Taylor Swift’s latest album riddled with heartbreak has already become her best-selling record and broke several impressive Spotify records within one day of its release—but “The Tortured Poets Department” may struggle over time as data shows fans tend to stream her pop love songs for longer than her breakup ballads.
A smartphone displaying the US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s new album “The Tortured Poets … [+]
Swift released 31 emotional songs with “The Tortured Poets Department” debut Friday, which quickly broke Spotify records to become the most streamed album in a single day with more than 200 million streams, and made Swift the most-streamed artist in one day in Spotify history (her album also broke the record for most saves before it released).
“The Tortured Poets Department” has been the talk of the industry since its release with fans and music reviewers analyzing Swift’s lyrics, celebrity name dropping, and possible references to her recent love interests (Joe Alwyn, Matty Healey and Travis Kelce) in each track, many of which are slower, angsty tunes.
And while the buzz sent streams of the new album skyrocketing—“Fortnight,” the first single from the record, became Spotify’s most-streamed song in a single day with more than 39 million streams by Monday—data shows it’s Swift’s more poppy and upbeat songs about love that tend to stand the test of time.
Of Swift’s 10 songs that stayed on Billboard’s top streaming songs chart the longest, none are classified as the type of heartbroken, emotional tracks that fill “The Tortured Poets Department.”
Instead, songs like “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “22” and “Lavender Haze” are the songs fans tend to come back to again and again, all of which are relatively up-beat pop tracks.
“Anti-Hero,” a more introspective synthpop song about Swift’s public and private insecurities, spent the most time on the streaming chart at 55 weeks, but was followed by the more straightforward pop of “Shake It Off” (54 weeks), “Cruel Summer” (51 weeks), “Blank Space (40 weeks) and “I Knew You Were Trouble” (24 weeks).
The catchy “22” and love song “Lavender Haze” each spent 20 weeks on the chart, “Karma” and “Bad Blood,” from the revenge-filled album “Reputation,” are in the No. 8 and 9 spots with 19 and 18 weeks on the chart, respectively, and “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” a song written for the “Fifty Shades Darker” movie, is at No. 10 with 17 weeks on the chart—none could be described as a ballad.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour on Nov. 17, 2023 in Rio de Janeiro.
1.4 million. That’s how many copies of “The Tortured Poets Department” sold in its first day to break Swift’s record of the biggest sales week for any album.
“The Tortured Poets Department” is Swift’s ninth album in the last five years, including four re-recorded albums that feature some new tracks. She announced the album in February after winning her 13th Grammy Award and released the tracklist for the record that night. In the weeks leading up to Friday’s release, a full-on media blitz included partnerships with almost every major social media and streaming company, a pop-up library in Los Angeles and a QR code needing de-coding in Chicago. The album was released Friday night in two parts—the first 16 songs were released at midnight eastern time and another 15 followed at 2 a.m. Since the release, fans have been surprised by how few seem to focus on the collapse of her six-year relationship with British actor Alywn. Instead, the album seems to instead focus on what was previously believed to be a short-lived relationship with 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Other songs seem to touch on her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, another surprise to fans. The record also includes references to stars like Charlie Puth, Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith and others.
“She sounds confused, bitter, raging, vulnerable, yet more gloriously chaotic than we’ve ever heard her before,” veteran Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield wrote. “All over these songs, Taylor lives up to her credo that ‘all’s fair in love and poetry.’ But as she shows in ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ both can get brutal.”
