

The night Red lost the GRAMMY for Album Of The Year in 2014, Swift decided that her next album would be a full-on pop record. After years of identifying as a country artist and flirting with pop, Swift departed her roots to reinvent herself, no matter what her then-label or critics had to say. And in true Swiftian fashion, turning into a pop artist didn't just prove her genre-shapeshifting capabilities — it further solidified her as an artist who is at her best when she freely creates to her desires and refuses to adhere to anyone.

1989 was lauded by critics for its infectious synth-pop that was reminiscent of the 1980s, yet still had a contemporary sound. Swift opted to lean more into radio-friendly hits, which resulted in songs like "Style," "Wildest Dreams," "Blank Space," and "Shake It Off," all of which became singles. And where some might trade a hit or two at the expense of their artistic integrity, Swift didn't falter — instead, her lyrics were just as heartfelt and intimate as they were on prior albums.

After exploring pop-leaning sonics she first found with Red , Swift worked with Martin and Shellback again on most of 1989 . This reinvention brought new (and very important) collaborators as well. Swift's now-frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff credits her as the first person to take a chance on him as a producer with "I Wish You Would" and "Out Of The Woods"; both tracks exemplified how future Antonoff-produced songs would sound on albums like reputation, Lover and Midnights .

At the time, 1989 became Swift's best-selling album to date. It sold nearly 1.3 million copies within release week in the U.S., debuting atop the Billboard 200 and reigning for 11 non-consecutive weeks. The album also earned Swift several awards — including her second Album Of The Year GRAMMY, which made her the first female artist to ever win the award twice. 

Following the release of 1989 , Swift became a cultural juggernaut, and the album has had an omnipresence in music since. Swift didn't just normalize blending genres, but proved that you can create a sound that is uniquely yours by doing so. In turn, Billie Eilish , Dua Lipa and more pop stars have refused to conform or stick to what they've done prior. 

reputation : Killing The Old Taylor

For years, Swift was on a strict two-year cycle — she'd release an album one year, tour the next, and then release a new album the following year. But following the heightened scrutiny and highly publicized tabloid drama that followed the end of the 1989 era, Swift completely disappeared for a year. She stayed away from public appearances, didn't do any press, and missed the album schedule fans became accustomed to. It wasn't until summer 2017 when she returned from her media (and social media) blackout to unveil the fitting title for her new album: reputation .

Born as a response to the naysayers and name-callers, reputation follows Swift shedding her public image — which includes the pressure to be perfect, the drama, and the criticism — by declaring, "There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation." Leaning on the same tongue-in-cheek songwriting techniques she used while penning "Blank Space," Swift wrote from the mindset of how the public perceived her.

When Swift released the lead single "Look What You Made Me Do," a song she initially wrote as a poem about not trusting specific people, many assumed the album would center on vengeance and drama. Although Swift said that the album has its vindictive moments — even declaring that the "old Taylor" is dead on the bridge of "Look What You Made Me Do" — it's a vulnerable record for her. Swift described reputation as a bait-and-switch; at their core, the songs are about finding love in the darkest moments. 

Swift still remained in the pop lane with reputation , largely leaning on Antonoff and the Martin/Shellback team. The sound almost mirrored the scrutiny Swift faced in the years prior — booming electropop beats, maximalist production and pulsing synthesizers dominate, particularly on "End Game," "I Did Something Bad," and "Ready For It…?" But the "old Taylor" isn't entirely gone on songs like "Call It What You Want," "So It Goes…" and "New Year's Day," where she lets her guard down to write earnest love odes.

Even after Swift spent some time away from the spotlight, the public didn't immediately gravitate toward her return. And even despite matching the 1.2 million first-week sales of her previous releases, some concluded that the album was her first commercial failure when compared to 1989 . With time, though, it became clear that the response to reputation became muddled with the public's overall perception of her at the time — some even claimed that Swift was ahead of her time with the album's overall sound.

For her 2023 TIME Person of the Year profile , Swift described reputation as a "goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure." For years, she felt the pressure to be "America's Sweetheart" and to never step out of line. Writing reputation became a lifeline following the events that catalyzed it  — a way to shed the so-called snakeskin and make peace with however the public wanted to view her. 

Lover : Stepping Into The Daylight

After finding love amongst chaos with reput ation, Swift was learning to deal with the anxiety and fear of losing her partner — became a major theme of another aptly titled album, Lover . Both sonically and visually, Lover was a complete change from reputation . After touring reputation , Swift found that her fans saw her as "a flesh-and-blood human being," inspiring her to be "brave enough to be vulnerable" because her fans were along with her. Stepping away from the dark and antagonistic themes around reputation encouraged Swift to step into the light and be playful with her work on Lover .

Swift also found a new sense of creativity within this new mindset, one where she aimed to still embed playful themes in her songwriting but with less snark than that of "Blank Space" and "Look What You Made Me Do." Leaning into Lover being a "love letter to love," Swift explored every aspect of it. Tracks like "Paper Rings" and "London Boy" exude a whimsical energy, even if they center on more serious themes like marriage and commitment. Other songs, including "Death By A Thousand Cuts" and "Cornelia Street," are Swift at her most vulnerable, reflecting on a love lost and grappling with the extreme worry that comes when you could potentially lose someone. 

Looking at Lover retrospectively, it's an album that almost symbolizes a bookend in her discography. She was playful yet poignant, picking apart her past lyrics and feelings and looking at them with the perspective of someone who was once on top of the world, hit rock bottom, and survived in spite of it. This evolution is mentioned throughout Lover, particularly in a direct callback to 2012's Red , "Daylight," which sees her describe her love as "golden" rather than "burning red." 

Lover also marked the first time Swift divulged into politics and societal issues, like campaigning against Donald Trump, releasing the Pride-infused "You Need To Calm Down," and feeling disillusioned by the political climate with "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince." Swift's documentary Miss Americana explores this change further, discussing how she regrets not being vocal about politics and issues prior, in addition to opening up about her body image issues and mental health struggles.

Lover became Swift's sixth No. 1 album in America, making her the first female artist to achieve the feat. But Lover was more than any accolades could reflect — it was Swift's transitional album in many ways, notably marking the first album that she owned entirely herself following leaving Big Machine Records for Republic Records in 2018.

folklore : Looking Beyond Her Personal Stories

After the pandemic started and Swift cancelled her Lover Fest, she spent the early stages of quarantine reading and watching a myriad of films. Without exactly setting out to create an album, she began dreaming of fictional stories and characters with various narrative arcs, allowing her imagination to run free. The result became folklore , 2020's surprise archetypal quarantine album.

Crafting a world with characters like the folklore love triangle between those in "betty" and "august," as well as Rebekah Harkness from "the last great american dynasty" (who once lived in Swift's Rhode Island mansion), was Swift's way of venturing outside her typical autobiographical style of writing. She'd see visceral images in her mind — from battleships to tree swings to mirrored disco balls — and turned them into stories, sometimes weaving in her own personal narrative throughout, or taking on a narrator role and speaking from the perspective of someone she had never met. 

She worked remotely with two producers — again working with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, and first-time collaborator Aaron Dessner from The National . Some songs, like "peace," were recorded in just one take, capturing the essence and fragility in the song's story, whereas the lyrics for the sun-drenched "august" were penned on the spot as Swift was in her makeshift home studio in Los Angeles.

Another aspect that separated folklore from her previous work was the obvious decision not to create hits made for radio play, so much so that Dessner claimed that she made an anti-pop record at a time when radio wanted clear "bops." Sonically, it ventured into genres Swift hadn't explored much outside of a few folkier tracks on Lover . Rather than relying on mostly electronic elements, Swift, Antonoff and Dessner weaved in soft pianos, ethereal strings, and plucky guitars.

folklore 's impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people's quarantine experience. Fans rejoiced at having songs to comfort them during difficult times, and artists like Maya Hawke , Gracie Abrams , and Sabrina Carpenter credit folklore for inspiring them to create and be even more emotionally honest in their songwriting. After its release, folklore became the best-selling album of 2020 after selling 1.2 million records. At the 2021 GRAMMYs, folklore took home Album Of The Year , making her the fourth artist in history to win three times in the Category. 

evermore : Embracing Experimentation

It was exciting enough for Swifties to experience one surprise album drop from Swift, an artist who typically has an entire album campaign calculated. So when evermore was released just six months after folklore , fans were in shock. 

Like its (literally) folklorian sister, evermore was a surprise release at the end of 2020, marking the first time Swift didn't have distinct "eras" between albums. She felt like there was something "different" with folklore , stating in a social media post that making it was less like she was "departing" and more like she was "returning" to the next stage of her discography. In turn, the album served as a similar escape for Swift as folklore did.

Bridging together the same wistful and nostalgic themes as heard on its predecessor, evermore sees Swift venture even further into escapism. She explores more stories and characters, some based in fiction like "dorothea," and some real, like "marjorie," written in dedication to Swift's grandmother. 

Evermore follows folklore 's inclusion of natural imagery and motifs, like landscapes, skies, ivy, and celestial elements. In contrast to the fairytale motifs and happy endings of Fearless , evermore saw Swift become fixated on "unhappy" endings — stories of failed marriages ("happiness"), lifeless relationships ("tolerate it"), and one-time flings ("'tis the damn season"). 

Sonically, evermore is a slight departure from its sister record; where folklore relies on more alt-leaning and indie-tinged sounds, evermore takes the sonics from all of Swift's past records — from pop to country to indie rock — and features all of them on one album. Country songs like "cowboy like me" and "no body, no crime" reaches back to Swift's earlier work in narrative building, seamlessly crafting a three-party story with ease. "Closure" is a "skittering" track that has the same energy as tracks like Lover 's "I Forgot That You Existed," whereas the ballad "champagne problems" is thematically reminiscent of Swift's Speak Now track "Back To December" where she takes responsibility for her lover's heartache. 

Working mostly with Dessner on evermore , Swift was emboldened to continue creating and opted to embrace whatever came naturally to them rather than limiting themselves to a sound. Swift felt a "quiet conclusion" after finishing up evermore , describing that it was more about grappling with endings of all "sizes and shapes," and the record represented a chapter closing. Even so, its poetic lyricism and mystical storytelling cleverly foreshadowed what was to come with subsequent albums, particularly The Tortured Poets Department .

Midnights : Encapsulating Her Artistic Magic

After coming out of the folklorian woods following folklore and evermore , fans and critics alike were intrigued to see what direction Swift would take on her next studio album. On Midnights , Swift leaves behind indie folk sounds and returns to the pop production of 1989 and Lover .

