NEW YORK ā Could there be a Taylor Swift new album rollout without a few additional surprises?
No.
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On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, āThe Tortured Poets Department,ā an amalgamation of her previous work and reflecting the artist who ā at the peak of her powers ā has spent the last few years re-recording her lifeās work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations.
But that was midnight. At 2 a.m. Eastern, she released āThe Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,ā featuring 15 additional songs.
āIād written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so hereās the second installment,ā Swift wrote in an Instagram caption. āAnd now the story isnāt mine anymoreā¦ itās all yours.ā
The songs are a natural continuation of the first half of the album; many return to her āevermoreā and āfolkloreā sound, with an assist from her collaborator Aaron Dessner.
This is not Swift's first time surprising her fans, and certainly not her first time doing so with a surprise album release. A few months after āfolkloreā was released in 2020, she announced āevermoreā would arrive at the midnight the same day. And speaking of midnight, she dropped a ā3amā edition of āMidnightsā featuring seven new tracks in 2022 a handful of hours after the original release.