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Reputation Stadium Tour

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The Reputation Stadium Tour was the fifth concert tour by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift , who embarked on it to support her sixth studio album, Reputation (2017). Her first all-stadium tour, it began on May 8, 2018, in Glendale, Arizona , U.S., and concluded on November 21, 2018, in Tokyo , Japan. The tour encompassed 53 shows and visited the U.S., England, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

The set list consisted mostly of the songs from Reputation and some from Swift's other albums. The stage incorporated prominent snake motifs and imagery as decoration, reflecting the album's concept and Swift's public image. The main stage had a wedge-shaped display resembling a skyscraper under construction and was equipped with elaborate lighting, and two smaller B-stages were used for acoustic "surprise song" performances. The October 6, 2018, show at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas , was recorded and released as a Netflix original concert film on December 31, 2018.

Music critics commented that the production evoked Goth subculture and Broadway theatricality, praising the stage design, production, and wardrobe. They lauded Swift's showmanship and interactions with her audience that brought forth an exhilarating yet intimate experience. The Reputation Stadium Tour received 2.88   million attendees and grossed $345.7   million, becoming the highest-grossing U.S. and North American tour upon completion. It was awarded Tour of the Year at the People's Choice Awards , American Music Awards , and iHeartRadio Music Awards .

Why Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ Tour Is Her Finest Yet

• By Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

The biggest moment in Taylor Swift ‘s amazing Reputation stadium tour turns out to be one of the quietest. Near the end of the night, Swift sits at the piano by herself to play a few elusively familiar chords. “You might be wondering why there are so many snakes everywhere,” she says. The song she’s playing ends up being the 2010 Speak Now classic “Long Live,” which she transforms into a medley with the Reputation finale “New Year’s Day” – two of her best, from very different phases of her artistic evolution, but songs with a common emotional ground, whether it’s about “fighting dragons” or snakes. She eases back and forth between the songs, from the lush adolescent romanticism of “Long Live” into the mundane domestic detail of “New Year’s Day,” right up to the hook line: “I had the time of my life … with you.” What a moment – a powerhouse performance that made all the different Taylors sound like part of the same story.

Swift kicked off the first night of her hotly awaited Reputation tour last night at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, in front of 60,000 fans, and for the most part she went epic, with giant inflatable cobras, pyro, multiple stages and hordes of dancers. As always, she leaned hard into the new material, doing almost everything on the new Reputation (the one she left out was “So It Goes”), yet with her own uniquely intimate touch. This might be her most astounding tour yet – even when she’s aiming for maximum stadium-rock razzle-dazzle bombast, she gives it all the vibe of a mass communion. She didn’t reach deep into her back catalog, beyond a few earth-shaking surprises like “Long Live” or her solo-acoustic revival of “All Too Well.” Even when she goes back to the oldies, she sticks to her fanatical commitment to making them new. No pop star goes to such absurd extremes to avoid repeating herself, even when repeating herself would be more than good enough. The girl just likes a challenge, even if that means she wants to stand under a surreal inflatable snake to sing her heartfelt confessions about autumn leaves and maple lattes.

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The theme, as she did mention a time or two, was snakes. Not since Jim Morrison was alive has any rock star gone so overboard with the herpetological symbolism. As she explained, “A couple of years ago, someone called me a snake on social media and it caught on. And then a lot of people called me a lot of things on social media. And I went through some really low times for a while because of it.” But for Swift – as so often – there was a lesson to be learned in this harsh experience. “You shouldn’t care so much if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don’t know you, as long as you feel understood by people who do know you, who will show up for you, the people who see you as a human being…it’s you . You did that for me.”

She picked up her acoustic guitar for “Dancing With Our Hands Tied,” noting, “You guys have stuck with me through so many musical changes. You’ve let me play – you’ve let me evolve.” There were gasps through the crowd as she followed that with the opening chord of “All Too Well,” saying, “I thought I would play this song that you seem to request more than any others. It would be so cool if you sang as loud as you possibly could.” No encouragement was needed. She dashed over to the other side stage to do “Blank Space,” whereupon a male dancer in a hoodie brought her a sheer black dress and wrapped it around her. She asked the crowd, “Do you like my dress?,” which naturally led to “Dress.”

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During a clever snippet of “Should’ve Said No” she rode a serpent back to the main stage for the home stretch. “Call It What You Want” became a moody performance with a video backdrop of news headlines – which was probably the only time all night the word “squad” came up – while “Getaway Car” became a desert-noir set piece. The end came a little suddenly, with “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” restyled into a medley with “We Ae Never Getting Back Together.” The song didn’t necessarily feel like a resolution, musically or emotionally, and despite how well it worked as a comic romp – all Tay’s back-up singers joining in for “therein lies the issue” – it was jarring when the house lights came up afterward. No encore, just a coda on the video screen: “And in the death of her reputation, she felt truly alive.”

Swift is always an artist who feels compelled to swerve somewhere new – even in those moments where she seems like the only one in the room who wouldn’t be delighted with more of the same Old Taylor tricks. She just isn’t content to be a More of the Same artist. In a show that was packed with highlights, “All Too Well” was the moment it was impossible to beat – it’s just the kind of song that can’t be topped, and there was something sweet about the way Swift temporarily surrendered her constant urge to remake and remodel, just playing the song on acoustic guitar. As her spiritual uncle Bruce Springsteen might say, she decided for a moment to stand back and let it all be. Everybody in the stadium was wired to her voice and guitar. The only person I noticed who wasn’t singing along with “All Too Well” was a little kid who was mesmerized by the confetti in the air, still floating to the floor from “Shake It Off” a few minutes earlier. She twirled around just grabbing each piece of confetti that floated by. She was as rapt in the moment as any of us. 

“Ready For It?” “I Did Something Bad” “Gorgeous” “Style”/”Love Story”/”You Belong With Me” “Look What You Made Me Do” “End Game” “King of My Heart” “Delicate” “Shake It Off” “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” “All Too Well” “Blank Space” “Dress” “Bad Blood”/ “Should’ve Said No” “Don’t Blame Me” “Long Live”/ “New Year’s Day” “Getaway Car” “Call It What You Want” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”/”This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”

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Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ Tour Has Bad Blood, Good Will, Sex Appeal and Serpents

The opening night of the pop superstar's first stadium trek showed what fans in 36 cities have in store. Swift touches down at the Rose Bowl this weekend.

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

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“So you’re wondering why there are so many snakes onstage, right?” Taylor Swift asked the crowd on the opening night of her “Reptiles” — sorry, “Reputation” tour. It’d crossed the collective mind of the capacity crowd of 59,000 inside University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. on May 8. The golden snake microphone might have required a bit of squinting to make out, but it was a fairly in-your-face move to position three enormous inflatable snakes around the stadium, hovering over the two rear stages as well as the main one. It’s not like anybody needs  a good reason to float over a football field’s worth of fans in a snake-shaped cage, but Swift intended to explain how pop’s most celebrated cat lady had come to claim cobras as her new spirit animal.

“Someone called me a snake on social media, and it caught on,” Swift said, not even coming close to naming a name but clearly referencing the moment when Kim Kardashian, injecting herself into the feud over Kanye West’s “Naked” video, subtweeted Swift with some snake emoji, uncoiling a whole Twitter campaign meant to embarrass the singer. “I went through some really low times because of it,” she continued. “I went through some times when I didn’t know if I was gonna get to do this anymore.” Of course, if the bad-rep-embracing “Blank Space” taught us anything, it’s that Swift is wise to the modern way of taking ownership of the epithets used against you. Why call in St. Patrick for an exorcism when you can just go scaly on a massive scale?

Swift didn’t bring up any molting metaphors, but those are implicit in all the snakiness, too. The recitation about how the old Taylor is deceased and can’t take our call was present, as expected, in “Look What You Made Me Do” — delivered in concert not by Swift but Tiffany Haddish, in a crowd-pleasing video cameo. The two-hour show had plenty of fierceness to go with that, especially in the early going. But it still had plenty of moments where you would have sworn it was pre-decedent Taylor on the line… the guileless Swift we remember from two or three skins ago. There will be bad blood, and a few kraken to unleash, but at the beating heart of it all, we’re still left not so much with dragons or defensiveness but in the endearingly earnest presence of pop’s most approachable superstar.

Last fall’s “Reputation” was an album of many love-and-war juxtapositions. The backlash from the whole Kimye-gate brouhaha had a creative silver lining, in that it gave Swift some newfound rejection to write about — the public kind — right at about the point she was apparently falling in love and no longer finding fodder in romantic schisms. As a result of these seemingly contradictory experiences, “Reputation” ended up feeling like the most self-protective  and  most tenderly openhearted album she’s ever done.

This tour has those same contradictions to deal with, seeing as the set list is dominated by 14 of the 15 songs from “Reputation” (omitting only “So It Goes”), with 10 oldies — most of them also from the Max Martin/Shellback school of programming — squeezed into thematically appropriate intervals. The demands of modern choreography and ever more massive production design dictate that some of the emotional underpinnings are going to remain just that. But she uses her two hours on stage to paint a rewardingly holistic picture, even if there’s a lot of distance to travel between naive Taylor (“Love Story”), sexy Taylor (“Dress”) and karma-is-mine-sayeth-the-Taylor Taylor (“Look What You Made Me Do”).

The vast scaffolding on stage, sometimes visible behind the translucent 172-by-40-foot video screen enveloping it and sometimes not, suggested some kind of enormous underground city. Taking up residence two or three stories up was her usually unseen band, who would very occasionally send a lead guitarist down as emissary. Her dancers get to display a lot more personality, though it was a ways into the set before they warmed up from their initially militaristic, deep-maroon look and manner into warm, playful foils. They, too, receded when Swift took an airborne trip in that snaky cage to her rear stages for some more intimate material.

One of the dancers did follow her to the back of the stadium when it was time for her to do “Dress,” the latest album’s PG-13 sensual reverie. The white-robed figure ran complementary circles around her, with artificially extended arms weaving folds of white fabric through the air. For much of the show, Swift had worn a succession of feisty one-pieces, like a Wonder Woman who favored darker colors. But for the more erotic “Dress,” she added a sheer black gown to the ensemble, somehow getting sexier by adding a layer. As the interpretive dancer teased her, it was almost as if Gal Gadot had been given an abstract love scene in the middle of all that WWII super heroism.

But it’s the Alone Time With Tay on the other rear stage that most fans will treasure most. There was a two-song solo segment with just Swift and her guitar, half of which consisted of her proving that the recent album’s “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” worked as well acoustically without the Max Martin-izing. The other half will apparently be a wild-card slot. On opening night, she acceded to online demand by resurrecting the rarely played breakup ballad “All Too Well,” the song that’s like a secret handshake among True Swifties. (In two subsequent shows, she’s replaced that with “Wildest Dreams” and “The Best Day.”) During these two songs, she put ona Nudie’s-style jacket that perhaps was meant to subliminally refer back to her country days… although Porter Wagoner probably never had a coat with rhinestones formed into a coiled snake.

She also spent a few minutes alone at a piano, turning the fan anthem “Long Live” and the romantic ballad “New Year’s Day” into a contented medley of acceptance. Mash-ups also occurred during segments that were fully produced and full of more nervous energy; everyone’s celebrity-feud favorite, “Bad Blood,” morphed into her a song of teen betrayal from her debut album, “Should’ve Said No,” maybe to reinforce that life never stops being high school.

Swift occasionally played older sister to her audience. “I guess with the snakes,” she told the crowd, taking a pause at that piano, “I wanted to send a message to you guys that if someone uses name-calling to bully you, and even if a lot of people jump on board with it, that doesn’t have to defeat you. It can strengthen you instead.”

It was a nicely maternal moment. But it was also nice to see Swift prove that she’s not so much older and wiser that she won’t troll back. Midway through the set, Swift let her inner brat out to play with a “Shake It Off” that turned into a slumber party, with opening acts Camila Cabello and Charli XCX returned to the stage. That spirit returned at the very end, when the older hit “We Are Never Getting Back Together” segued into a taunting deep track of more recent vintage, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” which just happens to be a blatant eff-you to her foremost celebrity tormentor. No longer bound by either choreography or maturity, Swift and the dancers cavorted in a fountain, offering up a figurative middle finger, and the impishness of the celebration felt liberating — a capper that felt almost punk-rock in foregoing any usual show-closing stateliness. The snake inflatables had already been put to sleep for the night, but you could imagine them purring.

