The 34-year-old singer announced the album whilst accepting her 13th Grammy for best pop vocal album for her previous release, Midnights. She began teasing the album when she stated “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I have been keeping from you for the last two years,” the singer said, before announcing The Tortured Poets Department. The album, which will be released on 19th April, was a complete surprise after speculation that she would use an acceptance speech to announce the re-recording of reputation, one of the few remaining albums which are yet to be owned by Swift entirely after her masters were sold a few years back.
“I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I have been keeping from you for the last two years”
The announcement for Swift’s 11th studio album mirrors that of Midnights, which occurred at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards after she won the top honour from the ceremony. Swift then uploaded the cover to X after leaving the Grammy’s stage, with a photo of some lyrics which read “And so I enter into evidence / My tarnished coat of arms / My muses, acquired like bruises / My talismans and charms / The tick, / tick, / tick, / of love bombs, / my veins of pitch black ink.” The image was signed by ‘The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department’. With tracks featuring Post Malone as well as Florence and the Machine, Swift has stated that the album proved the integral role of songwriting in her life.
