Taylor Swift shared a special message to fans that pre-saved her upcoming 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Apple Music. After the platform made the highly-anticipated record available to save ahead of its release next month, Swifties were thrilled to hear a voice note from the pop star, 34.
‘Hi, Apple Music, it’s Taylor,’ she said in the recording. ‘Thank you for pre-adding The Tortured Poets Department.’ She continued: ‘I’m really proud to be able to share it with you on April 19th. I can’t wait for you to hear it!’
In addition to the voice note, the album’s tracklist confirmed this would be her most explicit record yet, with seven songs containing ‘curse words or language deemed sexual, violent, or offensive in nature.’ The tracks confirmed to be explicit are Down Bad, But Daddy I Love Him, IomI, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, Florida!!! and the title track.
Apple Music also classified the record’s genre as pop, which is the same category as some of her most beloved albums including Red, 1989, Lover, Reputation and Midnights. Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department while accepting her 13th Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights last month.
Overnight, her fans began attempting to link song names to her former boyfriends, including Harry Styles and Joe Alwyn. One eagle-eyed Twitter user pointed out that there is a track called So Long, London – which could refer to British-born Joe, 32.
Another referring to Joe read: ‘so long, london, the smallest man who ever lived, my boy only breaks his favorite toys, i can fix him (no really i can) BYE JOE ALWYN.’ Another fan wrote: ‘SO LONG LONDON?? I LOVE YOU ITS RUINING MY LIFE?? Joe Alwyn count your days #THETORTUEDPOETSDEPARTMENT.’
Taylor was in a relationship with actor for six years before their shock split in early 2023. In addition, some think the album title is a reference to Joe too and could be a savage nod to the group chat Joe shared with pals Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott.
Back in 2022, Joe revealed a mutual friend created a WhatsApp group with him and Paul called The Tortured Man Club. They later explained to Variety that Andrew ‘started the group,’ with Paul saying: ‘He’s just on it every day. He’s just on it by himself.’ Joe jokingly added: ‘Just messaging himself good mornings.’
Fans went wild, with one penning on X: ‘THIS IS THE BREAKUP ALBUM’ Another wrote: ‘I hope for Joe’s sake that he still has that group chat. I feel like he’s gonna need it’ Others made the connection to singer Harry Styles, 30, after the tracklist was revealed.