The “Reputation” tour reaches the third of its scheduled 36 cities with stops at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena Friday and Saturday night.

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Taylor Swift Begins Her ‘Reputation’ Tour, Taking on Foes and Her Old Self

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By Jon Caramanica

• May 9, 2018

GLENDALE, Ariz. — About halfway through Taylor Swift ’s concert at the University of Phoenix Stadium here Tuesday night, as she was performing “Shake It Off” on one of the smaller stages near the center of the field, a pair of giant inflatable snakes rose up from the floor. While she sang tart kiss-offs, they bobbed around not quite menacingly.

There were, throughout the night — the opening engagement of her “Reputation” stadium tour — quite a few snakes. During the unusually melancholic love song “King of My Heart,” they were onscreen, thickly interwoven. Early in the show, they festooned a platform at center stage. One of the conveyances she used to move through the sky from one side of the stadium to the other was snake-shaped. She sang the bubbly mean-girl anthem “Look What You Made Me Do” while clutching a snake-gripped microphone. At the merchandise stands, olive-green T-shirts with snakes on the front pocket were $50.

Since the release of “Reputation” in November , the snake has become Ms. Swift’s spirit animal, but also the symbol that’s gotten in the way of her spirit. She claimed it for herself after Kim Kardashian deployed it against her in 2016 , at the height of the tensions between Ms. Swift and Ms. Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West. Ms. Kardashian depicted Ms. Swift as duplicitous, and it stuck.

In Ms. Swift’s mind, that is. Her commitment to the bit is intense, and a little quixotic. Late in the show, she addressed the snakes in the room, telling the audience that the feud had led her to “some really low times” but that she’d emerged stronger than she’d entered.

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That was the version of herself that she performed here — resilient, ferocious, chilly. But for Ms. Swift, 28, who over the past decade-plus has been among the warmest of pop superstars, playing an ice queen, a pain princess, a steel warrior isn’t a totally natural fit.

And so this concert was in places — though not that many — a tug of war between new Taylor (nü-Taylor?) and old. If Ms. Kardashian had sought to redefine the public narrative about Ms. Swift, Ms. Swift finished the job, largely throttling her old self in favor of something a little more bulletproof.

Over more than two hours, she performed with a kind of industrial intensity and gothic overtones. Songs like “ … Ready for It?,” “Don’t Blame Me” and “End Game” were practically bruising. Her outfits were dark, shimmery and imperial. Sometimes she would break the moment with a quick smile, but mostly she stayed on task.

It made for a show that was full of drama, but not always dramatic, and by and large denuded of the things Ms. Swift excels at. She is most expressive with her face, achieving intimacy with just a few gestures. At this scale, that can be challenging. She is not a particularly comfortable dancer, but this performance kept demanding movement.

There were moments when leaning in to the acrimony of recent years proved effective. During “Look What You Made Me Do,” with its barb aimed at Mr. West about his “tilted stage” ( from his “Saint Pablo” tour ), dancers tangled with a medium-size platform that tilted from side to side. The song’s “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” aside was delivered, via video, by Tiffany Haddish.

Though the dominant mood of the presentation was confrontational and stern — even the dancers were generally dressed for war — the prevailing mood of the music was something softer (especially early in the night, when Ms. Swift strung together several dreamy-eyed songs in a row: “Gorgeous,” “Style,” “Love Story,” “You Belong With Me”).

This is a similar tension as the one at work on “Reputation” — a great album, but maybe not a great Taylor Swift album. It marks her full embrace of contemporary pop aesthetics following her slow, deliberate march from teenage country stardom. It has been certified triple platinum, but it is her least commercially successful album, and the one with the fewest indelible hits. Ms. Swift’s charms are micro, and they’re sometimes obscured by the album’s macro aesthetic rewiring.

“Reputation” is about lashing out against your antagonists, sure, but also about seeking, and perhaps finding, love in the midst of severe self-doubt. In the moments here where she gave in to that feeling — like “New Year’s Day,” which she sang from behind a piano, and “Delicate,” which she delivered alone onstage, while the beat thumped out into the ether, heartbeat-like — she shined. And when she revisited the wistful “All Too Well,” from the 2012 album “Red,” she was spirited but calm. (“Long Live,” from the 2010 album “Speak Now,” was far less successful.)

So it was confusing that Ms. Swift chose a third path to conclude the show: petulance. First came “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” an exuberant hit from “Red” that shows her at her best, wagging her finger while taking the emotional high road. But that song collided with “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” one of the cheekier songs on “Reputation,” in which the finger-wagging (aimed at Mr. West) comes with the ostensible moral high road (though it feels slightly hollow given Mr. West’s challenging last couple of weeks ). At one point, everyone onstage was giggling conspiratorially. Some of the dancers — and Ms. Swift as well — were wet from the onstage fountain. It was mean, merry and loose. After a heavily armored performance, maybe it indicated that she was finally ready to shed that pesky thick skin.

Taylor Swift Her “Reputation” tour continues at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Friday and Saturday; ticketmaster.com.

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Taylor Swift Announces More Dates For 'Reputation' Stadium Tour

The GRAMMY-winner pumps up her North American tour with seven additional dates across the U.S.

With an already massive tour planned in support of her sixth album, Reputation , Taylor Swift has given her fans even more opportunities to catch her live in 2018 by adding seven U.S. dates to her Reputation stadium tour.

The announcement comes the same week Reputation reclaimed the top spot on the Billboard 200, after being temporarily dethroned by Eminem 's Revival . Swift's Reputation tour was already on track to be one of the most talked-about tours of the year.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">New dates for Taylor Swift’s reputation Stadium Tour have just been announced! Tickets go on sale January 31st at 10a local time. Get more information at <a href="https://t.co/nl2zos8L1x">https://t.co/nl2zos8L1x</a>. <a href="https://t.co/XI9yBKTi6Q">pic.twitter.com/XI9yBKTi6Q</a></p>&mdash; Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylornation13/status/948556164324872192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 3, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The newly announced dates will expand the tour to add an additional show in each of these seven cities: Santa Clara, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Rutherford, N. J.; Foxborough, Mass.; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Arlington, Texas.

Advance ticket sales for the added dates will begin for fans registered for the Taylor Swift Presale via Ticketmaster Verified Fan starting on Jan. 5 and continuing through Jan.18. Tickets for the general public will go on-sale Jan. 31.

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Photos (L-R): Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management, Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Clear Channel

Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift's Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon

Before the arrival of Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department,' take a deep dive into her discography and see how each album helped her become the genre-shifting superstar she is today.

The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Since then, she's released 10 (and soon to be 11) studio albums, re-recorded four as "Taylor's Version," and cultivated one of the most feverish fan bases in music. Oh, and she's also won 14 GRAMMY Awards, including four for Album Of The Year — the most ever won by an artist.

Swift has become one of music's most notable shapeshifters by refusing to limit herself to one genre, moving between country, pop, folk and beyond. A once-in-a-lifetime generational storyteller, one could argue that she is music's modern-day maverick, constantly evolving both her music and the culture around her.

Every album era has seen Swift reinvent herself over and over, which has helped pave the way for artists to explore other musical avenues. In turn, Swift hasn't just become one of the biggest artists of all time — she's changed pop music altogether.

Ahead of Taylor Swift's newest era with The Tortured Poets Department , GRAMMY.com looks back on all of her albums (Taylor's Versions not included) and how each era shaped her remarkable career.

Taylor Swift : Finding Her Place In Music

In a genre dominated by men, the odds were already stacked against Swift when she first broke into country music as a teenage female artist. The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. She didn't want to be just "another girl singer" and knew writing her own songs would be what set her apart. 

Written throughout her adolescence, Taylor Swift was recorded at the end of 2005 and finalized by the time Swift finished her freshman year of high school. Serving as a snapshot of Swift's life and teenhood, she avoided songwriting stereotypes typically found in country music. Instead, she wanted to capture the years of her life while they still represented what she was going through, writing about what she was observing and experiencing, from love and friendship to feeling like an outsider. 

As a songwriter, Taylor Swift set the tone for what would be expected of her future recordings — all songs were written by her, some solely and others with one or two co-writers. One writer in particular, Liz Rose , applauded Swift's songwriting capabilities, stating that she was more of an "editor" for the songs because Swift already had such a distinct vision. 

The album's lead single, "Tim McGraw," an acoustic country ballad inspired by Swift knowing her relationship was going to end, represents an intricate part of Swift's songwriting process; meticulously picking apart her emotions to better understand them. With its follow-up, "Our Song" — which spent six consecutive weeks on the top of Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart — she became the youngest person to solely write and sing a No. 1 country single; she also became the first female solo artist in country music to write or co-write every song on an album. 

Although Swift's eponymous debut is underappreciated now — even lacking its own set on Swift's Eras Tour — Taylor Swift 's forthcoming rerecording is arguably the most anticipated by fans, who are eager to hear the songs with the singer's current and more refined vocals. Still, for fans who haven't properly explored Taylor Swift , it's easy to tie together Swift's earlier work to her current discography. 

On the track "A Place In This World," a song she wrote when she was just 13, Swift sings about not fitting in and trying to find her path. While her songwriting has developed and matured, feeling like an outsider and carving her own path is a theme she still writes about now, as seen on Midnights ' "You're On Your Own, Kid." 

Even as a new country artist, critics claimed that she "mastered" the genre while subsequently ushering it to a new era — one that would soon see Swift dabble in country-pop. 

Fearless : Creating A Different Kind Of Fairytale

If Taylor Swift was the soundtrack to navigating the early stages of teenhood, Fearless is Swift's coming-of-age record. More than its predecessor, Fearless blurs the line between country and pop thanks to crossover hits like "Love Story" and "You Belong With Me," yet still keeps the confessional attributes known in country songwriting. 

Most of Fearless is Swift coming to terms with what she believed love to be. On the album's liner notes, Swift says Fearless is about "living in spite" of the things that scare you, like falling in love again despite being hurt before or walking away and letting go. The 2008 version of Taylor wanted to "believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after," whereas in Swift's Fearless (Taylor's Version) liner notes, she looks back on the album as a diary where she was learning "tiny lessons" every time there was a "new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she'd been shown in the movies." 

Much of Fearless also sees Swift being reflective and nostalgic about adolescence, like in "Never Grow Up" and "Fifteen." Still wistful and romantic, the album explores Swift's hopes for love, as heard in the album's lead single "Love Story," which was one instance where she was "dramatizing" observations instead of actually experiencing them herself. 

Unlike the slow-burn of Taylor Swift , Fearless went straight to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for eight consecutive weeks. It won Swift's first Album Of The Year GRAMMY in 2010, at the time making her the youngest person to win the accolade at age 20. To date, it has sold 7.2 million copies in America alone. It might not be the romantic tale Swift dreamed of growing up, but her sophomore album signalled that bigger things were to come.

Speak Now : Proving Her Songwriting Prowess

Everything that happened after the success of Fearless pushed Swift from country music's best-kept secret to a mainstream star. But this meant that she faced more publicity and criticism, from naysayers who nitpicked her songwriting and vocals to the infamous Kanye West incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

For the first time since becoming an artist, she was forced to reckon with the concept of celebrity and how turning into one — whether she wanted it or not — informed her own writing and perception of herself. No longer was she the girl writing songs like "Fifteen" in her bedroom — now she was working through becoming a highly publicized figure. Speak Now is the answer to those growing pains. 

Along with having more eyes on her, Swift also felt pressured to maintain her persona as a perfect young female role model amid a time when her peers like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato were attempting to rebrand to be more mature and sexier. During her NYU commencement speech in 2022, she reflected on this era of her life as one of intense fear that she could make a mistake and face lasting consequences, so the songs were masked in metaphors rather than directly addressing adult themes in her music. But that also resulted in some of her most poignant lyrics to date.