Her most conceptual album to date, Midnights charts 13 sleepless nights and explores five themes, from self-hatred and revenge to "what if" fantasies, falling in love, and falling apart. They are the things that keep her up at night, like the self-critiquing in "Anti-Hero," her rise to fame in "You're on Your Own, Kid," and the anxiety of falling in love again in "Labyrinth." Similarly to Swift's cheeky songwriting style that sees her create caricatures of herself in songs like "Blank Space" and "Look What You Made Me Do," she doubles down on claims she's "calculated" on "Mastermind," a song about devising a plan for her and her lover. 

Although the album is a departure from the two pandemic sister albums, the overall creation process didn't differ too much. In addition to working alongside Antonoff (and bringing Dessner in for the bonus-track-filled 3am Edition), Swift's worldbuilding is still the throughline that connects Midnights and Swift's recent albums, whether she's dreaming of a Parisian escape in "Paris" or using war imagery as a metaphor for the struggle of love in "The Great War."

Read More: 5 Takeaways From Taylor Swift's New Album 'Midnights'

Following the success with folklore and evermore , Swift's intrigue was at a then-all-time high upon the release of Midnights . Along with breaking several streaming records — including becoming the first album to exceed 700 million global streams in a week — it was Swift's 11th No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, and was the highest-selling album of 2022 (and, remarkably, the second best-selling of 2023).

To say that Swift's celebrity has become otherworldly since the release of Midnights would be an understatement. Celebrating her genre-defying and varied discography through The Eras Tour has resulted in old songs having a resurgence, new inside jokes and Easter eggs within the fandom, and a plethora of new listeners being exposed to Swift's work. 

As a result, there has arguably never been more excitement for a Taylor Swift album than for The Tortured Poets Department — especially because the announcement came on the heels of her lucky 13th GRAMMY win in February. Midnights helped further solidify Swift's larger-than-life status at the finale of the 2024 GRAMMYs, too, as she became the only artist in history to win Album Of The Year four times. 

The Tortured Poets Department : A Grief-Stricken Poetic Odyssey

It’s been a while since Swift has penned a full-fledged breakup album. On The Tortured Poets Department , she navigates the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance — after her long-term relationship ended. Taking a page from the release of folklore and evermore , she dropped a double album and announced The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology at 2 a.m. on release day. Throughout a total of 31 tracks, the prolific songwriter shelved the glittery pop radio-friendly tunes in favor of more subdued, synthy and heart-wrenching songs. 

On Instagram, Swift described the album as a collection of poetic songs that reflect the "events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time," Swift pulled out the fountain and quill pens to craft songs about the "tortured poets" in her life — sometimes musing about lovers, sometimes taking aim at villains, and sometimes pointing the finger at herself. 

TTPD is also her most confessional album thus far. It pokes fun at so-called fans who overstep with her personal life ("But Daddy I Love Him"), says goodbye to a city that gave her a home ("So Long London"), and muses on how her own celebrity has stunted her growth ("Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?"). To help explain this chapter of her life, Swift brings together a myriad of collaborators — from Stevie Nicks as fellow poetess, to duets with Florence Welch and Post Malone — and leans on real and fictional characters, like Clara Bow, Peter Pan ("Peter"), and Patti Smith .

In the same post, Swift declared that once she’s confessed all of her saddest stories, she’s able to find freedom. Yet The Tortured Poets Department (and its accompanying 15-track anthology) spends much time reflecting: she toys with her own lore, self-referencing past songs from albums like 1989 and poems from her reputation era. 

Fourteen years ago, Swift declared that she would never change, but she’ll never stay the same either. The Tortured Poets Department proves that in the throughline of Taylor Swift's many artistic eras is a commitment to exploration and a love of autobiographical lyricism.

All Things Taylor Swift

Photo: Don Arnold/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is A Post-Mortem Autopsy In Song: 5 Takeaways From Her New Album

"There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed," Taylor Swift wrote of her new album. From grapplings with fame to ultra-personal reflections on love lost, her latest set of fountain and quill pen songs marks the end of an era.

"All’s fair in love and poetry," Taylor Swift declared when she announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department , at the 66th GRAMMY Awards . 

Taken from the proverb "All’s fair in love and war," the pop phenom gave us a fair warning: there’s no limit to what she’ll go through to achieve her ends. 

On the freshly released The Tortured Poets Department , Taylor Swift has a few things to get off her chest — so much that it required a surprise second record, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology , adding an additional 15 songs . The sprawling album is a masterclass in songwriting and so personal that it's analogous to performing a post mortem autopsy; The musical shapeshifter is here to exhume the tortured poets of her past and make peace with them. 

In an Instagram post , Swift called the record an anthology that reflects " events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure." With the release of Tortured Poets , "t here is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed…our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page." 

Describing Swift’s work as a collection of tracks about boys and break-ups has always felt underbaked and disingenuous, but much of The Tortured Poets Department is just that. In true Swiftian fashion, she plays on preconceived theories, opting to toy with the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — after a break-up, bringing listeners along on a peregrination exploring the depths of her relationships and personal growth. 

Analyzing her feelings to craft songs is muscle memory at this point, but with every release Taylor Swift somehow does so with a refreshed and reimagined perspective. The stories she shares with her fans in TTPD might’ve made her feel like she died, but she’s a revenant no longer tortured by the whims and words of other poets.

With The Tortured Poets Department open for business, read on for five key points to consider when listening to Taylor Swift’s new album .

It's Much More Than A Break-Up Record

Although the record orbits around a break-up, The Tortured Poets Department demonstrates Swift's ability to shapeshift as a songwriter. A song about a break-up is layered, typically forcing Swift to unveil her own flaws while wearing her broken heart on her sleeve.

The fifth track on a Taylor Swift album is typically the most emotionally cutting, and "So Long London" is no exception. On the standout track, Swift views the loss of her lover and the breakdown of her relationship to Joe Alwyn through the lens of the city they once shared together. It’s a cathartic release for Swift who point-blank notes the pain they inflicted upon her and how, in turn, they ended up just as heartbroken as she is. 

The high-spirited "Down Bad" and subdued "The Smallest Man in The World" are two sides of the same coin. The former is hopeful that a love could be reignited, whereas the latter sees Swift at her grittiest, pointing the finger at her former lover. "Smallest" poses a series of questions, accusing her ex of being a spy who only wanted to get intel on her.

On piano ode "loml," Swift looks back at the "get-love-quick" schemes she first wrote about in "Why She Disappeared," a poem for reputation . The poem originally considered the death of her reputation and how its aftermath made her stronger while she was simultaneously nursing a new relationship. 

The track has a similar energy to fan favorite "All Too Well," but is even more accusatory — seemingly unlocking another level of her songwriting prowess as she teeters between seething rage and mourning with lines about picking through a "braid of lies" spewed by a partner who "claimed he was a lion" but is really a coward. While Swift is honest about never feeling a loss so deeply, she maturely accepts that the effort she put into keeping the relationship afloat was all she could do. It’s distinctly different from the battles she bravely fought in "The Great War," "Daylight" and "long story short."

She's Grappling With Fame & Owning Her Choices

That Taylor Swift struggles with her own celebrity and the public's perception is nothing new. On reputation ’s album prologue, she stated, "We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us." 

On The Tortured Poets Department, Swift has never been more honest about her feelings towards those who claim to know better than she does. On "But Daddy I Love Him," she doubles down on these frustrations, taking aim at self-righteous "vipers" and "judgmental creeps" who condemn her choice of a lover. Swift holds nothing back, declaring "I'll tell you something about my good name/It's mine alone to disgrace."

Swift stated that her life sometimes feels like a public autopsy with people psychoanalyzing her every thought and feeling. Following the release of Midnights and her larger-than-life Eras Tour , Swift’s been in her "glittering prime" despite experiencing her long-term relationship ending and the media hysteria around it would make anyone feel the opposite. "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" confirms fans' theories that the GRAMMY winner was indeed putting on a brave face.  

On "Clara Bow" — a song named for the silent film actress whose public life was so scrutinized that she admitted herself into a sanatorium — Swift sings "Beauty is a beast that roars/Down on all fours/Demanding, 'More.'" Again, Swift plays with the double-edged sword of fame, comparing herself to a performing circus animal — something she sings about in "Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?" 

Taylor Swift Gets By With A Little Help From Her Friends

Swift has always looked up to and honored the greats in her music and art, and Tortured Poets is no exception. She recruits rock icon and songwriter Stevie Nicks to help build TTPD ’s world, and Nicks penned a poem featured in Swift’s physical album. Written in Texas, the poem is "For T and me..." and tells the tale of two ill-fated lovers. (Swift also namedrops Nicks in "Clara Bow," touching on the comparisons made between Clara, Nicks and herself.)

There are two additional guest appearances on TTPD : Post Malone appears on "Fortnight" and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine is featured on "Florida!!!" (a surprisingly toned-down lead single). Swift particularly shines when paired with Welch, and the soaring "Florida!!!" sees their intertwined vocals creating a sound as infectious as the "drug" they sing about.

J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan inspired Swift on "cardigan" ("Tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy") but now the Lost Boy gets his own track on The Anthology ’s "Peter." The ever-inquisitive Swift pleads, "You said you were gonna grow up/Then you were gonna come find me" and confronts this man who wouldn’t grow up. She even puts herself in the shoes of Wendy who waited for Peter Pan to return but has grown tired of waiting.

TTPS Is All Quill And Fountain Pen Songs

A few years ago, Taylor Swift categorized her songwriting according to three writing devices: glitter gel pens for fun tracks, fountain pens for songs using modern imagery and lyrics, and quill pens for tracks with flowery, figurative language. Although devoid of the glittery gel pen songs that comprise many of Swift's hits, TTPD and its accompanying anthology are steeped in fountain and quill writing. 

Most of The Tortured Poets Department are fountain pen tracks — thanks to 2024 Producer Of The Year Jack Antonoff ’s sleek pop production and synth use. Tracks like "Fresh Out The Slammer" and "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" are sharp, snappy, tongue-in-cheek tales of love affairs about to begin and coming to an end with the same sonic exuberance of past Swift & Antonoff songs, like "Out of the Woods" and "Getaway Car."

