(New York) The pop world is holding its breath a few hours before the Friday release of Taylor Swift’s latest album, the eleventh opus of an American country singer who has become a global megastar, shattering records one after the other.
The Tortured Poets Department will be unveiled in the United States at midnight New York time.
The star announced her release in February during the Grammy Awards ceremony, the prestigious American music awards where she won the award for best album of the year for the fourth time.
Her millions of fans, the “Swifties”, have been impatiently awaiting her ever since and have tried to detect clues about what awaits them in each publication of the star.
Among the known elements: the album contains collaborations with the British rock group Florence + The Machine and the American rapper Post Malone, who accompanies him on the first track Fortnight.
“I am a huge fan of Post [Malone] because of his quality as an author, his musical experiments and these melodies that he composes and which stay in your head forever,” the singer wrote on Instagram on Thursday.
“I had the opportunity to see this magic come to life when we worked together on Fortnight “, she added, announcing the release of a music video late Friday.
At the age of 34, Taylor Swift became the first artist to become a billionaire thanks to income from her music alone.
An ex, rap and rock
Among the theories circulating about this new album: The Tortured Poets DepartmentOr The circle of tortured poets in French, would open up about the singer’s ex, the British actor Joe Alwyn.
The name of the opus would also be taken from a group discussion called “The tortured man club” (“The tortured man club”, in French) that the actor held with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, two other actors.
The list of songs, 16 in total, already gives some clues: So Long, London, I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) And The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived – an English man actually seems involved in the affair.
Returning, without taking gloves, to her former companions has also become a tradition for Taylor Swift, song after song.
The current elected official is American football star Travis Kelce, recent Super Bowl winner. And for him, the new album “is incredible”.
With her new Grammy victory in February, Taylor Swift did better than American music legends like Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon or Stevie Wonder.
Nearly 20 years after getting started, nothing seems to be stopping her.
His world tour, “Eras Tour”, is expected to bring in a total of two billion dollars in revenue after having already broken the symbolic ceiling of one billion last year, a first in the history of music.
Three weeks after Beyoncé
The Pennsylvania native began writing songs as a teenager and got her start in the country capital of Nashville.
By gradually moving away from this very American style, she is climbing the rankings. In 2018, she left the Big Machine label and joined Universal, without the rights to her previous albums.
By re-recording her first records to regain control, she succeeded in convincing her fans and the music industry, another tour de force for this essential artist in American popular culture.
With 283 million subscribers on Instagram, she is so influential among American youth that the political world is beginning to imagine the impact she could have on the presidential election in November, even if she rarely takes the lead. word on this subject.
Her new album will land on platforms three weeks after that of another American icon: Beyoncé and her Cowboy Carter.
The singer’s new opus, with rich country influences, could be a competitor for the next Grammy. With perhaps, also, the new album of another star: Billie Eilish is released Hit Me Hard and Soft on May 17.
But all these rich and influential artists insist at every opportunity: it’s the music that counts.
This latest album, Taylor Swift recently said, “reminded me that writing music is what keeps me going.”