Read More: For The Record: How Taylor Swift's 'Speak Now' Changed Her Career — And Proved She'll Always Get The Last Word

Writing the entire album herself, Swift used Speak Now to prove her songwriting prowess to those who questioned her capabilities. Much like her previous two albums, Swift included songs that were both inspired by her own life and being a fly on the wall. The album's title track pulled from the saying, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," inspired by a friend's ex-boyfriend getting engaged; meanwhile, "Mean" was everything Swift wanted to say to a critic who was continuously harsh about her vocals.

Retrospective and reflective, Speak Now is an album about the speeches she could've, would've and should've said. From addressing the aforementioned VMA incident in the forgiving "Innocent" to a toxic relationship in "Dear John," Speak Now also hinted that her rose-colored glasses were cracked, but Swift (and her songwriting) was only becoming stronger because of it.

Red : Coming Into Her Own

Highly regarded as Swift's magnum opus, Red sees the singer shed the fairytale dresses and the girl-next-door persona to craft a body of work that has now been deemed as her first "adult" record. On Red, Swift focused on emotions evoked from a hot-and-cold relationship, one that forced her to experience " intense love, intense frustration, jealousy and confusion " — all feelings that she'd describe as "red." 

Unlike most of her previous writing that had been inspired by happy endings and fairytales, Red explores the lingering pain and loss that can embed itself within despite trying your hardest to let go. In her liner notes, she references Pablo Neruda's poem "Tonight I Can Write," stating that "Love is so short, forgetting is so long" is the overarching theme for the album. She plays with time — speeding it up in "Starlight," dabbling in the past in "All Too Well," and reframing it in "State of Grace" — to better understand her experiences. 

After releasing country-pop records, Red toed the line between genres more than ever before. Swift leaned further into the full pop territory by working with esteemed producers Max Martin and Shellback for the dubstep-leaning track "I Knew You Were Trouble," the punchy lead single "We Are Never Getting Back Together," and the bouncy anthem "22." But even when the pop power players weren't involved, her country stylings still leaned more pop across the album, as further evidenced with the racing deep cut "Holy Ground" and the echoing title track. 

The slight change of direction became polarizing for critics and fans alike. Following the more country-influenced Speak Now , some critics and fans found the pop songs on Red were too pop and the lyrics were too repetitive, possibly indicating that she might be selling out. If that wasn't enough, Red became an era where Swift's personal life went from speculation to tabloid fodder, with misogynistic headlines and diluting her work to just "writing about her exes." It's an era that would eventually inspire many tracks on Red 's successor, 1989 , like "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off."

Commercially, Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling country album and making Swift the first female artist to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at the top of the chart. The impact of Red extended beyond its own success, too. Often mentioned as a record that inspired a generation of artists from Troye Sivan to Conan Gray , Swift's confessional, soul-bearing authenticity set a new standard for straightforward pop music. 

1989 : Reinventing Into A Pop Genius

The night Red lost the GRAMMY for Album Of The Year in 2014, Swift decided that her next album would be a full-on pop record. After years of identifying as a country artist and flirting with pop, Swift departed her roots to reinvent herself, no matter what her then-label or critics had to say. And in true Swiftian fashion, turning into a pop artist didn't just prove her genre-shapeshifting capabilities — it further solidified her as an artist who is at her best when she freely creates to her desires and refuses to adhere to anyone.

1989 was lauded by critics for its infectious synth-pop that was reminiscent of the 1980s, yet still had a contemporary sound. Swift opted to lean more into radio-friendly hits, which resulted in songs like "Style," "Wildest Dreams," "Blank Space," and "Shake It Off," all of which became singles. And where some might trade a hit or two at the expense of their artistic integrity, Swift didn't falter — instead, her lyrics were just as heartfelt and intimate as they were on prior albums.

After exploring pop-leaning sonics she first found with Red , Swift worked with Martin and Shellback again on most of 1989 . This reinvention brought new (and very important) collaborators as well. Swift's now-frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff credits her as the first person to take a chance on him as a producer with "I Wish You Would" and "Out Of The Woods"; both tracks exemplified how future Antonoff-produced songs would sound on albums like reputation, Lover and Midnights .

At the time, 1989 became Swift's best-selling album to date. It sold nearly 1.3 million copies within release week in the U.S., debuting atop the Billboard 200 and reigning for 11 non-consecutive weeks. The album also earned Swift several awards — including her second Album Of The Year GRAMMY, which made her the first female artist to ever win the award twice. 

Following the release of 1989 , Swift became a cultural juggernaut, and the album has had an omnipresence in music since. Swift didn't just normalize blending genres, but proved that you can create a sound that is uniquely yours by doing so. In turn, Billie Eilish , Dua Lipa and more pop stars have refused to conform or stick to what they've done prior. 

reputation : Killing The Old Taylor

For years, Swift was on a strict two-year cycle — she'd release an album one year, tour the next, and then release a new album the following year. But following the heightened scrutiny and highly publicized tabloid drama that followed the end of the 1989 era, Swift completely disappeared for a year. She stayed away from public appearances, didn't do any press, and missed the album schedule fans became accustomed to. It wasn't until summer 2017 when she returned from her media (and social media) blackout to unveil the fitting title for her new album: reputation .

Born as a response to the naysayers and name-callers, reputation follows Swift shedding her public image — which includes the pressure to be perfect, the drama, and the criticism — by declaring, "There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation." Leaning on the same tongue-in-cheek songwriting techniques she used while penning "Blank Space," Swift wrote from the mindset of how the public perceived her.

When Swift released the lead single "Look What You Made Me Do," a song she initially wrote as a poem about not trusting specific people, many assumed the album would center on vengeance and drama. Although Swift said that the album has its vindictive moments — even declaring that the "old Taylor" is dead on the bridge of "Look What You Made Me Do" — it's a vulnerable record for her. Swift described reputation as a bait-and-switch; at their core, the songs are about finding love in the darkest moments. 

Swift still remained in the pop lane with reputation , largely leaning on Antonoff and the Martin/Shellback team. The sound almost mirrored the scrutiny Swift faced in the years prior — booming electropop beats, maximalist production and pulsing synthesizers dominate, particularly on "End Game," "I Did Something Bad," and "Ready For It…?" But the "old Taylor" isn't entirely gone on songs like "Call It What You Want," "So It Goes…" and "New Year's Day," where she lets her guard down to write earnest love odes.

Even after Swift spent some time away from the spotlight, the public didn't immediately gravitate toward her return. And even despite matching the 1.2 million first-week sales of her previous releases, some concluded that the album was her first commercial failure when compared to 1989 . With time, though, it became clear that the response to reputation became muddled with the public's overall perception of her at the time — some even claimed that Swift was ahead of her time with the album's overall sound.

For her 2023 TIME Person of the Year profile , Swift described reputation as a "goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure." For years, she felt the pressure to be "America's Sweetheart" and to never step out of line. Writing reputation became a lifeline following the events that catalyzed it  — a way to shed the so-called snakeskin and make peace with however the public wanted to view her. 

Lover : Stepping Into The Daylight

After finding love amongst chaos with reput ation, Swift was learning to deal with the anxiety and fear of losing her partner — became a major theme of another aptly titled album, Lover . Both sonically and visually, Lover was a complete change from reputation . After touring reputation , Swift found that her fans saw her as "a flesh-and-blood human being," inspiring her to be "brave enough to be vulnerable" because her fans were along with her. Stepping away from the dark and antagonistic themes around reputation encouraged Swift to step into the light and be playful with her work on Lover .

Swift also found a new sense of creativity within this new mindset, one where she aimed to still embed playful themes in her songwriting but with less snark than that of "Blank Space" and "Look What You Made Me Do." Leaning into Lover being a "love letter to love," Swift explored every aspect of it. Tracks like "Paper Rings" and "London Boy" exude a whimsical energy, even if they center on more serious themes like marriage and commitment. Other songs, including "Death By A Thousand Cuts" and "Cornelia Street," are Swift at her most vulnerable, reflecting on a love lost and grappling with the extreme worry that comes when you could potentially lose someone. 

Looking at Lover retrospectively, it's an album that almost symbolizes a bookend in her discography. She was playful yet poignant, picking apart her past lyrics and feelings and looking at them with the perspective of someone who was once on top of the world, hit rock bottom, and survived in spite of it. This evolution is mentioned throughout Lover, particularly in a direct callback to 2012's Red , "Daylight," which sees her describe her love as "golden" rather than "burning red." 

Lover also marked the first time Swift divulged into politics and societal issues, like campaigning against Donald Trump, releasing the Pride-infused "You Need To Calm Down," and feeling disillusioned by the political climate with "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince." Swift's documentary Miss Americana explores this change further, discussing how she regrets not being vocal about politics and issues prior, in addition to opening up about her body image issues and mental health struggles.

Lover became Swift's sixth No. 1 album in America, making her the first female artist to achieve the feat. But Lover was more than any accolades could reflect — it was Swift's transitional album in many ways, notably marking the first album that she owned entirely herself following leaving Big Machine Records for Republic Records in 2018.

folklore : Looking Beyond Her Personal Stories

After the pandemic started and Swift cancelled her Lover Fest, she spent the early stages of quarantine reading and watching a myriad of films. Without exactly setting out to create an album, she began dreaming of fictional stories and characters with various narrative arcs, allowing her imagination to run free. The result became folklore , 2020's surprise archetypal quarantine album.

Crafting a world with characters like the folklore love triangle between those in "betty" and "august," as well as Rebekah Harkness from "the last great american dynasty" (who once lived in Swift's Rhode Island mansion), was Swift's way of venturing outside her typical autobiographical style of writing. She'd see visceral images in her mind — from battleships to tree swings to mirrored disco balls — and turned them into stories, sometimes weaving in her own personal narrative throughout, or taking on a narrator role and speaking from the perspective of someone she had never met. 

She worked remotely with two producers — again working with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, and first-time collaborator Aaron Dessner from The National . Some songs, like "peace," were recorded in just one take, capturing the essence and fragility in the song's story, whereas the lyrics for the sun-drenched "august" were penned on the spot as Swift was in her makeshift home studio in Los Angeles.

Another aspect that separated folklore from her previous work was the obvious decision not to create hits made for radio play, so much so that Dessner claimed that she made an anti-pop record at a time when radio wanted clear "bops." Sonically, it ventured into genres Swift hadn't explored much outside of a few folkier tracks on Lover . Rather than relying on mostly electronic elements, Swift, Antonoff and Dessner weaved in soft pianos, ethereal strings, and plucky guitars.

folklore 's impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people's quarantine experience. Fans rejoiced at having songs to comfort them during difficult times, and artists like Maya Hawke , Gracie Abrams , and Sabrina Carpenter credit folklore for inspiring them to create and be even more emotionally honest in their songwriting. After its release, folklore became the best-selling album of 2020 after selling 1.2 million records. At the 2021 GRAMMYs, folklore took home Album Of The Year , making her the fourth artist in history to win three times in the Category. 

evermore : Embracing Experimentation

It was exciting enough for Swifties to experience one surprise album drop from Swift, an artist who typically has an entire album campaign calculated. So when evermore was released just six months after folklore , fans were in shock. 

Like its (literally) folklorian sister, evermore was a surprise release at the end of 2020, marking the first time Swift didn't have distinct "eras" between albums. She felt like there was something "different" with folklore , stating in a social media post that making it was less like she was "departing" and more like she was "returning" to the next stage of her discography. In turn, the album served as a similar escape for Swift as folklore did.

Bridging together the same wistful and nostalgic themes as heard on its predecessor, evermore sees Swift venture even further into escapism. She explores more stories and characters, some based in fiction like "dorothea," and some real, like "marjorie," written in dedication to Swift's grandmother. 

Evermore follows folklore 's inclusion of natural imagery and motifs, like landscapes, skies, ivy, and celestial elements. In contrast to the fairytale motifs and happy endings of Fearless , evermore saw Swift become fixated on "unhappy" endings — stories of failed marriages ("happiness"), lifeless relationships ("tolerate it"), and one-time flings ("'tis the damn season"). 

