Taylor Swift surprised fans with her new record “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, revealing it was a double album featuring songs about heartbreak and a period described as “the saddest story” of the singer’s life.
Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, featuring 16 tracks, was released at midnight EDT (0400 GMT). Two hours later she revealed a second installment with 15 more songs.
“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” Swift wrote on Instagram.
“Poets” came 18 months after 2022’s “Midnights.”
Spotify said “Poets” broke the record for the platform’s most-streamed album in a single day this year, achieving the feat in less than 12 hours.
Taylor Swift, 34, has been setting music industry milestones and boosting local economies with The Eras Tour, which resumes in Paris in May.
Time magazine named Swift its 2023 Person of the Year, citing her musical accomplishments and influence on everything from pop culture to voter registration.
A description of “Poets” on Instagram said it was “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,” it added.
“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.”
The post also suggested that Swift used the writing process to heal.
“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,” it said.
The Instagram post did not say which events Swift was referring to. Fans have speculated she was writing about her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. The pair split in April 2023 after six years of dating.