Tracks on The Anthology , mostly produced by Aaron Dessner , are stripped-back, folk-tinged quill songs brimming with sorrow and harrowing thematics and dives even deeper into her chaotic psyche. "The Prophecy" sees Swift beg to change a prophecy that has been laid out ahead of her — likely stemming from the pressure of being a global superstar when all she wants is to be loved.

This Is The End Of An Era (Or A Chapter)

To her occasional disdain, Swift's highly personal songwriting has created a global obsession with her inner life.  Although she's tired of the "public autopsy," Tortured Poets offers her time to reflect on the "events, opinions, and sentiments" over a time that was equal parts transient and transformative. 

From her growth from the country-twanged teen singer on her self-titled debut to woman who is fearless in her pursuit of happiness, love, and peace, Swift has transformed time and time again. By viewing her work in eras — or, in this case, a chapter in a book of her life — it’s clear that Swift sees this current chapter of her life coming to a close, turning the last page and no longer longing to look back. 

One could argue that Swift is an unreliable narrator, only ever presenting her side of the story. But she says that while considering the pain described on TTPS , many now-healed wounds turned out to be self-inflicted. With these stories immortalized, Taylor Swift has spoken her saddest story and is now "free of it." The tortured poets and poems will no longer take up space in this next chapter of her life.

Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift's Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon

Photo: Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Taylor Swift’s New Album 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is Here: The Tracklisting, Guests, Easter Eggs & More

Just over two months after Taylor Swift announced 'The Tortured Poets Department' at the 2024 GRAMMYs, the sprawling, bracingly personal album is here. Before you open the department door, arm yourself with the following knowledge.

We’ll be wandering through this Department for the foreseeable future.

Not only has Taylor Swift unleashed an absolute maelstrom with her 16-song new album, The Tortured Poets Department ; she’s dropped a whopping 15 additional tracks via its expanded version, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology .

Clearly, there’s an absolute treasure trove here — for Swifties and the merely Swift-curious alike. A mostly downbeat and discursive affair, The Tortured Poets Department feels like the shadow cast by the gilded, giddy, exhilarating Eras Tour , which isn’t over yet. (Which makes all the sense in the world, as she was simultaneously chipping away at the album while crisscrossing the globe.)

If you’re reading this, you’re probably bracing yourself for this long, solemn, darkly funny journey. Don’t go alone: here’s a brief breakdown of what you should know going in. (And keep checking GRAMMY.com, as there’s plenty more Taylor and Tortured Poets coming your way.)

The Tracklisting

As previously reported , here’s the standard tracklist for The Tortured Poets Department:

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"

The Expanded Tracklisting

Aside from The Black Dog Edition , The Albatross Edition , The Bolter Edition , and The Manuscript Edition — which consist of the standard edition of the album with its titular bonus track — here are the additional tracks that complete The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology .

"The Black Dog"

"Imgonnagetyouback"

"The Albatross"

"Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"

"How Did It End?"

"So High School"

"I Hate It Here" "thanK you aIMee"

"I Look In People’s Windows"

"The Prophecy" "Cassandra" "Peter" "The Bolter" "Robin"

"The Manuscript"

Physical copies of The Tortured Poets Department feature an original poem by the one and only Stevie Nicks .

Titled "For T and me…," the poem starts off with "He was in love with her / Or at least she thought so / She was brokenhearted / Maybe he was too." It goes on to trace a doomed relationship — one party being "way too hot to handle" and the other "way too high to try."

Elsewhere, Post Malone lends a haunting vocal to opener and lead single "Fortnight," and Florence + the Machine elevate "Florida!!!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqoZyauhdA

The lion’s share of the album was produced by Jack Antonoff ; Aaron Dessner handled a handful of tunes on the standard edition and the majority of The Anthology .

The Easter Eggs

Where do we begin? For starters, most of the songs seem to be directed at ex Matty Healy of the 1975, but Joe Alwyn and Travis Kelce seem to pop up here and there as well.

In the title track, Swift describes embracing the "cyclone" of a relationship with a partner akin to a "tattooed golden retriever." And they’d be remiss to compare themselves to Patti Smith or Dylan Thomas or any other famously tortured poet of the 20th century: "We’re modern idiots… we’re two idiots."

Elsewhere, Lucy Dacus of boygenius — and Antonoff himself — pop up ("But you tell Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you / So I felt seen").

Far be it from us to speculate on exact subjects, but there are shades of depression ("You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days"), a betrothal that wasn’t to be ("You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waiting for the proof") and the racket of fame ("The circus life made me mean").

As usual, Swift has dumped puzzle pieces on the carpet — daring her ardent, global fanbase to start at the edges and work their way to the center. But never to this degree, across such an ocean of material.

Tortured poets — and those who fall in love with them — assemble!

Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift’s Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon

Photo: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic/Getty Images

GRAMMY Rewind: Watch Taylor Swift Become The First Woman To Win Album Of The Year Twice

Celebrate the release of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ by revisiting the night Taylor Swift made history as the first woman to win Album Of The Year twice at the 2016 GRAMMYs.

At the 2024 GRAMMYs, Taylor Swift became the artist with the most Album Of The Year awards in GRAMMY history with four total wins. But her first record-breaking AOTY moment traces back eight years ago, when she became the first woman to win the category twice.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, relive the moment she won the historic golden gramophone for her iconic fifth studio album, 1989 , at the 2016 GRAMMYs .

“I want to thank the fans for the last 10 years,” Swift beamed, praising her loyal fanbase, the Swifties. She later acknowledged the Recording Academy for “this unbelievable honor” and the project’s main producer, Max Martin , who “deserved to be up there for 25 years.”

Before she left the stage, she offered an inspiring message to aspiring female musicians in light of her groundbreaking win. “To all the young women, there are going to be people along the way who try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” she explained. “But if you just focus on the work and don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday, when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there. That will be the greatest feeling in the world.”

Check out Taylor Swift’s complete acceptance speech for her second Album Of The Year win, before diving into the release of The Tortured Poets Department , and check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind .

Get Ready For Taylor Swift's ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Album Release: Everything You Need To Know

• 1 Everything We Know About Taylor Swift's New Album 'Midnights'
• 2 Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift's Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon
• 3 Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is A Post-Mortem Autopsy In Song: 5 Takeaways From Her New Album
• 4 Taylor Swift’s New Album 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is Here: The Tracklisting, Guests, Easter Eggs & More
• 5 GRAMMY Rewind: Watch Taylor Swift Become The First Woman To Win Album Of The Year Twice

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Everything to know about Taylor Swift's Midnights album

The singer-songwriter's 10th studio album is here — and we have all the details.

'Tis the damn season — for a new Taylor Swift era.

The songstress surprised us all by revealing at the 2022 VMAs that her next release wouldn't be one of her rerecorded albums as previously assumed, but instead her much-anticipated 10th studio album, Midnights .

Longtime fans know all too well that Swift loves her surprises and Easter eggs, and after two surprise drops with Evermore and Folklore , the mad woman herself has gone back to her release patterns of the past with an initial announcement and a slow trickle of information.

Long story short, as we celebrate the release of Midnights — which in less than 24 hours became the most-streamed album in a single day (and later, for Swift, most-streamed artist) on Spotify and set the record for biggest pop album on Apple Music — EW has gathered all the information you need to know as you dive into the record.

Swift poked fun at her Easter-egg-giving ways on Sept. 21, revealing on TikTok that she'd be unveiling one song title at a time, at random, in a video series cheekily called Midnights Mayhem With Me . The full track list has since been released:

1. "Lavender Haze" 2. "Maroon" 3. "Anti-Hero" 4. "Snow on the Beach" ft. Lana Del Rey 5. "You're on Your Own, Kid" 6. "Midnight Rain" 7. "Question…?" 8. "Vigilante S---" 9. "Bejeweled" 10. "Labyrinth" 11. "Karma" 12. "Sweet Nothing" 13. "Mastermind"

Additionally, the bonus edition tracks were announced by Target on Oct. 13 . They are: "Hits Different," a strings remix of "You're on Your Own, Kid," and a piano remix of "Sweet Nothing."

Midnights will mark a return to more personal subject matter, after Swift moved away from that a bit with her past two albums. In her note announcing the new record, she described it as "the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life."

"This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams," Swift wrote. "The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching — hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we'll meet ourselves."

True to the theme, after revealing the title of track 3, "Anti-Hero," she also shared a behind-the-song featurette on Instagram in which she talked about the intimate nature of the piece, which she considers one of her favorites she's ever written.

"I don't think I've delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before," she said in the clip. "I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized and, not to sound too dark, I struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person." She went on to tell fans not to feel bad for her and explained that "Anti-Hero" is a "guided tour" of all the things Swift tends to hate about herself.

"We all hate things about ourselves, and it's all of those aspects of the things we dislike and like about ourselves that we have to come to terms with if we're going to be this person," she said. "So I like 'Anti-Hero' a lot because I think it's really honest."

In a subsequent explainer video , Swift discussed how her six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn inspired the album opener, "Lavender Haze." She said she first heard the phrase while watching Mad Men , and upon looking it up she realized it was commonly used in the 1950s to describe being in love.

"Like, if you were in the lavender haze, then that meant that you were in that all-encompassing love glow — and I thought that was really beautiful," she said. "And I guess theoretically, when you're in the lavender haze, you'll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud."

Swift continued: "And I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like 'public figures,' because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're going to weigh in on it. Like my relationship for six years: We've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. And so this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff. I hope you guys like it."

Yet another video revealed that the fourth track, "Snow on the Beach," which features Lana Del Rey, was inspired by the "cataclysmic, fated moment" when you realize you're falling in love with someone at the same time as they're falling in love with you. Swift likened that realization to seeing snow falling on the beach. She also called Del Rey one of the "best musical artists ever" and said she'll "be grateful for life" for Del Rey's participation.

The 3 a.m. tracks

But wait... there's more! Hours after the album dropped on Oct. 21, Swift unleashed more chaos on her fans with seven more songs that she dubbed "the 3 a.m. tracks."

"Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I'm calling them 3am tracks," she wrote in a post announcing the news. "Lately I've been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it's 3am and I'm giving them to you now."

The tracks — titled "The Great War," "Bigger Than the Whole Sky," "Paris," "High Infidelity," "Glitch," "Would've, Could've, Should've," and "Dear Reader" — are available to stream now.

Though most of the songs see Swift again teaming up with Midnights collaborators such as Jack Antonoff, fans of Folklore and Evermore will be pleased to see Aaron Dessner's return here as co-writer and co-producer on "The Great War," "High Infidelity," and "Would've, Could've, Should've." Dessner produced both of those aforementioned albums, but was, until now, absent from Midnights .