Sonically, evermore is a slight departure from its sister record; where folklore relies on more alt-leaning and indie-tinged sounds, evermore takes the sonics from all of Swift's past records — from pop to country to indie rock — and features all of them on one album. Country songs like "cowboy like me" and "no body, no crime" reaches back to Swift's earlier work in narrative building, seamlessly crafting a three-party story with ease. "Closure" is a "skittering" track that has the same energy as tracks like Lover 's "I Forgot That You Existed," whereas the ballad "champagne problems" is thematically reminiscent of Swift's Speak Now track "Back To December" where she takes responsibility for her lover's heartache. 

Working mostly with Dessner on evermore , Swift was emboldened to continue creating and opted to embrace whatever came naturally to them rather than limiting themselves to a sound. Swift felt a "quiet conclusion" after finishing up evermore , describing that it was more about grappling with endings of all "sizes and shapes," and the record represented a chapter closing. Even so, its poetic lyricism and mystical storytelling cleverly foreshadowed what was to come with subsequent albums, particularly The Tortured Poets Department .

Midnights : Encapsulating Her Artistic Magic

After coming out of the folklorian woods following folklore and evermore , fans and critics alike were intrigued to see what direction Swift would take on her next studio album. On Midnights , Swift leaves behind indie folk sounds and returns to the pop production of 1989 and Lover .

Her most conceptual album to date, Midnights charts 13 sleepless nights and explores five themes, from self-hatred and revenge to "what if" fantasies, falling in love, and falling apart. They are the things that keep her up at night, like the self-critiquing in "Anti-Hero," her rise to fame in "You're on Your Own, Kid," and the anxiety of falling in love again in "Labyrinth." Similarly to Swift's cheeky songwriting style that sees her create caricatures of herself in songs like "Blank Space" and "Look What You Made Me Do," she doubles down on claims she's "calculated" on "Mastermind," a song about devising a plan for her and her lover. 

Although the album is a departure from the two pandemic sister albums, the overall creation process didn't differ too much. In addition to working alongside Antonoff (and bringing Dessner in for the bonus-track-filled 3am Edition), Swift's worldbuilding is still the throughline that connects Midnights and Swift's recent albums, whether she's dreaming of a Parisian escape in "Paris" or using war imagery as a metaphor for the struggle of love in "The Great War."

Read More: 5 Takeaways From Taylor Swift's New Album 'Midnights'

Following the success with folklore and evermore , Swift's intrigue was at a then-all-time high upon the release of Midnights . Along with breaking several streaming records — including becoming the first album to exceed 700 million global streams in a week — it was Swift's 11th No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, and was the highest-selling album of 2022 (and, remarkably, the second best-selling of 2023).

To say that Swift's celebrity has become otherworldly since the release of Midnights would be an understatement. Celebrating her genre-defying and varied discography through The Eras Tour has resulted in old songs having a resurgence, new inside jokes and Easter eggs within the fandom, and a plethora of new listeners being exposed to Swift's work. 

As a result, there has arguably never been more excitement for a Taylor Swift album than for The Tortured Poets Department — especially because the announcement came on the heels of her lucky 13th GRAMMY win in February. Midnights helped further solidify Swift's larger-than-life status at the finale of the 2024 GRAMMYs, too, as she became the only artist in history to win Album Of The Year four times. 

The Tortured Poets Department : Check back on April 19!

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Photo: John Shearer/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Taylor Swift, The 'Tortured Poet': 6 Times She's Used Poetry In Her Work

As Taylor Swift prepares for her next era with 'The Tortured Poets Department,' take a look at some of the ways the pop superstar has displayed her love for poetry in her songwriting, tours and more.

With an ability to write songs that are as timeless as they are universal, Taylor Swift has often been described as the most impressive songwriter of her generation. The pop star's authentic lyrics and knack for storytelling has had fans invested from the start of her career, picking apart each line to better understand them. What is largely overlooked, though, are the poetic tools Swift channels to better understand herself.

From turning short stanzas into songs to categorizing tracks as "quill" or "fountain pen," Swift deftly incorporates her love of poetry and writing into her work. And now, she's conceptualizing an entire album around it.

Swift's aptly titled eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department , sees the singer/songwriter as the Chairman of the Department who, upon announcing the album, declared "All's fair in love and poetry." Following the release of Midnights , she began working on the record and has since said it was a "lifeline" album — and that she never had a project where she needed songwriting more.

Before The Tortured Poets Department arrives on April 19 , GRAMMY.com explores how Swift has incorporated poetry into her career and used it to level her songwriting.

Honoring Poets In Her Work

Much like how her fans find comfort in her work, Swift uses poetry as a main source of comfort and inspiration. Swift begins her album prologue for 2012's Red by quoting the poem "Tonight I Write the Saddest Lines" by Neruda, one she's said has always captivated her. 

The line reads, "Love is so short, forgetting is so long." It sets the theme for the entire Red album, with Swift stating that she relates to the line in her "saddest moments" when she "needed to know someone else had felt the exact same way." It clearly made an impression on her: during the release of Red (Taylor's Version) almost a decade later, she'd quote the line again at the beginning of "All Too Well: The Short Film."

When speaking with NPR about the poem, Swift said that her favorite writers — whether they be poets or authors — have "musical hooks" in their work and have the ability to write about things in a universal, relatable and simple way. "The Lakes," a deluxe track featured on folklore , directly references The Lake Poets, who called the idyllic Lake District in England home. Specifically, the track gives a nod to Romantic poet William Wordsworth: "Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die/ I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you [...]/ I've come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze/ Tell me what are my words worth." 

Compartmentalizing Her Songwriting

During her acceptance speech for NSAI's Songwriter-Artist of the Decade Award in 2022, Swift mentioned the "dorky" way she compartmentalizes songwriting into three categories: "quill," "fountain pen" and "glitter gel." Fun, upbeat songs that don't take themselves too seriously fall under the "glitter gel" category; "fountain pen" lyrics reference modern storylines with a "poetic twist." 

"Quill" lyrics, however, are the ones that weave Swift's poeticism directly into her songs. During the speech, she describes writing them using antiquated words, almost as if she was "inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets." Particularly, she notes evermore 's "ivy" as a "quill" track, reciting the lyrics, "How's one to know/ I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones/ In a faith forgotten land."

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Using Poems To Communicate During A Media Blackout

Following the hysteria post- 1989 that catalyzed 2017's reputation , Swift leaned into the album's ethos — "There will be no further explanation, there will just be reputation" — Swift avoided most, if not all, interviews during the press campaign. Instead, she opted to use poetry as a form of communication. 

In place of an interview, she submitted a poem to British Vogue to accompany her cover shoot. The poem "The Trick to Holding On" was seemingly written at the tail end of that aforementioned media scrutiny, seeing Swift exploring themes around healing and acceptance, writing, "Let go of the ones who hurt you/ Let go of the ones you outgrow" and "Suddenly you'll know/ The trick to holding on/ Was all that letting go."

As part of the album launch, Swift released accompanying magazines with two different poems titled "If You're Anything Like Me" and "Why She Disappeared," both written by her. In "If You're Anything Like Me," Swift picks apart her own flaws and failings while touching on the aftermath of the scrutiny she experienced ("Each new enemy turns to steel/ They become the bars that confine you/ In your own little golden prison cell"). It ends with Swift recognizing her growth and finding peace: "If you're anything like me, I'm sorry/ But Darling, it's going to be okay."

Reciting Poetry On Tour

On her two most recent tours, Swift has integrated poetry into parts of her sets. Before Swift performed "Getaway Car" during the reputation stadium tour, she recited her poem "Why She Disappeared." Much like "If You're Anything Like Me," the poem explores her tarnished reputation and uses illeism to show the distance she feels from those events. In the poem, she says, "Without your past/ You could never have arrived so wondrously and brutally/ By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance/...here," distinguishing her past self from her present self.

As Swift took a journey through her discography on her Eras Tour, she began the folklore set — the one that fans might describe as her most poetic — with a spoken word version of her song "seven." Alluding to her past and current eras, Swift begins the poem with the line, "If you wish to romanticize the woman I became" followed by interpolating a lyric from 1989 's "Wildest Dreams," saying, "Then say you'll remember me/ Standing in a nice dress/ Staring at the sunset." She asks audiences to "begin at the beginning" by picturing her in the trees and continues to recite the first verse and chorus.

Referencing Literature

When Vogue asked Swift what subject she would teach if she was a teacher, it wasn't a surprise that she said English. Her love of literature — both modern and classic — is apparent in her lyrics. Sometimes she compares herself to literary characters, like Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby in the song "happiness," in which she sings, "I hope she'll be a beautiful fool," a direct quote from the novel. Instead of using it in its original context, which was meant to be a blessing, Swift makes it more devastating. 

Other times, she uses specific motifs as a way to express her frustrations, like using Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and its themes of "adultery" and sin in Fearless ' "Love Story" ("You were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter") and in 1989 "New Romantics" ("Show off our different scarlet letters").

The concept of fate that Swift explores in "invisible string" was mentioned by English author Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre . The novel's "I have a strange feeling with regard to you: as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you" line is mirrored by Swift's lyrics, "All along there was some/ Invisible string/ Tying you to me."

In a conversation with Paul McCartney for Rolling Stone , Swift said that she read "much more" than she ever did during folklore. Specifically mentioning Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, a story of an unnamed woman who marries a man who she believes is still in love with his wife. Swift found inspiration in the novel's use of flowery and "prettier" words and turned them into song names and lyrics, like "epiphany" and "elegies." Her evermore track "no body, no crime" even alludes to the same death the fictional character faces in Rebecca and "tolerate it" explores the story of a neglected wife and a loveless husband.

Since Swift loves using songwriting and storytelling as a form of escape, it makes sense that she'd also use whimsical children's fairy tales as inspiration. Alice in Wonderland might be the most obvious reference she's used for 1989 's "Wonderland," using allusions to falling down a rabbit hole and Cheshire cat grins as a way to explain the frantic and fragile relationship she was experiencing. In "cardigan," Swift puts herself in the shoes of Wendy in Peter Pan to explain her frustrations with the immature and gallless Peter ("I knew you/ Tried to change the ending/ Peter losing Wendy").

Incorporating Poetry Into Songs

Many of Swift's songs began as poems. In conversation with Scholastic in 2014, Swift spoke with students about the books she loved growing up, discussing how journaling helped simplify her feelings which would eventually lead her to discovering her love of poetry. She mentions that "This Love" from 1989 was initially a quick and spontaneous poem she wrote in her journal which read "This love is good/ This love is bad/ This love is alive back from the dead/ These hands had to let it go free and/ This love came back to me." Shortly after, a melody came to mind and she developed the poem into a song.

On Lover , fans found that the penultimate track "It's Nice To Have A Friend" reminded them of a poem. Speaking to Billboard upon the album's release, Swift said the song is more of a poem filled with metaphors with double meanings. "It's Nice To Have A Friend" follows a typical poetic beat — specifically an iambic trimeter — where Swift emphasizes certain syllables to create six syllables per line. 

On her 2022 album, Midnights , Swift directly mentions writing poetry on the love song "Sweet Nothing," penning the lyric, "On the way home/ I wrote a poem/ You say, 'What a mind'/ This happens all the time." Although the themes of pressure and media scrutiny of the reputation poems still appear in her later work, this poetic-sounding track speaks more to a simple gratitude than anything else. 

In late 2023, Swift liked a tweet connecting the lyric to a quote from Paul McCartney about his late wife Linda McCartney, which reads, "I would come back from a run with a poem to share and having listened, Linda would say 'what a mind.'" Whether it's about Paul and Linda or Swift's personal life, poetry helps uncover new ways to inspire her.

As the next chapter in Swift's musical universe begins with the arrival of The Tortured Poet Department , it's clear her love for storytelling is ever-evolving — just like her love for poetry.

Photo: Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Get Ready For Taylor Swift's ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Album Release: Everything You Need To Know

As we count down to Taylor Swift's 11th studio album release on April 19, feast on all the morsels GRAMMY.com has gathered about the Queen of Pop's upcoming "tortured poet" era.

The dawn of Taylor Swift 's "tortured poet" era is upon us. The reigning Queen of Pop is set to release her highly anticipated 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department , on Friday, April 19. 

