Final grade: 10.3/10
This is where we cross into stratospheric territory.
Because my bespoke grading system gives an extra point to the best songs in Swift’s catalog, her top-five albums have all scored above a 10 because their gems outweigh their duds. (If you have a problem with this system, you’ll be happy to know that it’s made up and just for fun! Take it up with your therapist.)
With 31 tracks and a two-hour run time, “The Tortured Poets Department” and its companion double album, “The Anthology,” require a certain level of endurance.
However, for those who are eager to dive in, the depths are rich, entertaining, and immensely rewarding.
It’s true that many of these songs invite surface-level speculation: Who is the “tattooed golden retriever” mentioned in the title track? The resentful man in the house by the Heath? The vipers dressed in empath’s clothing? The answers are pretty obvious for Easter-egg hunters, if you care about that sort of thing.
But the album also resists a simple, linear narrative. Fans will twist themselves into knots trying to plot every detail on a timeline, but Swift’s muses, acquired like bruises, all share one thing in common: the author’s exacting lens. It’s Swift’s pen, and therefore her perspective.
And Swift never pretends to be a reliable narrator. For a self-described tortured poet, emotion takes precedence over reality. It’s not about what happened. It’s about how it felt.
Swift knows she sounds unruly, manic, even petty at times: “Everything comes out teenage petulance,” “Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all,” “I sound like an infant, feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen.” The mess is the whole point.
Unlike her more polished pop releases, “Poets” is more concerned with confession and catharsis than mass appeal. That’s bound to alienate some listeners, but it’s ultimately better for Swift’s legacy and long-term artistic growth.
A top-five ranking may strike some as generous or premature, but this album is destined to age well, as subtle allusions, double meanings, and layers of humor are slowly peeled back. When Swift sings, “Put narcotics into all my songs / And that’s why you’re still singing along,” she may be teasing, but she isn’t wrong.
God-tier songs: “Guilty as Sin?,” “Loml,” “The Black Dog,” “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus,” “The Prophecy”
Worth listening to: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” “Down Bad,” “So Long, London,” “But Daddy I Love Him,” “Fresh Out the Slammer,” “Florida!!! (featuring Florence + The Machine),” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” “Clara Bow,” “imgonnagetyouback,” “The Albatross,” “How Did It End?,” “So High School,” “I Hate It Here,” “I Look in People’s Windows,” “Cassandra,” “Peter,” “The Bolter,” “The Manuscript”
Filler: “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” “The Alchemy,” “Thank You Aimee,” “Robin”
Press skip: “Fortnight,” “The Tortured Poets Department”