When and where to buy

The album is now available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music . Physical copies of it — vinyl, CD, or cassette tape — can be purchased on Swift's website. Currently, there are four versions of the album available that come in the corresponding colors: Moonstone Blue Edition (the standard version), Jade Green Edition, Blood Moon Edition, and Mahogany Edition.

According to Swift's website , each of the versions includes 13 songs, one of four collectible albums with unique front-and-back cover art, one of four unique collectible disc artworks, one of four unique marbled-color CD discs, and a collectible lyric booklet with never-before-seen photos. The standard edition vinyl and CD are also available in stores.

Bonus content

Swift has a longstanding relationship with Target and is releasing a separate bonus edition of the album , which has been dubbed the Lavender Edition, to purchase there. As mentioned above, this edition includes three bonus tracks, two of which are remixes. The tracks are not going to be on the other editions of the album.

Producers and collaborators

The credits and song lengths for Midnights appeared on iTunes on Oct. 18. Frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff cowrote 11 of the 13 songs with Swift, and she wrote one solo ("Vigilante S---"). Still another was written by her and Alwyn ("Sweet Nothing"), once again using the alias William Bowery. Other co-writers include Zoë Kravitz ("Lavender Haze"), Del Rey ("Snow on the Beach"), Mark Anthony Spears ("Lavender Haze" and "Karma"), Jahaan Akil Sweet ("Lavender Haze" and "Karma"), Sam Dew ("Lavender Haze"), and Keanu Torres ("Karma").

In the run-up to the album's release, Swift was mum about any potential collaborations, but a behind-the-scenes video showed her and Antonoff — who had a hand in producing tracks on past albums 1989 , Reputation , Lover , Folklore , and Evermore — hard at work on Midnights , which he also produced with Swift.

Upon Midnights ' release, the album's credits revealed several famous faces, from Kravitz to Dylan O'Brien, who also provided surprising cameos to several tracks on the album.

Swift didn't release a single or any confirmation of what the album's genre would be before its release. Now that we've heard it, however, it's clear that Midnights is a return to the pop genre for Swift, after the more folk-alternative style of Evermore and Folklore . True to the album's aesthetic, though, the new record feels 1970s-inspired, with hints of the pop from that era sprinkled throughout.

In the lead-up to the album's release, Swift partnered with Spotify to unveil lyrics from Midnights on billboards around the world. The reveals kicked off Oct. 17 in New York, where the words "I should not be left to my own devices…" lit up Times Square. That was followed up the next day by a sign in London that read, "I polish up real nice."

On a billboard in Sao Paulo, these lyrics were shared: "Just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line." And, bringing it home, in Nashville: "Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room?" The final lyrics, revealed in Mexico City, were, "Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out."

Spotify also collaborated with Swift on a short video series to accompany the lyrics, in which she revealed five things that kept her up at night and helped inspire the Midnights album. They are:

• Self-loathing
• Fantasizing about revenge
• Wondering what might have been
• Falling in love
• Falling apart

Album release plans

The week of release, Swift shared a video to her social media accounts with a calendar for promotion related to Midnights . Fans can expect the following events to come, post-release:

Friday, Oct. 21: (release day)

3 a.m. ET: "Special very chaotic surprise"

8 a.m. ET: "Anti-Hero" music video release (and the #TSAntiHero Challenge on YouTube Shorts)

8 p.m. ET: Lyric videos

Monday, Oct. 24:

Appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Tuesday, Oct. 25:

Midnight ET: Second music video release

Friday, Oct. 28:

Appearance on The Graham Norton Show

Music videos

Swifties will be feasting for weeks. During her teaser-trailer on Thursday Night Football ahead of the album's release, the singer revealed that she filmed music videos for several songs, which she has called the " Midnights Music Movies."

"[They are] the music videos that I've made for this album to sort of explore visually the world of this record," she said in a clip announcing the projects. "And I love storytelling, I love songwriting, I love writing videos, I love directing them. And this was a really fun opportunity to work again with the cinematographer Rina Yang, who was my collaborator on the All Too Well 10-minute short film. So we really wanted to challenge ourselves to do different things this time around and stretch, and I'm really proud of what we made, and I really hope you like them."

The music videos will star Laura Dern, Antonoff, the Haim sisters, Pat McGrath, Dita Von Teese, John Early, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Mike Birbiglia, and Laith Ashley.

Related content:

• Taylor Swift wants to direct her first feature film, she's just waiting for the perfect script
• Taylor Swift reveals the movies that helped inspire All Too Well
• Taylor Swift announces new album Midnights after VMAs Video of the Year win

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Everything to Know About Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' Album

Here's everything to know about the singer's tenth studio album, including the full tracklist and collaborations

Taylor Swift has entered a new music era!

After taking home video of the year at the MTV VMAs, the singer announced her plans for a brand-new album titled Midnights .

"I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out Oct. 21st," Swift said in her speech before teasing that she would be releasing more details at midnight.

In a post shared on her social media, Swift later confirmed the title of the album is Midnights .

"Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out Oct. 21. Meet me at midnight," she wrote online .

Swift's album announcement came almost a year after she released Red (Taylor's Version) in November 2021.

After Scooter Braun bought Swift's former record label Big Machine — and with it, the masters to Swift's first six albums — the singer shared that she would be re-recording her entire catalog so that she would own her art in August 2019. (Braun has since sold the masters to a private equity firm but continues to profit off them.)

For more on Taylor Swift, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.

Since then, she has rerecorded two of her first six albums, including Red (Taylor's Version) and Fearless (Taylor's Version) , which was released in April 2021.

Here's everything to know about Swift's tenth studio album.

What is Taylor Swift's Midnights album about?

Swift revealed that the album is a "collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams."

"For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching — hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve ... we'll meet ourselves," she wrote online.

"Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out Oct. 21. Meet me at midnight."

She later revealed that the songs on Midnights were inspired by five different things, including self-loathing, fantasizing about revenge, wondering what might have been, falling in love and falling apart.

What is the cover art for Taylor Swift's Midnights album?

Swift shared the official cover art for the new album, which shows her striking a lighter as she dons shimmery blue eyeshadow. She is also releasing three variant album covers titled jade green, blood moon, and mahogany.

How many songs will be on Taylor Swift's Midnights album?

Swift confirmed that there will be 13 (her lucky number!) new songs on the album. There will also be a deluxe version of the album available at Target, which will include three bonus tracks .

What is the tracklist for Taylor Swift's Midnights album?

Through a TikTok series titled Midnights Mayhem with Me, Swift slowly unveiled the entire tracklist for the album. The official tracklist includes: "Lavender Haze," "Maroon," "Anti-Hero," "Snow on the Beach," "You're on Your Own, Kid," "Midnight Rain," "Question…?," "Vigilante S---," "Bejeweled," "Labyrinth," "Karma," "Sweet Nothing," and "Mastermind."

What is the genre of Taylor Swift's Midnights album?

Though there have been a lot of theories about the album's genre, ranging from soft rock to indie, the album is listed as pop on Target's website.

Will there be any collaborations on Taylor Swift's Midnights album?

In a video shared on social media, Swift confirmed that producer Jack Antonoff collaborated on the new album as they're shown in the studio together.

On Oct. 7, Swift confirmed that her track "Snow on the Beach" would be a collaboration with Lana Del Rey, which fans theorized earlier this year.

Swift revealed on release day that her British actor boyfriend, Joe Alwyn (under his pen name William Bowery ), was a collaborator on "Sweet Nothing" — marking his sixth songwriting credit on a Swift project. Other collaborators include Sam Dew, Zoe Kravitz, Sounwave, Jahaan Sweet and Keanu Beats.

Will Midnights have any music videos?

Swift revealed that the lead single and first music video from Midnights would be "Anti-Hero," which will be released at 8 a.m. EST on Oct. 21. A second music video is slated to release on Oct. 25.

When will Taylor Swift's Midnights album be released?

During her MTV VMAs video of the year acceptance speech on Aug. 28, Swift revealed that her new album will be coming out on Oct. 21.

Is there a Midnights extended version?

In the week leading up to the Midnights album release, Swift hyped up a "chaotic surprise" on her social media. Early Friday morning, the singer announced that she is releasing seven extra songs on her new Midnights album under the title Midnights (3am Edition) .

The new songs are listed as "The Great War," "Bigger Than the Whole Sky," "Paris," "High Infidelity," "Glitch," "Would've, Could've, Should've," and "Dear Reader."

"Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour," Swift posted on Instagram , early Friday. "However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I'm calling them 3am tracks."

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Taylor Swift Talks Record-Breaking ‘Midnights,‘ Teases Potential Tour on ’Fallon’

Taylor Swift sat down with Jimmy Fallon on the The Tonight Show to talk about everything from her honorary degree from NYU to her new music video, “ Bejeweled .” The interview came just three days after the anticipated release of her new album Midnights , which broke Spotify records by becoming the most-streamed project in a single day in the service’s history.

She told Fallon she has “a psychotic amount” of Easter eggs that she kept track of in a PDF file, something fans no doubt appreciated.

Come for the Torture, Stay for the Poetry: This Might Be Taylor Swift's Most Personal Album Yet

Matty healy is taylor swift's unlikely inspiration and six other takeaways from 'ttpd', hardy enters his bartending era on 'gin and juice' cover, taylor swift, post malone go mad in stunning 'fortnight' video with ethan hawke cameo.

Swift also hinted at a tour to follow-up the success of Midnights , telling Fallon, “I think I should do it. When it’s time, we’ll do it. I miss it.”

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Taylor Swift: Midnights review – small-hours pop rich with self-loathing and stereotype-smashing

(Republic Records) With its confident songwriting and understated synth-pop, Swift’s sophisticated 10th album indicates that she no longer feels she has to compete with her peers

I t’s one of the weirder aspects of 21st century pop that every major new album feels like a puzzle to be solved. Nothing is ever just announced, promoted, then released. Instead, breadcrumbs of mysterious hints and visual clues are very gradually dropped via the artist’s social media channels. Fans pore over them and formulate excitable theories as to what’s about to happen. Articles are written collating said fans’ theories and weighing up their potential veracity. Sometimes, it goes on longer than the actual album’s stay in the charts. It has certainly happened with Taylor Swift ’s 10th studio album, Midnights. Everything has been pored over for potential information about its contents, up to and including the kind of eye shadow she wears on the album cover. Conspiracy theories have abounded. Space precludes exploring them here, as does concern for your welfare: reading about them makes one’s head hurt a bit.