Ever since she announced the new album during the 2024 GRAMMYs — while accepting her lucky 13th GRAMMY Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights —- Swifties have been meticulously analyzing every detail of her existence for clues about the release of The Tortured Poets Department .

Fortunately, Swift has been serving a lot of information to snack on. After revealing the cover art in an Instagram post before accepting her record breaking fourth win for Album Of The Year , she didn't stop the feast. From the full track list to a five-stage breakup playlist — and, of course, all the bonus tracks and special editions — here's all the breadcrumbs GRAMMY.com collected in preparation for The Tortured Poets Department . 

All The Art Is Black And White

The cover art for The Tortured Poets Department displays a black-and-white inset photo of Swift in repose on a stack of white pillows, with the album's title in uppercase white letters above her. The photography accompanying the album, including back covers and special editions, captures Swift in reflective solitude: standing before a body of water wearing an oversized white button-up, and in a pensive self-embrace against a stark black backdrop.

The photography for the album was shot by Swift's photographer since 2020, Beth Garrabrant, who also shot the covers of Swift's folklore , evermore , Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), Midnights, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) , 1989 (Taylor's Version) . She's known for using a medium-format film photography that evokes an emotional closeness to her subjects — especially fitting for an album titled The Tortured Poets Department .

The Album Features Two Notable Collaborations

On GRAMMY night, alongside the album announcement, Swift posted the complete track list on her Instagram. The post included a photo of the album's back cover, showing a close-up of Swift with her hand on her forehead, overlaid with the text "I love you, it's ruining my life" in all-caps. 

The 16-track release has been split into four sides and also features collaborations with Post Malone on Side A opener "Fortnight" as well as Florence + The Machine on Side B's "Florida!!!" 

Check out the full track list:

** Side A ** “Fortnight” (feat. Post Malone) “The Tortured Poets Department” “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” “Down Bad”

** Side B ** “So Long, London” “But Daddy I Love Him” “Fresh Out the Slammer” “Florida!!!” (feat. Florence + the Machine)

** Side C ** “Guilty As Sin?” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” “loml”

** Side D ** “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” “The Alchemy” “Clara Bow”

Bonus Tracks:

“The Manuscript”

“The Black Dog”

"The Albatross"

The Album Title Hints At Another Ex 

Mere moments after Swift dropped The Tortured Poets Department album name, the internet was ablaze with viral speculation that the title is derived from a play on ex Joe Alwyn's group chat, "The Tortured Man Club" with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. 

Alwyn and Mescal revealed their "club name" during an interview with Variety in December 2022 and it didn't take long for fans to connect the dots. Upon unearthing the tie-in, Swifties rushed to share memes and comment on the original interview across various social channels.

There Are Three Bonus Tracks (So Far)

Swift has revealed at least three bonus tracks for different editions of the album, each marked with its own "file name." The initial track list release, referred to as "The Manuscript," includes a bonus track sharing this name.  

On Feb. 23, Swift posted a slideshow on Instagram to promote a special edition named "The Albatross." It featured the bonus tracks and revealed the back cover, which presented a track list alongside a contemplative close-up of Swift overlaid with the question, " Am I allowed to cry?" 

Then, on March 3, she introduced the bonus track “The Black Dog” through a similar post that showcased new cover art, with the album's reverse side portraying Swift and the haunting text, "Old habits die screaming." 

Lyrics Have Already Been Shared

Unlike her previous album campaigns, Swift hasn't unveiled any music ahead of The Tortured Poets Department ’s release — but she has dropped plenty of hints at the subject matter to come. Handwritten lyrics first appeared in the album announcement post, in a stack of papers inside a folder tabbed with a monogram of the album's name.

"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," is written above the sign-off, "All's fair in love and poetry… Sincerely, The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department."

Then, in an Instagram story posted on April 8 — the date of the total solar eclipse — Swift shared an image of a typewriter loaded with a sheet of paper stamped with the words, "Crowd goes wild at her fingertips/ Half moonshine, Full eclipse." 

Swift Created Five Playlists To Mirror The Stages Of A Breakup

Gearing up for the release, Swift dropped a 5-part playlist series on Apple Music on April 5 featuring previously released work arranged in playlists that reflect the five stages of grief. The playlist for "Denial: I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life Songs," features hits including Midnight 's "Lavender Haze," and Lover 's "Cruel Summer" and "False God." 

The other playlists run through the emotional gamut with titles like "Anger: You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs," the midpoint "Bargaining: Am I Allowed to Cry? Songs," "Depression: Old Habits Die Screaming Songs," and finally "Acceptance: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart Songs." Each one takes listeners on a Taylor Swift escapade through love won and lost, representing what many believe to be a musical voyage through Swift's stages of grief following the end of her relationship with ex Joe Alwyn. 

Each playlist also includes a description from Swift. For "Denial," it says, "This is a list of songs about getting so caught up in the idea of something that you have a hard time seeing the red flags, possibly resulting in moments of denial and maybe a little bit of delusion. Results may vary.”

As April 19 nears closer, take a deep dive into everything Swift has unleashed so far — and get ready for a lot more divulging once The Tortured Poets Department arrives.

Photos: Taylor Hill/Getty Images; Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Joseph Okpako/WireImage; Chloe Morales-Pazant; Mike Coppola/WireImage; Sasha-Samsonova; Prince Williams/WireImage; Peter White/Getty Images

15 Must-Hear Albums In April 2024: Taylor Swift, Vampire Weekend, St. Vincent & More

April promises to shower listeners with heavy-hitting hip-hop, pop, country and rock releases. From Metro Boomin and Future's upcoming collab, to TOMORROW x TOGETHER's new minisode, get your April 2024 playlist ready with 15 exciting new releases.

This year, April brings more than just showers to beget May flowers. Instead, there must be something in the stars: In the fourth month of 2024, four artists are releasing their fourth studio albums. These are pop-rock band X Ambassadors’ Townie , R&B singer Bryson Tiller ’s Bryson Tiller , rapper PartyNextDoor ’s P4 , and Irish rockers Picture This’ Parked Car Conversations .

Numerology aside, April will also contemplate exciting new works from pop masters Taylor Swift , whose The Tortured Poets Department drops mid-month, and St. Vincent ’s All Born Screaming , country star ERNEST’s Nashville, Tennessee , jazz master Kenny Garrett and electronic producer Svoy’s What Killed AI? , and — allegedly — the second part of Future and Metro Boomin ’s first joint-effort, We Don’t Trust You .

There’s music for all tastes ready to fill your playlists for the rest of the year. Read on for 15 of the most exciting albums dropping in April 2024.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER - minisode 3: TOMORROW 

Release date: April 1

Luckily, fans of the K-pop quintet TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT) rarely have to wait for new music. Six months after releasing their third studio album, The Name Chapter: Freefall , the group is gearing up to release minisode 3: TOMORROW .

The seven-song EP is fronted by upcoming lead single "Deja Vu," which is said to mix trap, rage, and emo rock into their signature emotional intensity, as per a press release. The other tracks continue to expand the group’s versatility, experimenting with pop rock, house, and acoustic guitars. 

As usual, the concept of the album is connected to TXT’s overarching lore, and features several references to their past works — track "- --- -- --- ·-· ·-· --- ·–," for example, evokes their debut era where Morse Code was used in teasers and in the single "Crown."

TXT will embark on their Act: Promise World Tour starting May 3-5 in Seoul, South Korea, and then head to the U.S. for 11 shows across the country, including two dates at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Conan Gray - Found Heaven

Release date: April 5

Gen Z popstar Conan Gray has Found Heaven . After 2022’s Superache , his upcoming third album was co-produced by legendaries Max Martin , Greg Kurstin , and Shawn Everett , among others.

Gray had been teasing the 13-track record since last year with a slew of buoyant, '80s-tinged singles ( "Never Ending Song," "Killing Me" and "Lonely Dancers") and poignant, Elton John -esque ballads ( "Winner," "Alley Rose" ). "When I was making the album, I was really obsessively listening to music of that era," he explained to NME . "I think also, because it was a deeply emotional time, I was almost hiding from reality. I didn’t listen to a song from the 2020s during the making of this album."

To celebrate this new, holy era, Gray will be touring Australia in July, North America in September and October, and Europe and the UK in November. "I want people to know that I was having fun and goofing around, and I want you to smile and I want you to feel like you can just be yourself," he added. "I just want the album to be a reminder to people that you can be so many things all at once."

Sinkane - We Belong 

Ahmed Gallab, the Sudanese American multi-instrumentalist behind Sinkane, has built his discography resisting musical genres. We Belong , his upcoming eighth studio album, is no different: it combines pop, funk, electronic, afrobeats, disco, and more into "a love letter to Black music," per a press release.

Sinkane’s first album since 2019’s Dépaysé , We Belong features 10 tracks and participations by Bilal, Money Mark, STOUT, and others. Each song tells the story of a different era in Black music and history, laced with love and hope for the future: the disco groove of "Come Together," the gospel choirs of "Everything Is Everything," the funky bassline of "How Sweet is Your Love."

Along with live band the Message, Sinkane has announced a select 10-city tour in the U.S., starting May 3 in New York City and wrapping up on June 9 in Pioneertown, California.

X Ambassadors - Townie

** Pop rock trio X Ambassadors dive deep into nostalgia for Townie , their fourth studio album. The record was inspired by their experience of growing up in the small city of Ithaca, New York, and how it shaped who they are. **

"As a grown man, I’ve fallen back in love with upstate NY, and I oddly feel blessed to have had something to rally so hard against/fight to escape from as a kid," vocalist Sam Harris said in a statement. "No Strings," the first single off the project, is an anthem for that restless feeling, and anchors their concept in a haunting, propulsive melody. "Your Town" and "Half-Life" continue the journey, although taking more melancholy tones.

X Ambassadors first set off their Townie tour in Europe and the UK during February and March. On the day of the release, they will begin the North American leg of the tour in Vancouver, Canada.

Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us 

Five years after releasing their latest record, 2019’s Father of the Bride , indie band Vampire Weekend will drop their fifth studio album, Only God Was Above Us .

According to a press release, frontman Ezra Koenig wrote most of the songs in 2019-2020, and spent the last five years refining them with bandmates Chris Baio and Chris Tomson. The result is a collection of 10 "direct yet complex" tracks, "showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic," as seen in singles "CAprilicorn," "Gen-X Cops," and "Classical."

In addition to a sold out performance in Austin, Texas that will coincide with the total eclipse on April 8 and a headline show at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Vampire Weekend has announced an extensive North American tour throughout summer and fall.

Bryson Tiller - Bryson Tiller

Grab your tickets to Bryson Tiller’s upcoming tour while you can: he might go on a hiatus right after. That’s what the R&B singer and rapper told Complex , alleging that his number one passion is actually video games. "I've been designing a game for the past three years; been looking into internships for different companies. That's what I want to prioritize after this album comes out."

The album Tiller refers to is his eponymous fourth LP, a 19-track collection that includes a feature by Victoria Monét , and is described as "seamlessly blending R&B, dancehall, pop, drill, trapsoul, neo-soul, and hip hop" in a press release. " Bryson Tiller is not just an album; it's a declaration of artistic independence and a tribute to the relentless pursuit of greatness."

The project’s three alluring singles ( "Outside," "Whatever She Wants," and "CALYPSO") exemplify how Tiller pushed the boundaries of R&B even more, and solidified his identity as one of music’s most singular artists. "My No. 1 goal with this album is just for everybody on Earth to hear it one time," Tiller also told Complex. "My guarantee is that they'll love [at least] one song."

Tori Kelly - TORI.

"You think you know who Tori Kelly is, but this album will prove that maybe you didn’t," said the YouTube-star-turned-singer in a NME interview about her fifth studio album, TORI . "I feel like I’m stepping into my power and owning my craft."

Her first LP since 2020’s A Tori Kelly Christmas , TORI. took inspiration from '90s and early aughts R&B and pop, as heard on singles "Missin U" and "Cut." "I was trying to create this world of nostalgia, but also there’s that balance with [ TORI. ] feeling fresh and new," she said. Comprising 15 tracks, it also includes participations by Ayra Starr in "Unbelievable," LE SSERAFIM ’s Kim Chae-won on "Spruce," and Jon Bellion — who co-wrote and produced the album — on "Young Gun."

During the creation process, Kelly told Bellion that her guidelines were to be able to "belt out [songs] in the car" and "dance" to them, like one can do in the powerful "High Water." As far as it goes, it looks like they accomplished their mission.

Kelly will kick off her Purple Skies North American tour on April 12 in Ventura, California, and conclude it on May 3 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Future & Metro Boomin - TBA / We Still Don’t Trust You  

Release date: April 12

Rap titans Future and Metro Boomin have been personal friends and work peers for over a decade, but their first collaborative album is only coming out now. We Don’t Trust You , the first installment of a double album, dropped on March 22, while the second part — titled yet to be announced — is slated to release on April 12.

In We Don’t Trust You , the duo showcased their flawless chemistry with grandiose tracks, haunting trap beats, and star-studded features, such as "Like That" with Kendrick Lamar , "Young Metro" with The Weeknd , and "Type S—" with Travis Scott and Playboi Carti . As Metro defined in an interview with Complex , "it’s the classic Future and Metro, but just updated."

So far, no further details have been shared about the second album, but expectations remain high for the duo to outdo the first effort.

girl in red - I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!

"I wanted to sincerely apologize for the events that happened directly after the release of my second album, I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! " prefaced Norwegian singer girl in red — real name Marie Ulven — on a solemn social media video last month. But while viewers caught their breaths, she revealed it was all a witty joke: the album will only come out on Aprilil 12.

"This is a big year for me. 2024 is, like, my year," she added in the video. I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! follows Ulven’s 2021 debut If I Could Make It Go Quiet , but feels "more fun and more playful, and a little bit more confident," as she told Billboard . Lead track "Too Much" brings that novelty heads on, while singles "Doing It Again Baby" and "You Need Me Now?" with Sabrina Carpenter prove that Ulven’s powerful pop is only getting better.

Ulven will kick off her Doing It Again tour from April 16-June 2 in North America, and from Aug.27-Oct. 5 in Europe.

Kenny Garrett & Svoy - Who Killed AI?  

For his first electronic foray, NEA Jazz Master and GRAMMY-winning saxophonist Kenny Garrett enlisted the acclaimed producer-musician Svoy. The result is Who Killed AI? , a seven-track daring exploration of jazz and pop culture.

"The first two songs are really reminiscent of Miles [Davis] ," Garrett shared in a statement. "The way I’m stretching the melody — that’s how I played with Miles." The opener and lead single "Ascendence" is a strong preview of what’s to come: distorted synths and drum and bass beats fused with Garrett’s fun and brilliant lines, a compelling portrait of what the future of music can be.

Later in the year, Garrett plans to take the album on a live tour. "I think my fans will find this interesting," Garrett shared in a statement. "Some people forget that my teacher was Miles Davis. So for me, it’s not that I have to do something different. It is just something that I do. All you have to do is present the music and let them take the journey." 

ERNEST - Nashville, Tennessee  

Early in March, singer/songwriter ERNEST announced on social media that he would be running for mayor in order to "legalize country music." Of course, fans started to get their hopes up for new music — and they were right. The plot was just part of his promotion for the newly announced Nashville, Tennessee , out April 12.

A tour de force with 26 tracks, the record features a bevy of guest stars: from Jelly Roll ("I Went To College, I Went To Jail"), to Lainey Wilson ("Would If I Could"), and ERNEST's two-year-old son, Ryman Saint. It also includes a bluegrass cover of Radiohead ’s "Creep" with HARDY, and a cover of John Mayer ’s "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room."

In addition to "I Went To College, I Went To Jail," four other advance tracks have been shared: "Why Dallas" with Lukas Nelson , "Ain’t As Easy," "Ain’t Too Late," and "How’d We Get Here."

Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department 

Release date: April 19

On the same night that she won her  lucky 13th GRAMMY for Best Pop Vocal Album with 2022’s Midnights , Taylor Swift also announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department . Coming out April 19, the record will feature 16 tracks and collaborations by Florence + the Machine on "Florida!!!" and Post Malone on "Fortnight."

"I needed to make it, it was really a lifeline for me, it sort of reminded me why songwriting gets me through life," Swift said during her The Eras Tour show in Melbourne. "I've never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets ."

Along with the statement, Swift also shared an alternate cover for the physical album, titled after and including bonus track "The Bolter." Later on, three other versions named "The Manuscript," "The Albatross," and "The Black Dog" — all including an eponymous bonus track —  were also made available for purchase.

For the rest of the year, Swift will be touring through Europe and North America. As usual with the singer, more surprises are likely to come soon.

PartyNextDoor - PartyNextDoor 4 (P4)

Release date: April 26

** Canadian hitmaker and singer PartyNextDoor will make his long-awaited return this month. PartyNextDoor 4 , also dubbed P4 , is his first full-length work since 2020’s Partymobile , and continues his eponymous albums series after 2016’s P3 . **

"This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on an album. This is the proudest I’ve felt," Party told Billboard for his March cover story. "I’m excited to grind even more for the next [one]. I’m in love with how hard you should work for it." 

He also explained that love is the reason why he takes so long to release new stuff. "I get into relationships and then music becomes second," he said. "I think I’m going to take a break from relationships, a long break, and just get back to making music."

In support of the release, Party shared moody, intimate singles "Resentment" and "Real Woman" — inspired by the same relationships that kept him off stage.

St. Vincent - All Born Screaming

In an interview with Mojo , St. Vincent — also known as Annie Clark — defined her upcoming seventh album, All Born Screaming , as "post-plague pop." Since its creation started right after the release of 2021’s Daddy’s Home , the years of seclusion and adjustment due to the COVID pandemic were a prominent influence in her new work.

"That kind of isolation breeds paranoia and loneliness, and loneliness can breed violence," she said. "It’s been a time of loss collectively and personally. [But] loss and death are very clarifying things, they make everything that doesn’t f—ng matter go away."

Comprising 10 tracks and features from Dave Grohl , Cate Le Bon, and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, All Born Screaming is St. Vincent’s first entirely self-produced set, and an attempt at showcasing what does matter. "This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet. There’s nothing cute about it," she added.

Clark released two singles off the album, "Broken Man" and "Flea," and is gearing up for a North American tour starting May 22.

Picture This - Parked Car Conversations

" Parked Car Conversations is by far the most personal album we have ever created," said vocalist and lyricist Ryan Hennessy in a press release about Picture This’s upcoming album. "It is an album about everything involved with being human. Love and loss and hurt and euphoria and all of those other complex emotions that flutter in between."

The album consists of 15 songs, but a third of it can be previewed through bittersweet, soaring singles "Get On My Love," "Song To Myself," "Leftover Love," "Call It Love," and "Act Of Innocence." Overall, Parked Car Conversations is a soundtrack "not to a movie, but to life," and aims to convey "the ups and downs of living" through ballads and anthems alike, according to Hennessy. 

Coming almost three years since the Irish band’s last release, 2021’s Life in Colour , the new record will be celebrated in high spirits with an Europe and U.K. tour, starting April 21 in München, Germany.

10 Women In African Hip-Hop You Should Know: SGaWD, Nadai Nakai, Sho Madjozi & More

• 1 Taylor Swift Announces More Dates For 'Reputation' Stadium Tour
• 2 Songbook: An Era-By-Era Breakdown Of Taylor Swift's Journey From Country Starlet To Pop Phenomenon
• 3 Taylor Swift, The 'Tortured Poet': 6 Times She's Used Poetry In Her Work
• 4 Get Ready For Taylor Swift's ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Album Release: Everything You Need To Know
• 5 15 Must-Hear Albums In April 2024: Taylor Swift, Vampire Weekend, St. Vincent & More

Stage and Cinema

Arts and Entertainment Reviews

Extras | Concerts: TAYLOR SWIFT’S REPUTATION TOUR BREAKDOWN

by Jim Allen on March 5, 2024

in Concerts / Events , Extras

The Reputation Stadium Tour, Taylor Swift’s first all-stadium venture, represents a significant chapter in her illustrious career, showcasing her evolution from a small-town girl to an international icon.

This ambitious project not only highlighted Swift’s musical genius but also redefined the contours of live music entertainment . Commencing on May 8, 2018, in Glendale, Arizona, the tour embarked on an unforgettable journey that left an indelible mark on the hearts of millions.

The Genesis of a Superstar: Early Years in Reading, Pennsylvania

Taylor Swift’s journey to stardom began in Reading, Pennsylvania, where she was born and raised. From an early age, Swift displayed an uncanny knack for storytelling and melody, crafting songs that resonated with her personal experiences and aspirations. This foundation in Reading laid the groundwork for her meteoric rise, imbuing her music with authenticity and emotional depth that would become her signature.

Embarking on the Stadium Saga

The Reputation Stadium Tour marked a monumental shift in Swift’s live performance strategy. Transitioning from arenas to stadiums, Swift undertook a bold step that few artists could dream of, let alone achieve. This move was not just about the scale of the venues but also about creating a more immersive and impactful experience for fans. It was a testament to Swift’s draw as a global superstar and her ability to connect with audiences on a massive scale.

The Inaugural Show in Glendale: A Night to Remember

On May 8, 2018, the city of Glendale, Arizona, witnessed the inception of the Reputation Stadium Tour, a concert that set the tone for what was to become an epic journey across stadiums. This first show was a spectacle of lights, energy, and music, blending Swift’s new songs with her classics, and setting the stage for a tour that would be remembered for its grandeur and artistic integrity.

Paying Homage to Pennsylvania Roots: Lincoln Financial Field Performance

As Taylor Swift took her Reputation Stadium Tour across the nation, she not only showcased her musical prowess but also paid homage to her Pennsylvania roots, performing in iconic stadiums that are landmarks in the sports world.

For instance, her concert at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field was not just a musical event but a gathering place for local fans who share a love for both Swift’s artistry and the spirited competition found in sports.

This blending of music and sports culture offers a nod to the common ground shared by concert-goers and sports betting and casino enthusiasts in Pennsylvania, who revel in the excitement of a well-played game and a well-performed concert alike.

The Artistry of Live Performances: A Blend of Music and Spectacle

The Reputation Stadium Tour was not merely about the music; it was a masterclass in live performance artistry. Swift meticulously crafted each show to be a visual feast, complete with elaborate stage designs, costumes, and choreography that complemented her musical narratives. This attention to detail ensured that each concert was not just a listening session but a full-on sensory experience that captivated audiences.

The Setlist: A Musical Journey

The tour’s setlist was a carefully curated mix of tracks from the “Reputation” album alongside fan favorites and hits from her previous albums. This selection ensured that the concerts appealed to long-time Swifties as well as newcomers to her music. By balancing her newer, edgier tracks with the classic hits, Swift offered a comprehensive overview of her musical evolution.

Audience Engagement: Connecting With Fans

A hallmark of Swift’s concerts is her ability to forge a personal connection with her audience, and the Reputation Stadium Tour was no exception. Swift went beyond mere performance, sharing anecdotes and experiences that resonated with her fans, creating an atmosphere of intimacy amidst the vastness of the stadiums. This personal touch made each concert feel unique and left fans with the sense that they were part of something truly special.

The Impact on Live Music: Redefining Concert Experiences

The Reputation Stadium Tour set new benchmarks in the realm of live music entertainment. Swift’s all-stadium endeavor showcased the potential for artists to create expansive and elaborate live shows that go beyond traditional concert formats. It pushed the boundaries of what live music events could be, influencing both contemporaries and upcoming artists to think bigger and bolder in their concert presentations.

Legacy of the Tour: A Milestone in Swift’s Career

The Reputation Stadium Tour is remembered not just for its commercial success but as a pivotal moment in Taylor Swift’s career. It solidified her status as one of the most influential artists of her generation, capable of pulling off an unprecedented stadium tour. The tour’s legacy lies in its demonstration of Swift’s versatility as an artist and her unwavering connection with her fans.

Conclusion: A Testament to Talent and Tenacity

Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour was more than just a series of concerts; it was a bold statement of artistic ambition and a celebration of the bond between an artist and her fans. From its kickoff in Glendale to the finale, the tour encapsulated the essence of Swift’s journey from Reading, Pennsylvania, to global superstardom.