Still, perhaps it’s inevitable that people are intrigued as to Swift’s next move. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the willingness of big stars to service their fans with more of the same : building an immediately recognisable brand in a world where tens of thousands of new tracks are added to streaming services every day. It’s an approach that Midnights’ one marquee-name guest, Lana Del Rey , knows a lot about, but not one to which Swift has adhered. Instead, she has continually pivoted: from Nashville to New York, pedal steel guitars to fizzing synthesisers, Springsteen-like heartland rock to dubstep-infused pop. Last time she broke cover with new material, she released Folklore and Evermore , two pandemic-fuelled albums of tasteful folk-rock produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner. But that’s no guarantee of her future direction.

In fact, Midnights delivers her firmly from what she called the “folklorian woods” of her last two albums back to electronic pop. There are filtered synth tones, swoops of dubstep-influenced bass, trap and house-inspired beats and effects that warp her voice to a point of androgyny on Midnight Rain and Labyrinth, the latter a leading choice given the preponderance of lyrics that protest gender stereotyping, or “that 1950s shit they want from me”, as Lavender Haze puts it. Equally, something of Folklore and Evermore’s understated nature hangs around Midnights. It’s an album that steadfastly declines to deal in the kind of neon-hued bangers that pop stars usually return with, music brash enough to cut through the hubbub. The sound is misty, atmospheric and tastefully subdued.

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On the superb Maroon, Swift’s voice is backed by ambient electronics and droning shoegazey guitars: it’s one of several songs that you feel could suddenly surge into an epic chorus or coda, but never does. The Del Rey collaboration Snow on the Beach is beautifully done – a perfect gene-splice between their two musical styles with a gorgeous melody – but it’s a long way from a grandstanding summit between two pop icons: there’s a striking lightness of touch about it, a restrained melding of their voices. Meanwhile, Anti-Hero offers a litany of small-hours self-loathing set to music that feels not unlike the glossy 80s rock found on Swift’s 1989 , but with the brightness turned down. There’s an appealing confidence about this approach, a sense that Swift no longer feels she has to compete on the same terms as her peers.

Elsewhere, if the Swift you love is Swift in vengeful mode, settling scores with a side-order of You’re So Vain-esque who’s-this-about? intrigue, you’re advised to fast-forward to Vigilante Shit and Karma: the former features verses that could be directed at her old foes Kanye West or Scooter Braun; the latter excoriates someone referred to as “spiderboy” and notes how they “weave your little webs of opacity, my pennies made your crown”. But Vigilante Shit’s sound is minimal and unflappable – a beat with thin slivers of bass and electronic tones sliding in and out of the mix, not too distant from something Billie Eilish might have devised on her debut album, while Karma is kaleidoscopically tuneful, another track that harks back to 1989: there’s none of the distorted electronic fury that characterised 2017’s supremely pissed-off Reputation . The effect makes Swift’s anger feel less brittle, lending it a dish-served-cold poise.

That confidence is the thing that binds Midnights together. There’s a sure-footedness about Swift’s songwriting, filled with subtle, brilliant touches: the moment on Question…?, where, as they describe a drunken conversation, the lyrics simultaneously speed up their rhythm and stop rhyming; You’re on Your Own, Kid’s fantastic description of a now-famous Swift returning to her home town and feeling like a prom queen, albeit a very specific prom queen: “I looked around in a blood-soaked gown,” she sings, invoking the image of Sissy Spacek about to go postal in Carrie. It’s an album that’s cool, collected and mature. It’s also packed with fantastic songs and at a slight remove from everything else currently happening in pop’s upper echelons. As ever, you wouldn’t like to predict what Taylor Swift will do next, but what she’s doing at the moment is very good indeed.

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Taylor swift: the eras tour movie ending - why midnights is the final era.

Taylor Swift ends her lengthy set in The Eras Tour movie with tracks from Midnights, and there's a very reasonable explanation as to why.

• Taylor Swift ends The Eras Tour with tracks from Midnights to showcase her most recent album.
• The tour movie on Disney+ has become Taylor Swift's most successful film project to date.
• The show's decision to close with "Karma" instead of Midnights ' final track adds a high-energy finale.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has the pop superstar performing tracks from her 2022 album Midnights to end her three-hour set, and the explanation as to why she does this is clear. The singer's enormous worldwide tour has her delving deep into her musical history and performing songs from almost every Taylor Swift album . While the setlist is split into sections relevant to tracks from each album, there's no requirement to end with Midnights as the final era. However, Taylor Swift's show is a well-oiled machine that has a reason behind every decision .

Out of Taylor Swift's eight documentaries and concert movies , The Eras Tour has by far become the most successful. The anticipation for the tour movie hitting Disney+ was just as intense as it was ahead of its theatrical debut. The sheer amount of material recorded by Swift over the course of her career has led to both the live tour and the movie boasting a very healthy runtime. As such, the setlist would have required careful consideration, and the Midnights era was decided upon to be the show's closer .

Who Taylor Swift's "Betty" Song Is About & How It Connects To Ryan Reynolds

Midnights is the final era as it's taylor swift's most recent album, taylor swift released midnights in 2022.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour doesn't strictly follow the same linear path as her music career. Several eras are performed in a sequence that differs from Swift's album release dates, but Midnights isn't one of those outliers. Instead, T aylor Swift ends the show with this era partially because she released the album most recently . While Midnights ' place in Swift's career chronology is a valid part of the reason behind the era's placement in the live show and ensuing movie, there is further logic to the decision.

Midnights didn't have its own tour dedicated to it, as its release came so soon before the start of The Eras Tour . Therefore, Midnights ' only chance to shine on the stage is during the tour that came on its tail . By having Midnights as the show's final era, the 2022 album gets the attention it deserves. In fact, according to Cosmopolitan , only 2020's Folklore typically matches the Midnights era in terms of how many songs from each respective album make it into the setlist.

The opening era of the same show focuses on 2019's Lover . What's interesting about this era is that the designated tour for the corresponding album also didn't happen. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift was forced to cancel the Lover tour. So, even though Lover was Taylor Swift's seventh studio album, the Lover era opens up the tour film as a tribute to the shows that were never able to take place .

Why Karma Is The Last Song In Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour Movie

Karma ends the eras tour better than the closer on the midnights album.

Choosing what song to end a concert with is an important decision, and Taylor Swift clearly wasn't content with simply ending on Midnights ' closing track . Instead, the Midnights era ends with "Karma." Although doing this required a tweak to the original song order from the album, the move allows the show to end on a more upbeat track that allows the fans to sing, dance along, and just generally leave on a high.

Choosing what song to end a concert with is an important decision, and Taylor Swift clearly wasn't content with simply ending on Midnights ' closing track.

There is an argument to be made that the Midnights era should end on the final track of the album. However, while "Mastermind" is a great album closer, live shows don't always work in the same way as recorded material. "Mastermind" still gets its moment to shine in The Eras Tour , coming just before "Karma." However, by swapping their order for the live performance, the energy of the show flows much better.

Will The Eras Tour Movie Change With Taylor Swift's New Album?

The tortured poets department could mean the movie needs updating.

Even though The Eras Tour movie is very representative of the tour itself , there have been slight tweaks made to the show as the tour has progressed. For instance, the acoustic section of the show doesn't always feature the same songs. However, there's a huge Taylor Swift event coming up that could become a big variable in the future of The Eras Tour movie. When Swift releases her new album in April 2024, The Tortured Poets Department , the creative team will need to decide whether to incorporate the new material into the show.

Why The Eras Tour Is Called "Taylor's Version" On Disney+ & How It's Different

The Eras Tour doesn't end until December 2024 , so omitting Swift's new songs for so long seems like a missed promotional opportunity. That being said, the ongoing stage show has a lot of moving parts, so slotting in new songs won't be easy. While it's possible, what's arguably more likely is that Taylor Swift will drop songs from The Tortured Poets Department into the ever-changing acoustic set. Either way, ignoring the new album completely doesn't feel like a viable option, and including them could lead to an updated version of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour soon.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version) is available to stream on Disney+.

Source: Cosmopolitan

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a film rendition of the colossal worldwide event that sees the legendary pop star hit the stage in a specially curated film event. Performing the hits of her over seventeen-year career in music, The Eras Tour highlights Taylor Swift and her team as they put on a show of a lifetime.

Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department is here, but it could be a logistical nightmare for the Eras Tour

Get ready for another Taylor Swift era.

The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) is the superstar's 11th studio album and is being released around the world today.

It'll be dropping the second the clock hits midnight on the east coast of America, which will be this afternoon in Australia.

• 2pm AEST : ACT, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria
• 1:30pm ACST : Northern Territory and South Australia
• 12pm AWST : Western Australia

So far, we know the album is a whopping 16 songs (not including bonus vinyl tracks) and features multiple collaborations, including with Florence + The Machine.

We also know the first single will be Fortnight featuring Post Malone, with a music video dropping tomorrow morning as well.

Despite no singles being released in its lead up, clues point to TTPD seemingly being inspired by the five stages of grief : denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Plus, many fans have speculated that the album title is a reference to the name of a group chat Swift's ex was part of – The Tortured Man Club.

And while The Tortured Poets Department could very well set new streaming records, it also poses a logistical nightmare for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour: how do you include yet another album into a show that is over three hours long?

Below, two ABC reporters and Swifties weigh up the likelihood of how the megastar might adapt her sell-out tour when it recommences in Europe next month.

We could lose some songs from every era to make room

Jessica : This seems like the most likely course of action. To put things into perspective, the Eras Tour includes songs from nine albums, but their airtime varies wildly. Lover, Folklore and Midnights have at least six songs, while Speak Now gets just two. So this might be a chance to balance things out?

Georgie : It would make the most sense to me. I can't imagine a tour that doesn't spend at least some time on the freshest music. But, this is a unique scenario. You have an artist who is essentially doing a greatest hits tour at the age of 34 while she is still churning out new music.

If she does cut music to make room for Tortured Poets, it will be very divisive. Every fan has their favourite era. But, I think if she was to I would hope she cuts songs she has already toured. You have to remember she put out four (now five) albums since her last tour and I imagine it would make the most sense for her to give more air time to Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and TTPD.

Jessica : If you were in charge of Taylor Swift's setlist, which songs would you cull? I'd ditch The Archer from the Lover era so it ends with, well, Lover. I'd be ruthless and cut most of the songs from the Red era as nothing compares to All Too Well (10 Minute Version). But keep the Reputation portion as is! It's perfect.

What if smaller eras, like Fearless and Speak Now, got cut altogether?

Jessica : I love chaos so I would not bat an eye if Taylor Swift dropped the entire Speak Now era from her tour. (But Enchanted is such a core memory for a lot of fans.) I know this might be a wild concept but there's not one song from her self-titled debut album in the Eras Tour (justice for Our Song!), so make of that what you will.

Georgie : I think this will cause a major generational divide. The beautiful part about the Eras Tour is you have fans new and old coming together. Taylor has been making music since 2009 and the Eras Tour has been a chance for people in their twenties and thirties to dress up in glitter and be teenagers again while sharing the new music with teenagers today. I'm a folklore girl through and through so I am hoping if any eras get sacrificed it's the older ones. But I can't lie, it's pretty special to belt out Love Story with thousands of other people.

Could we lose the two surprise songs for a few Tortured Poets hits?

Georgie : Controversial opinion but I would be ok with this. Although, take this as you want because I have experienced the Eras Tour. But the section is a gamble anyway. You never know what she's going to play and someone is always disappointed or their top pick is played another night. If you cut this section, no-one gets hurt. Maybe she subs it out for three best songs from TTPD?

Jessica : I missed out on tickets for the Eras Tour altogether so I was taken aback seeing fans who did score tickets complaining about which night got "better" surprise songs. You can't please everyone! I agree, this would level the playing field and take the comparison factor out of the tour… but I wonder if that uniqueness is a marketing factor as some super fans attend multiple concerts in the same city.

Imagine if she just… didn't play her new album

Georgie : Don't say it or it might come true!

Jessica : I think this would be the riskiest option. Imagine the disappointment on the first night when the tour recommences in Paris on May 9. But some fans, especially in America, who witnessed the Eras Tour last year before this album was announced feel it's unfair if other countries get a different experience. But that's what happens with the passage of time!

Georgie : I see your point but you have to remember we're in an age where many people have watched the Eras Tour happen through TikTok and the cinema release. So is it really missing out when it's been inescapable for over a year? This could be a chance for the people who have waited so long for the Europe leg – who have basically watched the tour on streaming and all over TikTok – to have something unique and worth the cash.

Or she could just include the new album and make the show nearly *four hours* long?

Jessica : I think this option would please the most fans, but I genuinely don't know how she performs for hours on end each night and then travels through different time zones. Oh,  to be a billionaire with a whole team taking care of everything all the time.

Georgie : I don't see this happening. Costs would skyrocket and many stadiums have a noise curfew. That's new costumes, sets and dance routines.

Jessica : But I would eat up new costumes, sets and dance routines! A four-hour concert is outrageous, which makes me think she might very well pick this option. Time will tell.

Georgie : I'm obviously a Swiftie but when I found out about the new album and what that might mean for the tour I just felt… overwhelmed. I'm still processing the release of four albums and two Taylor's Versions in four years. And now she's putting out new music? It's simply too much! The concert is a marathon but if I did have to go to a four-hour show, I'd do it for Ms Swift.

The worst option: Swapping All Too Well (10 Minute Version) for the radio edit to save time

Jessica : Sacrilegious.

Georgie : The people would riot. Jake Gyllenhaal would be thrilled though.

Final thoughts

Jessica : With everything going on in the world, I think this is a fun problem to ponder, and an interesting one for Taylor to tackle. I wish her well in whatever form the Eras Tour takes, because fans are going to have strong opinions either way.

Georgie: I worry that Taylor needs a holiday but, as you said, she's a billionaire now so I think she'll be fine. I hope she tours future albums but I also support her having a rest. Go chill with the cats and Travis. You've danced in high heeled boots for two years.

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Taylor Swift shocker: New album, "The Tortured Poets Department," is actually a double album

By Alex Sundby , Brian Dakss

Updated on: April 19, 2024 / 10:28 PM EDT / CBS News

Anticipation was growing at a fever pitch before Taylor Swift's latest album, " The Tortured Poets Department ," dropped at midnight EDT. But the pop superstar had a huge surprise on tap: It's actually a double album.

When Part One dropped, Swift wrote on Instagram , "All's fair in love and poetry... New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out now 🤍"

Then came the shocker, revealed in an Instagram post saying , "It's a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️ I'd written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here's the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn't mine anymore… it's all yours. 🤍."

What's Taylor Swift's new album about?

Swift described the album as "new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time — one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure."

She also said that time has been "closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted."

"Entertainment Tonight" correspondent Denny Directo called the record some of her most vulnerable work.

"Fans were left with more questions than there were answers, so good luck trying to decipher who these songs are about, what they mean," Directo told CBS News. "… I feel like there's more heartbreak songs on this than there are love songs."

Hours ahead of the record's release, Swift said on social media that its first single was "Fortnight," featuring Post Malone, and its music video was released Friday night .

Swift praised the Grammy-nominated artist's musical experimentation and melodies "that just stick in your head forever."

"I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on Fortnight," Swift said in her post .

"Fortnight" isn't the only track on the album on which Swift worked with another artist. Florence and The Machine is also featured.

What's on "The Tortured Poets Department" tracklist?

Swift posted an initial tracklist to social media in February one day after she announced the album at  the Grammys , where she won for best pop vocal album. Here's the list of all 31 songs:

• "Fortnight"
• "The Tortured Poets Department"
• "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"
• "So Long, London"
• "But Daddy I Love Him"
• "Fresh Out the Slammer"
• "Florida!!!"
• "Guilty as Sin?"
• "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"
• "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)"
• "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart"
• "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"
• "The Alchemy"
• "Clara Bow"
• "The Black Dog"
• "imgonnagetyouback"
• "The Albatross"
• "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"
• "How Did It End?"
• "So High School"
• "I Hate It Here"
• "thanK you aIMee"
• "I Look in People's Windows"
• "The Prophecy"
• "Cassandra"
• "The Bolter"
• "The Manuscript"

What are Taylor Swift's concert dates for The Eras Tour?

Swift resumes her wildly successful Eras Tour next month in Europe with shows scheduled for Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K. until August. In the fall, the tour returns to North America with performances in Indianapolis, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Here are the dates for upcoming shows:

• May 9 Paris
• May 10 Paris
• May 11 Paris
• May 12 Paris
• May 17 Stockholm
• May 18 Stockholm
• May 19 Stockholm
• May 24 Lisbon, Portugal
• May 25 Lisbon, Portugal
• May 29 Madrid
• May 30 Madrid
• June 2 Lyon, France
• June 3 Lyon, France
• June 7 Edinburgh, Scotland
• June 8 Edinburgh, Scotland
• June 9 Edinburgh, Scotland
• June 13 Liverpool, England
• June 14 Liverpool, England
• June 15 Liverpool, England
• June 18 Cardiff, Wales
• June 21 London
• June 22 London
• June 23 London
• June 28 Dublin
• June 29 Dublin
• June 30 Dublin
• July 4 Amsterdam
• July 5 Amsterdam
• July 6 Amsterdam
• July 9 Zurich
• July 10 Zurich
• July 13 Milan
• July 14 Milan
• July 17 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
• July 18 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
• July 19 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
• July 23 Hamburg, Germany
• July 24 Hamburg, Germany
• July 27 Munich
• July 28 Munich
• Aug. 1 Warsaw, Poland
• Aug. 2 Warsaw, Poland
• Aug. 3 Warsaw, Poland
• Aug. 8 Vienna
• Aug. 9 Vienna
• Aug. 10 Vienna
• Aug. 15 London
• Aug. 16 London
• Aug. 17 London
• Aug. 19 London
• Aug. 20 London
• Oct. 18 Miami
• Oct. 19 Miami
• Oct. 20 Miami
• Oct. 25 New Orleans
• Oct. 26 New Orleans
• Oct. 27 New Orleans
• Nov. 1 Indianapolis
• Nov. 2 Indianapolis
• Nov. 3 Indianapolis
• Nov. 14 Toronto
• Nov. 15 Toronto
• Nov. 16 Toronto
• Nov. 21 Toronto
• Nov. 22 Toronto
• Nov. 23 Toronto
• Dec. 6 Vancouver, British Columbia
• Dec. 7 Vancouver, British Columbia
• Dec. 8 Vancouver, British Columbia
• Taylor Swift

Alex Sundby is a senior editor at CBSNews.com. In addition to editing content, Alex also covers breaking news, writing about crime and severe weather as well as everything from multistate lottery jackpots to the July Fourth hot dog eating contest.

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Taylor Swift Renews Her Vows With Heartbreak in Audacious, Transfixing ‘Tortured Poets Department’: Album Review

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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For where it sits in her catalog musically, it feels like the synth-pop of “Midnights,” with most of the feel-good buzz stripped out; or like the less acoustic based moments of “Folklore” and “Evermore,” with her penchant for pure autobiography stripped back in. It feels bracing, and wounded, and cocky, and — not to be undervalued in this age — handmade, however many times she stacks her own vocals for an ironic or real choral effect. Occasionally the music gets stripped down all the way to a piano, but it has the effect of feeling naked even when she goes for a bop that feels big enough to join the setlist in her stadium tour resumption, like “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

The first time you listen to the album, you may be stricken by the “Wait, did she really just say that?” moments. (And no, we’re not referring to the already famous Charlie Puth shout-out, though that probably counts, too.) Whatever feeling you might have had hearing “Dear John” for the first time, if you’re old enough to go back that far with her, that may be the feeling you have here listening to the eviscerating “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” or a few other tracks that don’t take much in the way of prisoners. Going back to it, on second, fifth and tenth listens, it’s easier to keep track of the fact that the entire album is not that emotionally intense, and that there are romantic, fun and even silly numbers strewn throughout it, if those aren’t necessarily the most striking ones on first blush. Yes, it’s a pop album as much as a vein-opening album, although it may not produce the biggest number of Top 10 hits of anything in her catalog. It doesn’t seem designed not to produce those, either; returning co-producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner aren’t exactly looking to keep her off the radio. But it’s easily among her most lyrics-forward efforts, rife with a language lover’s wordplay, tumults of sequential similes and — her best weapon — moments of sheer bluntness.