Through sheer talent, determination, and a deep connection with her audience, Taylor Swift redefined the landscape of live music entertainment, leaving an indelible mark on the industry and on the hearts of millions of fans worldwide.

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Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour

Taylor Swift takes the stage and proves she doesn't care about her bad reputation. Taylor Swift takes the stage and proves she doesn't care about her bad reputation. Taylor Swift takes the stage and proves she doesn't care about her bad reputation.

• Paul Dugdale
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• Trivia During the tour, Taylor invited more than 2,000 adopted and foster children and their families to watch the show for free.
• Connections Featured in Miss Americana (2020)
• Soundtracks ...Ready for It? Written by Taylor Swift , Max Martin and Shellback Performed by Taylor Swift Big Machine Label Group, LLC

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• Jan 2, 2019
• December 31, 2018 (United States)
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Taylor Swift Announces First Round of Reputation Stadium Tour Dates

Taylor Swift gives fans first round of cities off upcoming Reputation stadium tour.

By Allison Stubblebine

Allison Stubblebine

Taylor Swift announced the first 27 tour dates of her Reputation   stadium tour via her Taylor Nation Twitter account early Monday (Nov. 13) morning. The tweet, captioned, “WE’LL SEE YOU SOON!” does not specify whether this is the entirety of the U.S. leg of the tour. 

Fans were also reminded to grab the album boost through Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program in order to snag the best possible access to Reputation   Tour tickets. 

Cash Cobain on His Hit 'Fisherrr' and What We Can Expect from a Slizzy Summer

WE’LL SEE YOU SOON! The first round of dates for Taylor Swift’s reputation Stadium Tour have been announced. Ticket and onsale info: https://t.co/d17RNtqtNa — Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) November 13, 2017

Taylor Swift Tix users, if you bought an album during street week be sure to get your album boost! If you haven’t signed up, you still can here — https://t.co/by0d1CxFmP — Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) November 13, 2017

Swift’s sixth album  Reputation  was released on Friday, and amassed an unheard-of 700,000 albums sold on its first day. View the list of first-round dates below. Register at Taylor Swift Tix  to get first access to ticket purchasing. Registration closes Nov. 28. 

Reputation   Stadium Tour Dates 2018

May 8 – University of Phoenix Stadium – Glendale, AZ May 12 – Levi’s Stadium – Santa Clara, CA May 19 – Rose Bowl – Pasadena, CA May 22 – CenturyLink Field – Seattle, WA May 25 – Sports Authority Field at Mile High – Denver, CO June 2 – Soldier Field – Chicago, IL June 30 – Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium – Louisville, KY July 7 – Ohio Stadium – Columbus, OH July 10 – FedEx Field – Washington, DC July 14 – Lincoln Financial Field – Philadelphia, PA July 17 First Energy Stadium Cleveland, OH July 21 – MetLife Stadium – East Rutherford, NJ July 28 – Gillette Stadium – Foxborough, MA Aug. 4 – Rogers Centre – Toronto, ON Aug. 7 – Heinz Field – Pittsburgh, PA Aug. 11 – Mercedes-Benz Stadium – Atlanta, GA Aug. 14 – Raymond James Stadium – Tampa, FL Aug. 18 – Hard Rock Stadium – Miami, FL Aug. 25 – Nissan Stadium – Nashville, TN Aug. 28 – Ford Field – Detroit, MI Sept. 1 – U.S. Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN Sept. 8 – Arrowhead Stadium – Kansas City, MO Sept. 15 – Lucas Oil Stadium – Indianapolis, IN Sept. 18 – The Dome at America’s Center – St. Louis, MO Sept. 22 – Mercedes-Benz Superdome – New Orleans, LA Sept. 29 – NRG Stadium – Houston, TX Oct. 6  – AT&T Stadium – Arlington, TX

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Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour

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Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour is a concert film and a Netflix special directed by Paul Dugdale and starring Taylor Swift. It was released on December 31, 2018, exclusively via Netflix.

• 4.2 Promotional Images

Summary [ ]

• Taylor Swift

This special has received two nominations.

Gallery [ ]

Promotional Images [ ]

See more [ ].

reputation Stadium Tour

«I learned a really important lesson that I've been telling you from the stage for about ten years, but I never had to learn it so harshly myself and that lesson has to do with how much you value your reputation. And I think that the lesson is that you shouldn't care so much if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don't know you, as long as you feel understood by the people who do know you.» Taylor Swift

Table of Contents

Background and development.

«This tour has been in ways I think I can't really explain... it has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life. I feel like I started as one person and at this point I feel like a different one. And that's because of you.» Taylor Swift talking to her fans on the final night of the "reputation Stadium Tour" in Tokyo

Critical Reception

«Seeing people grow up in the crowd, or in meet and greets and stuff, looking out and seeing somebody who I met when they were ten and now they're a full-grown adult – that is wild. Or somebody coming up to me and saying, 'I've been listening to your music since I was twelve,' and now they're a grown up. It's just never ever going to feel like, 'Oh yeah, that seems normal to me.' It's always going to seem deeply interesting and wild...I definitely think that I tried to keep my expectations very realistic when it came to thinking, 'You know, I could be a phase for some people.' I just appreciate every moment, so when somebody comes up to me and says 'I'm still listening to your music,' to me that means that it's lasted through all the other phases in their lives.» Taylor Swift

Concert Movie

• 1. ...Ready For It?
• 2. I Did Something Bad
• 3. Gorgeous
• 4. Style / Love Story / You Belong With Me (Medley)
• 5. Look What You Made Me Do
• 6. End Game
• 7. King Of My Heart
• 8. Delicate
• 9. Shake It Off
• 10. Dancing With Our Hands Tied/So It Goes... (Acoustic)
• 11. All Too Well (secret song)
• 12. Blank Space
• 14. Bad Blood/Should've Said No (Medley)
• 15. Don't Blame Me
• 16. Long Live/New Year's Day (Medley)
• 17. Getaway Car
• 18. Call It What You Want
• 19. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
• 20. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

reputation Era

Reputation (2017), reputation songs, the making of a song, taylor swift: reputation stadium tour, discography.

• Studio Albums
• Re-Recordings
• Extended Plays
• Work For Other Artists

Videography

• Concert Movies
• Filmography
• Music Videos
• Brand Deals

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Reputation Stadium Tour gallery

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Promotional images & images taken during the Reputation Stadium Tour , categorized by song and outfit.

• 1 "...Ready For It?"
• 2 "I Did Something Bad"; "Gorgeous", "Style" / "Love Story" / "You Belong with Me"
• 3 "Look What You Made Me Do"; "End Game"
• 4 "King of My Heart"
• 5 "Delicate"; "Shake It Off"
• 6 "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" or"So It Goes..."; surprise song
• 7 "Blank Space"
• 9 "Bad Blood" / "Should've Said No"
• 10 "Don't Blame Me"
• 11 "Long Live" / "New Year's Day"
• 12 "Getaway Car"
• 13 "Call It What You Want"; "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" / "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
• 14.1 Shawn Mendes - "There's Nothing Holding Me Back"
• 14.2 Troye Sivan - "My My My"
• 14.3 Selena Gomez - "Hands to Myself"
• 14.4 Niall Horan - "Slow Hands"
• 14.5 Robbie Williams - "Angels"
• 14.6 Hayley Kiyoko - "Curious"
• 14.7 Bryan Adams - "Summer of '69"
• 14.8 Tim McGraw and Faith Hill - "Tim McGraw"
• 14.9 Maren Morris - "The Middle"
• 14.10 Sugarland - "Babe"
• 15 Backstage
• 16 Rehearsal
• 17 Promotional images

" ...Ready For It? " [ ]

• Variation 1
• Variation 2

" I Did Something Bad "; " Gorgeous ", " Style " / " Love Story " / " You Belong with Me " [ ]

" Look What You Made Me Do "; " End Game " [ ]

" King of My Heart " [ ]

" Delicate "; " Shake It Off " [ ]

• Variation 3
• Variation 4
• Variation 5

Introduced on July 22, 2018 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

" Dancing With Our Hands Tied " or" So It Goes... "; surprise song [ ]

" Blank Space " [ ]

" Dress " [ ]

" Bad Blood " / " Should've Said No " [ ]

" Don't Blame Me " [ ]

" Long Live " / " New Year's Day " [ ]

" Getaway Car " [ ]

" Call It What You Want "; " This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things " / " We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together " [ ]

Special guests [ ]

Shawn mendes - "there's nothing holding me back" [ ].

Troye Sivan - "My My My" [ ]

Selena Gomez - "Hands to Myself" [ ]

Niall Horan - "Slow Hands" [ ]

Robbie Williams - "Angels" [ ]

Hayley Kiyoko - "Curious" [ ]

Bryan Adams - "Summer of '69" [ ]

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill - "Tim McGraw" [ ]

Maren Morris - "The Middle" [ ]

Sugarland - "Babe" [ ]

Backstage [ ]

Rehearsal [ ]

Promotional images [ ]

• 1 List of Taylor Swift's ex-boyfriends
• 2 The Tortured Poets Department
• 3 Meredith Grey

Reputation Stadium Tour

• View history
• A giant inflatable snake appeared during the Look What You Made Me Do performance, who was named Karyn.
• The tour became the highest grossing US Tour in history.

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Taylor Swift performs Feb. 7, 2024, at the Tokyo Dome as part of the Eras Tour. (AP)

‘Satanic rituals’ at Taylor Swift shows? That’s False. And experts say the attack isn’t new.

If your time is short.

Taylor Swift’s songs mention neither Satan nor Satanic rituals. Swift has publicly described herself as a Christian.

The leader of The Satanic Temple, a religious organization, dismissed the allegations about Swift as conspiracy theories. 

Experts told PolitiFact that musicians have been accused of performing satanic rituals for decades. 

Learn more about PolitiFact’s fact-checking process and rating system.

Social media users have their pitchforks and proof, as Taylor Swift lyrics famously say, and they’re hunting for Satan worshippers. The current target? Swift herself.

"Taylor Swift is doing satanic rituals during her shows," said a man in an April 12 Facebook reel . 

"This is now coming just blatantly," he said, as footage played of Swift wearing a green cloak surrounded by dancers holding golden orbs. "You’ve got Taylor Swift doing all kinds of witchcraft rituals and satanic stuff on stage." 

Then he showed a clip from Swift’s "Karma" music video, saying: "It shows Taylor Swift in what appears to be hell wearing what appears to be a devil mask." 

Taylor Swift holds a red mask with horns in front of her face the "Karma" music video. (Screenshot from YouTube.)

"Nice devil mask there, Taylor Swift," he said. "Why the devil mask? Why this kind of imagery?"

In another Facebook video , a man claimed one of Swift’s hand gestures during her Eras Tour show was the singer "throwing up the devil horns."

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Swift’s catalog of lyrics includes mentions of witches, devils and angels. She sings, "Women like hunting witches, too," in "Mad Woman" from her 2020 album "Folklore." In the 2019 song "Cruel Summer," she sings, "Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes." We found no mentions of Satan, Lucifer or satanic rituals. 

Although some critics have claimed her Eras Tour performance of the song "Willow" promotes witchcraft, we found no evidence that Swift’s performances intentionally feature satanic rituals. The "Willow" dance appears to be a stage adaptation of a similar scene from her music video . 

There is no clear evidence Satan worship has ever been practiced in an organized and widespread way, so it isn’t clear what "Satanic rituals" the post claimed Swift was performing.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, a religious organization that the IRS recognizes as a tax-exempt church, said that he sees public concern raised about celebrities and alleged satanism almost every month. He called claims like these "incredibly asinine conspiracy theories."

What would a "satanic ritual" even look like? It’s not clear. The Satanic Temple’s frequently asked questions page says the group does not worship Satan or believe Satan — or anything "supernatural" — exists. There is no sacred scripture nor any required rituals. It is a religion because it provides "a sense of identity, culture, community, and shared values," the website says. 

Some members may perform rituals they find "personally meaningful" and that are tailored to their individual needs, the FAQ page said. Such rituals may include "unbaptisms," in which people renounce superstitions imposed on them without consent, and destruction rituals, in which people destroy an object they own that symbolizes a source of pain. 