Who is the worst man that she delights in writing about through the majority of the album? Perhaps not the one you were guessing, weeks ago. There are archetypal good guy and bad boy figures who have been part of her life, whom everyone will transpose onto this material. Coming into “Tortured Poets,” the joke was that someone should keep Joe Alwyn, publicly identified as her steady for six-plus years, under mental health watch when the album comes out. As it turns out, he will probably be able to sleep just fine. The other bloke, the one everyone assumed might be too inconsequential to trouble her or write about — let’s put another name to that archetype: Matty Healy of the 1975 — might lose a little sleep instead, if the fans decide that the cutting “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and other lacerating songs are about him, instead. He might also have cause to feel flattered, because there are plenty of songs extolling him as an object of abject passion and the love of her life — in, literally, the song title “LOML” — before the figure who animated all this gets sliced down to size.

The older love, he gets all of one song, as far as can be ascertained: the not so subtly titled “So Long, London,” a dour sequel to 2019’s effusive “London Boy.” Well, he gets a bit more than that: The amusingly titled “Fresh Out the Slammer” devotes some verses to a man she paints as her longtime jailer (“Handcuffed to the spell I was under / For just one hour of sunshine / Years of labor, locks and ceilings / In the shade of how he was feeling.” But ultimately it’s really devoted to the “pretty baby” who’s her first phone call once she’s been sprung from the relationship she considered her prison.

It’s complicated, as they say. For most of the album, Swift seesaws between songs about being in thrall to never-before-experienced passion and personal compatibility with a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. She feels “Guilty as Sin?” for imagining a consummation that at first seems un-actionable, if far from unthinkable; she swears “But Daddy I Love Him” in the face of family disapproval; she thinks “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” before an epiphany slips out in the song’s hilariously anticlimactic final line: “Woah, maybe I can’t.” Then the most devastating songs about being ghosted pop up in the album’s later going.

Now, that, friends, is a righteous tirade. And it’s one of the most thrilling single moments in Swift’s recorded career. “But Daddy I Love Him” has a joke for a title (it’s a line borrowed from “The Little Mermaid”), but the song is an ecstatic companion piece to “That’s the Way I Loved You,” from her second album, now with Swift running off with the bad choice instead of just mourning him. It’s the rare song from her Antonoff/Dessner period that sounds like it could be out of the more “organic”-sounding, band-focused Nathan Chapman era, but with a much more matured writing now than then… even if the song is about embracing the immature.

The album gets off to a deceptively benign start with “Fortnight,” the collaboration with Post Malone that is its first single. Both he and the record’s other featured artist, Florence of Florence + the Machine , wrote the lyrics for their own sections, but Posty hangs back more, as opposed to the true duet with Florence; he echoes Swift’s leads before finally settling in with his own lines right at the end. Seemingly unconnected to the subject matter of the rest of the record, “Fortnight” seems a little like “Midnights” Lite. It rues a past quickie romance that the singer can’t quite move on from, even as she and her ex spend time with each other’s families. It’s breezy, and a good choice for pop radio, but not much of an indication of the more visceral, obsessive stuff to come.

The title track follows next and stays in the summer-breeze mode. It’s jangly-guitar-pop in the mode of “Mirrorball,” from “Folklore”… and it actually feels completely un-tortured, despite the ironic title. After the lovers bond over Charlie Puth being underrated (let’s watch those “One Call Away” streams soar), and over how “you’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith,” an inter-artist romance seems firmly in place. “Who’s gonna hold you like me?” she asks aloud. (She later changes it to “troll you.”) She answers herself: “Nofuckinbody.” Sweet, and If you came to this album for any kind of idyll, enjoy this one while it lasts, which isn’t for long.

From here, the album is kind of all over the map, when it comes to whether she’s in the throes of passion or the throes of despair… with that epic poem in the album booklet to let you know how the pieces all fit together. (The album also includes a separate poem from Stevie Nicks, addressing the same love affair that is the main subject of the album, in a protective way.)

There are detours that don’t have to do with the romantic narrative, but not many. The collaboration with Florence + the Machine, “Florida!!!,” is the album’s funniest track, if maybe its least emotionally inconsequential. It’s literally about escape, and it provides some escapism right in the middle of the record, along with some BAM-BAM-BAM power-chord dynamics in an album that often otherwise trends soft. If you don’t laugh out loud the first time that Taylor’s and Florence’s voices come together in harmony to sing the line “Fuck me up, Florida,” this may not be the album for you.

When the album’s track list was first revealed, it almost seemed like one of those clever fakes that people delight in trolling the web with. Except, who would really believe that, instead of song titles like “Maroon,” Swift would suddenly be coming up with “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” “Fresh Out the Slammer,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”? This sounded like a Morrissey track list, not one of Swift’s. But she’s loosened up, in some tonal sense, even as she’s as serious as a heart attack on a lot of these songs. There is blood on the tracks, but also a wit in the way she’s employing language and being willing to make declarations that sound a little outlandish before they make you laugh.

Toward the end of the album, she presents three songs that aren’t “about” anybody else… just about, plainly, Taylor Swift. That’s true of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” a song that almost sounds like an outtake from the “Reputation” album, or else a close cousin to “Folklore’s” “Mad Woman,” with Swift embracing the role of vengeful witch, in response to being treated as a circus freak — exact contemporary impetus unknown.

Whatever criticisms anyone will make of “The Tortured Poets Department,” though — not enough bangers? too personal? — “edge”-lessness shouldn’t be one of them. In this album’s most bracing songs, it’s like she brought a knife to a fistfight. There’s blood on the tracks, good blood.

Sure to be one of the most talked-about and replayed tracks, “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” has a touch of a Robyn-style dancing-through-tears ethos to it. But it’s clearly about the parts of the Eras Tour when she was at her lowest, and faking her way through it. “I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday — every day,” she sings, in the album’s peppiest number — one that recalls a more dance-oriented version of the previous album’s “Mastermind.” It’s not hard to imagine that when she resumes the tour in Paris next month, and has a new era to tag onto the end of the show, “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” might be the new climax, in place of “Karma.” “You know you’re good when you can do it with a broken heart,” she humble-brags, “and I’m good, ‘cause I’m miserable / And nobody even knows! / Try and come for my job.”

Not many superstars would devote an entire song to confessing that they’ve only pretended to be the super-happy figure fans thought they were seeing pass through their towns, and that they were seeing a illusion. (Presumably she doesn’t have to fake it in the present day, but that’s the story of the next album, maybe.) But that speaks to the dichotomy that has always been Taylor Swift: on record, as good and honest a confessional a singer-songwriter as any who ever passed through the ports of rock credibility; in concert, a great, fulsome entertainer like Cher squared. Fortunately, in Swift, we’ve never had to settle for just one or the other. No one else is coming for either job — our best heartbreak chronicler or our most uplifting popular entertainer. It’s like that woman in the movie theater says: Heartache feels good in a place like that. And it sure feels grand presented in its most distilled, least razzly-dazzly essence in “The Tortured Poets Department.”

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What to know about Taylor Swift’s surprise double album drop overnight

Swift dropped ‘the tortured poets department’ at midnight late thursday. she had something else in store a couple of hours later..

As Taylor Swift accepted the Grammy Award in February for best pop vocal album for “Midnights,” she informed the audience that she had been keeping a secret for two years: She had recorded a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” and it would be released on April 19.

When Swift said “two years,” she held up two fingers, which under normal circumstances is a regular human hand signal. However, Swift’s die-hard fans know her all too well … and when the lead-up to the record included more references to the number two, they suspected something was up.

There’s a peace sign… ✌️👀 pic.twitter.com/MtvbuyUgwt — Taylor Swift News 🤍 (@TSwiftNZ) April 16, 2024

And they were correct — Swift dropped the 16-song record on midnight Eastern time late Thursday, and then two hours later at 2 a.m., announced a surprise: It was actually a double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” with 15 additional songs. (We can only imagine how much Swift was laughing at the people who thought they got the best of her when the first half leaked on Thursday.)

It was a fitting addition for a project that repeatedly reminds listeners that they don’t really know the pop megastar at all behind the scenes — and she has gone through quite a journey dealing with the complexities of fame. Here are the main things to know about the album.

Yes, a major theme is heartbreak

Based on the title, you could guess there would be lots of angst on the record, in addition to some of the track listings alone: “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” as well as “So Long, London” — the latter of which is the fifth track, which all Swifties know is a spot that she saves for her most personal songs. Before the release, Swift created a series of playlists for Apple Music that categorized songs from her discography by the five stages of grief.

Swift does deliver lyric after lyric about devastating heartbreak: “You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?/ I died on the altar waiting for the proof,” she sings on “So Long, London.” And on “LOML,” usually internet-speak for “love of my life,” she changes the words to “loss of my life.”

She drops (a few) hints about the subjects of her songs

Swift rocketed to stardom as a teen country singer when she hid clues in the liner notes about the real-life boyfriends and crushes in her lyrics. That practice stopped when she became a global superstar — but as usual, fans are already hard at work dissecting who, exactly, Swift is singing about on these tracks. (“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” Swift posted Friday on social media.)

The obvious assumption before the album’s release was that many songs would be about British actor Joe Alwyn, whom Swift dated for six years before they announced their breakup in April 2023. But upon hearing the lyrics, fans instead caught more apparent references to Matty Healy, lead singer of British band the 1975, to whom Swift was romantically linked for a couple of months last year. (People magazine, for example, noted that on “Guilty as Sin?” she name-drops the Blue Nile, Healy’s favorite band.)

Swift, who has given very few details about the timeline of “Tortured Poets,” said that she started recording it after she finished “Midnights” (presumably in late 2021 or early 2022) and continued through the Eras Tour that launched last spring. So it’s unclear whether the timing would have worked for her to include her relationship with Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce — but there are some sports-themed lines in “The Alchemy.”

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Swift is not thrilled about the opinions on her relationships.

While Swift and Healy were spotted together multiple times, and he showed up at a few of her concerts, they never confirmed they were an item. Still, many people were upset that Swift was associated with the controversial singer, given that he has been criticized for offensive comments over the years, such as laughing and agreeing on a podcast when a host made racist comments about the rapper Ice Spice. Some fans launched a campaign called #SpeakUpNow that asked Swift to address and condemn his behavior.

Swift has not talked about Healy publicly, but on Friday morning, listeners were already drawing the line between the public outcry and her lyrics on “But Daddy I Love Him.” Swift had some harsh words for strangers who judge her: “God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me/ Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see, thinking it can change the beat of my heart when he touches me.”

“I’ll tell you something about my good name,” she sings, “It’s mine alone to disgrace.”

She buries hatchets but keeps maps of where she puts them

That’s Swift’s way (on 2017 song “End Game”) of saying she holds grudges — something that still holds true today. She absolutely skewers an unnamed ex on “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” (“I would have died for your sins, instead I just died inside/ And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time”).

The second half of the album is filled with songs titled with proper names: “Cassandra,” “Robin,” “Peter,” “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus.” But one is called “Thank You Aimee,” stylized as “thanK you aIMee” … which fans immediately recognized spells out “Kim,” also known as a longtime Swift nemesis known as Kim Kardashian . The song is peppered with expletives directed at Aimee, leaving no confusion about how she feels about a certain someone.

However, in a brief statement on Instagram, Swift wanted to let listeners know that she doesn’t plan on looking backward for much longer, describing “Tortured Poets” as “an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time — one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.”

“This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed,” Swift continued. “And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

An earlier version of this article misquoted a lyric in "But Daddy I Love Him." The line is "It's mine alone to disgrace," not "It’s mine along with all the disgrace."

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At 31 songs, Taylor Swift's new album is way too long. Is the streaming era to blame?

• Taylor Swift released "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology" on Friday.
• The surprise double album contains 31 new songs. Even as a fan, it's too much to process.
• Swift is famously prolific, but it's also a symptom of the streaming era's more-is-more mentality.

Taylor Swift's album release days should be days of celebration. Instead, I woke up this morning with a vague sense of disquiet, somehow wishing I'd gotten fewer new songs from my most-streamed artist of all time.

At midnight on Friday, Swift unveiled her much-anticipated new album "The Tortured Poets Department" — a 16-track odyssey through her recent heartbreaks and wildest romantic whims , dense with personal revelations and intricate lyrics.

It's a lot to parse, more than any fan could hope for. But just as I was getting ready to sleep, Swift was only getting started.

At 2 a.m., she released an extended version of the album with 15 additional tracks, almost doubling its length.

Attentive fans had anticipated a late-night surprise of some kind, but hardly anyone had prepared for one of such magnitude. "In the past 3 hours she has released more songs than Lorde has in the past decade," one listener observed on X . That's not an exaggeration.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

I already felt it'd take multiple business days for me to process the meta implications of "Clara Bow," let alone two full hours of Swift's most verbose work to date. Instead of going to bed contented, I suddenly felt squirrely and overwhelmed. In a 31-song tracklist, none of them have the space to breathe.

Now, before you accuse me of aimless hating or call me ungrateful, allow me to enter my credentials into evidence: The first time I heard "Our Song," I was 12 years old and instantly hooked. According to Spotify, I've spent the equivalent of several days listening to " Folklore ." I went to The Eras Tour and cried.

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So yes, as a Swiftie, I know the party line. We're lucky that our favorite artist is so prolific, so generous with her musings, while others haven't released new albums in eight years. (Looking at you, Rihanna .)

It's true that Swift's work ethic is a thing to behold. It's a point of both pride and pain in her new album: "I cry a lot, but I am so productive / It's an art," she sings on "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" with self-deprecating swagger.

Indeed, "The Tortured Poets Department" is Swift's eighth album (including rerecords) in less than four years. Her constant whirlwind of activity is part of what's propelled her to supermassive stardom. It's all but guaranteed that there's always a theory online about her next release date, or another rabbit hole to fall down.

But in that sense, is there not a little too much to unpack? I can't be the only one who feels a little dizzy. In fact, I know I'm not. Another one of my Swiftie-certified friends shared with me that she's "ignoring the deluxe songs for now" because the standard edition of "Poets" is already enough to digest.

Surely, this can't be the ideal outcome for Swift's strategy: To overwhelm her loyal fans with such an opulent feast of music that some of us are full, rather than hungry for more.

Of course, Swift is far from the only artist who's released a bloated project, and these days, the streaming era is largely to blame . It's a simple concept: The more songs you have, the more streams you get. The more streams you get, the more money you make. Thus, albums have been getting longer and longer for years .

In this pragmatic pursuit of profit, artistry is bound to suffer. Potential hits get lost in the shuffle.

Worse still, the art of creating a cohesive tracklist becomes devalued. Why exercise discernment when it's better business to release the would-be scraps?

As a Swiftie, I find this to be especially obvious today of all days. The latter half of her double album contains some of the brightest gems, like "I Look in People's Windows" and "The Prophecy." But instead of getting their own moments to shine, they've been relegated to track slots 25 and 26 in a two-hour deluxe edition. They won't be included in CDs or vinyl copies. Casual fans may never even hear them, and those who do may be too zoned-out to appreciate them.

Swifties have demonstrated a knack for bringing delayed justice to bonus tracks, from "New Romantics" to "Right Where You Left Me" and " Would've, Could've, Should've ," which have all become fan favorites over time. But fans shouldn't need to root through albums like vinyl crates; that's what the DJ gets paid to do. Curation is an art form, too.

In Swift's case, she may be too big to fail commercially . But an artist is never too big to improve her craft.

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Harvard’s Taylor Swift Scholars Have Thoughts on ‘Tortured Poets’

The students taking Harvard University’s class on the singer are studying up. Their final papers are due at the end of the month.

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By Madison Malone Kircher

Fans of Taylor Swift often study up for a new album, revisiting the singer’s older works to prepare to analyze lyrics and song titles for secret messages and meanings .

“The Tortured Poets Department” is getting much the same treatment, and perhaps no group of listeners was better prepared than the students at Harvard University currently studying Ms. Swift’s works in an English class devoted entirely to the artist . The undergraduate course, “Taylor Swift and Her World,” is taught by Stephanie Burt, who has her students comparing Ms. Swift’s songs to works by poets and writers including Willa Cather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

On Thursday night, about 50 students from the class gathered in a lecture hall on campus to listen to Ms. Swift’s new album. Mary Pankowski, a 22-year-old senior studying history of art and architecture, wore a cream sweatshirt she bought at Ms. Swift’s Eras tour last year. The group made beaded friendship bracelets to celebrate the new album, she said.

When the clock struck midnight, the classroom erupted into applause, and the analysis began. First, the group listened through the album once without discussing, just taking it all in.

Certain lines, however, immediately caused a stir, said Samantha Wilhoit, a junior studying government — like a reference to the singer Charlie Puth and the scathing lyrics to the song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Ms. Wilhoit, 21, said.

A line from the song “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” in which Ms. Swift sings, “I cry a lot but I am so productive,” also seemed to resonate, Ms. Wilhoit said, laughing.

A smaller group of students, including Ms. Pankowski, stuck it out until the early hours of the morning waiting to see if Ms. Swift would drop additional music. At 2 a.m., they were rewarded with an additional “volume” of 15 tracks called “The Anthology.” Ms. Pankowski said she didn’t go to sleep until hours later.

Speaking with The New York Times together on a video call Friday morning, several students from the class discussed their thoughts on the 31 new songs and brainstormed their final papers, which are due at the end of the month.

“The song ‘Clara Bow’ reminded me of ‘The Song of the Lark,’” Makenna Walko, 19, said, citing the Willa Cather novel that follows the career of an aspiring opera singer, Thea Kronborg. “She’s talking about a girl trying to make it out of her small town and trying to get to Manhattan, and what it’s like to have these big, musical dreams and try to pursue them,” she continued. “That’s a narrative that has shown up a lot in Taylor’s own life, over the course of her own career. In a lot of ways, it’s Taylor’s story, too.”

Lola DeAscentiis, a sophomore, zeroed in on the song “But Daddy I Love Him,” comparing it to the Sylvia Plath poem “Daddy.” She plans to explore the link in her final paper.

“I hesitate to say that the song was anywhere near the genius of Sylvia Plath — no offense to Taylor Swift — but I can definitely see some similarities in the themes, like sadness, depression and mental health,” Ms. DeAscentiis, 20, said. (Ms. DeAscentiis also drew a distinction between being a fan of Ms. Swift and being a devoted Swiftie. She said she identified as the former.)

“The way that Taylor overlays her relationship with the significant other that she’s talking about in the song with the relationship that she has with her father — I think that was very Plath,” she added.

Another student, Ana Paulina Serrano, echoed Ms. DeAscentiis, noting that the class had learned about the genre of confessional poetry. “Is Taylor considered a confessional poet?” Ms. Serrano, a 21-year-old junior majoring in neuroscience, asked the group on the call. In support of her own position, she offered as evidence Ms. Swift’s song “Mastermind,” a track off “Midnights,” in which Ms. Swift reveals herself to have calculated and plotted the outcome of a relationship.

“Sometimes she’s confessing things that we, like, already knew or assumed, but she often seems to feel this need to explicitly tell us,” Ms. Serrano added.

Isabel Levin, a 23-year-old senior studying integrative biology, said she thought Ms. Swift’s delivery on several tracks had a spoken-word quality. She wondered if maybe some of the lyrics had initially begun not as songs but as more traditional poems.

Ms. Swift has said she categorizes her songs by the type of pen she imagines using to write each. A “frivolous, carefree, bouncy” song is a glitter gel pen song, while a fountain pen song might be more “brutally honest,” according to Ms. Swift . Quill pen songs are “all old-fashioned, like you’re a 19th-century poet crafting your next sonnet by candlelight,” she explained during her acceptance speech as songwriter-artist of the decade at the Nashville Songwriter Awards in 2022.

And with what implement might Ms. Swift have written “Tortured Poets?”

Quill pen, for sure, Ms. Walko said.

Madison Malone Kircher is a Times reporter covering internet culture. More about Madison Malone Kircher

Inside the World of Taylor Swift

A Triumph at the Grammys: Taylor Swift made history  by winning her fourth album of the year at the 2024 edition of the awards, an event that saw women take many of the top awards .

‘The T ortured Poets Department’: Poets reacted to Swift’s new album name , weighing in on the pertinent question: What do the tortured poets think ?  

In the Public Eye: The budding romance between Swift and the football player Travis Kelce created a monocultural vortex that reached its apex  at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Ahead of kickoff, we revisited some key moments in their relationship .

Politics (Taylor’s Version): After months of anticipation, Swift made her first foray into the 2024 election for Super Tuesday with a bipartisan message on Instagram . The singer, who some believe has enough influence  to affect the result of the election , has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

Conspiracy Theories: In recent months, conspiracy theories about Swift and her relationship with Kelce have proliferated , largely driven by supporters of former President Donald Trump . The pop star's fans are shaking them off .