We found no evidence that Swift has engaged in any of those activities. She has publicly described herself as a Christian.

In the 2020 documentary "Miss Americana," she expressed frustration with the policy positions of then-Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. (Swift endorsed Blackburn’s democratic opponent in 2018; Blackburn was elected in November 2018.)

"Those aren’t ‘Tennessee Christian values,’" Swift said. "I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That’s not what we stand for." 

Featured Fact-check

Still, like a line from Swift’s "Reputation" album — "they’re burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one" — the lack of evidence hasn’t stopped social media claims linking Swift to satanism or devil worship. 

Swift previously appeared to poke fun at the witchcraft attacks. In November, she shared a video captured during a performance, when she was singing about an airplane and a plane happened to fly overhead at the open-air stadium, with the caption, "Never beating the sorcery allegations."

Never beating the sorcery allegations ✨🛬✨ pic.twitter.com/d0mlvF4gZW — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 13, 2023

We contacted Swift’s spokesperson and received no reply. 

Experts told PolitiFact that musicians have long been accused of performing satanic rituals. 

"When someone goes looking for signs of satanic ritual, they will find those signs everywhere, from the packaging on products they buy to stop signs," said Susan Campbell, a distinguished lecturer in the University of New Haven’s Department of Communication, Film and Media Studies. 

Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami political science professor who studies conspiracy theories, agreed that "people see what they want to see." 

"There is a long history of satanic panics in the United States," Uscinski said. In the 1980s, "all of my favorite bands were accused of taking part in satanic rituals: Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden."

Campbell said fans of the rock band Kiss might recall warnings that the band’s name stood for "Knights In Satan’s Service" and related rumors that listeners were "guilty of worshiping Satan."

"Love the band, hate the band, there is no evidence that members or fans of Kiss worship the devil," Campbell said. 

Campbell said she thinks that Swift’s 2020 endorsement of President Joe Biden and her success in encouraging her fans to register to vote "opened the door for people" to falsely attack her. 

"The better approach when faced with such nonsense is a fairly simple two-step process," Campbell said. "1. Consider the source of these rumors and 2. Do a little digging for yourself." 

A Facebook post says, "Taylor Swift is doing satanic rituals during her shows."

Swift’s songs mention neither Satan nor Satanic rituals. Swift has publicly described herself as a Christian.

The leader of The Satanic Temple dismissed the allegations about Swift as conspiracy theories, and there is no clear evidence Satan worship has ever been practiced in an organized and widespread way.

At PolitiFact, the burden of proof is on the speaker. Absent proof, we rate this claim False.

RELATED : Taylor Swift: Singer, songwriter, psyop? How conservative pundits spread a wild theory

RELATED : What could a Taylor Swift endorsement mean for voter turnout in the 2024 election?

RELATED : ‘You’re on your own,’ Joe. Taylor Swift hadn’t endorsed Biden for president as of mid-April 2024

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Our Sources

Facebook post , April 12, 2024

Email interview with Susan Campbell, a distinguished lecturer of communication, film and media studies at the University of New Haven, April 16, 2024

Email statement from Lucien Greaves, cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, April 16, 2024

Emailed statement from Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami, April 16, 2024

Taylor Swift post on X, Nov. 13, 2023

Forbes, Video Of Taylor Swift Flashing A 'Satanic' Gesture Has Gone Viral , Feb. 6, 2024

Columbia Magazine, The Pacifist's Guide to Satanism , Oct. 18, 2022

NBC News, Satanic panic is making a comeback, fueled by QAnon believers and GOP influencers , Sept. 14, 2022

Distractify, What Is Taylor Swift's Religion? Here's What the Superstar Has Said About It , May 15, 2023

CNN, Taylor Swift calls GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn ‘Trump in a wig’ in new documentary , Jan. 31, 2020

NPR, A Taylor Swift Instagram post helped drive a surge in voter registration , Sept. 22, 2023

Snopes, Taylor Swift Performed Witchcraft Onstage During Eras Tour? Feb. 12, 2024

Taylor Swift’s YouTube channel, Taylor Swift - willow (Official Music Video) , Dec. 11, 2020

Taylor Swift’s YouTube channel, Taylor Swift ft. Ice Spice - Karma (Official Music Video) , May 27, 2023

IRS Satanic Temple tax exempt organization search , accessed April 17, 2024

BBC News, The bizarre history of satanic rituals , Oct. 31, 2023

Vox, Why Satanic Panic never really ended , March 31, 2021

Pacific Standard, Conviction of Things Not Seen: The Uniquely American Myth of Satanic Cults , June 14, 2017

The Associated Press, Satanic Temple: IRS has designated it a tax-exempt church , April 25, 2019

Vox, Marsha Blackburn is Tennessee’s first woman senator , Nov. 7, 2018

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Why Taylor Swift is re-recording her old albums, from Reputation to 1989

Taylor Swift has been enjoying some of the most prolific and creative years of her career to date, with a sold-out, record-breaking world tour, multiple album releases and a newfound billionaire status to boot.

Much of this success is thanks to the re-recorded versions of some of her biggest albums, from 2019’s Reputation to earlier releases such as Speak Now and Fearless.

The most recent of those re-releases, with each one billed as “Taylor’s Version”, is 1989. Originally released in 2014, it features major hits including “Blank Space”, “Bad Blood”, “Welcome to New York”, “Style” and “Shake It Off”.

Those who haven’t been following Swift’s career particularly closely might be wondering why she’s chosen to re-record so many of her already successful albums.

It began in 2019, when the music label Big Machine Records , which Swift had been signed to from 2006 to 2018, was sold to music mogul Scooter Braun – best known as the man who discovered and signed pop star Justin Bieber .

Along with ownership of the company, Braun also gained rights to the master recordings of all the music Swift had created during her time with the label. This included her first six albums: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017).

This meant that anybody who wanted to licence any of Swift’s old songs for a movie or TV show would have to get Braun’s permission and pay him a fee.

Swift said she was dismayed by the news that her master recordings had been sold, claiming she had previously begged for the chance to buy back her own work.

“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in.

“I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta [CEO of Big Machine Records] would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future,” Swift wrote on her Tumblr account in June 2019.

“I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.”

The “Cruel Summer” singer explained that she too had only learnt about Braun’s purchase of her masters when it was announced to the world. “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she said.

“Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it,” Swift said, calling it her “worst-case scenario”.

Less than two months later, Swift revealed that she would be re-recording her first six studio albums in order to gain total control and ownership of her past work.

What does Kelly Clarkson have to do with it?

Fellow pop singer Kelly Clarkson recently spoke about how the “Look What You Made Me Do” star sends her a bouquet of flowers with every re-recorded album she releases.

This is likely due to Clarkson being the first person to publicly suggest that Swift re-record each of her six projects originally released with BMR, writing on 13 July 2019: “@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point.”

Clarkson has, however, insisted that Swift would have come up with the idea on her own.

“I love how kind she is though,” she told E! in November last year. “She’s a very smart businesswoman. So, she would have thought of that. But it just sucks when you see artists that you admire and you respect really wanting something and it’s special to them. You know if they’re going to find a loophole, you find a loophole. And she did it and literally is, like, the best-selling artist I feel like of all-time now.”

Aside from newly added “From The Vault” tracks – unreleased songs that didn’t make it onto the original albums – the re-released records are nearly identical to the originals.

While Adam White found that 1989 (Taylor’s Version) , “lacks the yearning strain of those original outings”, in his three-star review for The Independent , he stipulated that “this revamp does at least serve as a reminder of the album’s untouchable greatness”.

“This is some of the best pop of the 21st century. Potentially some of the best pop ever made,” he added. “A few bits of middling production, or some slightly-too-good vocals, won’t change that.”

Swift is currently preparing to release her first album of original material since 2022’s Midnights: her 11th studio LP, The Tortured Poets Department, is out on Friday 19 April.

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

Taylor Swift Fans Think She Will Open Up About Her Controversial Matty Healy Relationship On Her New Album. Here’s Everything There Is To Know.

Here is some required reading ahead of The Tortured Poets Department ’s release on Friday.

BuzzFeed Staff

As you are probably aware, we are now less than 24 hours away from the release of Taylor Swift ’s highly anticipated new album, The Tortured Poets Department .

With the star renowned for the autobiographical nature of her music , fans are expecting to gain some insight into what has been going on in Taylor’s life since the release of her last album, Midnights , in October 2022. 

This includes the surprise end of her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn , which was announced in April 2023, and her controversial fling with The 1975’s Matty Healy the following month. 

And with Joe already dominating headlines in the lead-up to the album’s release, what better time to refresh our memories on Taylor and Matty’s ill-fated romance? Here’s everything there is to know.

Taylor and Matty’s origin can actually be dated back to 10 years ago, with the two first sparking romance rumors after Taylor was spotted at his band's concert in 2014.

However, Matty got incredibly defensive when quizzed about these reports in a 2016 interview with Q magazine , where he claimed that it would be “emasculating” to date Taylor. 

Matty initially dismissed the star by saying that she “wasn't a big impact on my life," and then ranted: “If I had [properly] gone out with Taylor Swift, the first thing I would’ve [thought was] ‘Fucking hell I am NOT being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.’ You know, FUCK. THAT.”

“That’s also a man thing, a demasculinating, emasculating thing,” he added at the time. 

In the years since that interview, Matty has continued to cultivate a seriously divisive public image and has been repeatedly accused of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and being anti-Muslim. 

And he actively leans into this image, even adding a skit to The 1975 ’s recent tour where he acted as though he was going to go on a racist rant before being cut off by his bandmates playing the beginning of the next song.  

And Matty’s controversies came to a head at the start of 2023 when he was accused of doing the Nazi salute while marching on stage during one of his shows just days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Later in January, Matty posted a screenshot of a “List of Jews” Wikipedia page to his Instagram story, which some deemed to be an unsettling reference to the records of Jewish people that Nazis kept during the Holocaust. 

The following month, Matty faced even more backlash during an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show podcast that was deemed so offensive it was eventually removed from Spotify and Apple.

In the episode, Matty laughed hysterically as the host made a series of racist jibes, referring to American rapper Ice Spice as “one of the Inuit Spice Girls ” and a “chubby Chinese lady” before mocking a variety of accents. 

Matty told Adam that he’d messaged Ice Spice, and was asked: “So you slide into her DMs and ask ‘What are you? A fucking Eskimo or something?’” The star laughed and replied: “Yeah, that's what I was like, you fucking…” before saying something unintelligible.

Matty then encouraged Adam to do an impression of Japanese people working in concentration camps, and he could be heard laughing uncontrollably at the racist stereotyping as the host mocked the Japanese accent.

In the same podcast, Matty nonchalantly admitted to masturbating to Black women being “brutalized” on an extreme pornography website that is renowned for its controversial videos that have been branded “ abuse porn .”

In April 2023, Matty apologized to Ice Spice for his comments on the podcast, insisting during one of The 1975’s New Zealand shows that his “joking got misconstrued” and that he feels “a bit bad” about potentially offending the young rapper.

Taylor’s rekindled affiliation with Matty was soft-launched in January 2023, when she was still publicly in a relationship with Joe. At the time, Taylor simply gave a surprise performance at The 1975’s London concert, singing her hit “Anti-Hero” and an acoustic cover of the band’s song “The City.”

Then, on May 3, 2023, it was reported that the two were dating, with a source telling the Sun : “She and Matty are madly in love. It’s super-early days, but it feels right. They first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago, but timings just didn’t work out.”

“They are both massively proud and excited about this relationship and, unlike Taylor’s last one — which was very much kept out of the spotlight, deliberately — she wants to ‘own’ this romance and not hide it away,” they added at the time.

Initially, fans didn’t believe the report — especially as news of Taylor and Joe’s split had broken less than a month earlier on April 8. However, just two days after the news broke, Matty was spotted with Taylor’s friends and family in the VIP tent at her Eras Tour in Nashville.

He ended up attending all three shows that weekend, and even performed with Taylor’s opening act, Phoebe Bridgers.

Things escalated from here, with Taylor and Matty pictured holding hands , spotted kissing , and filmed looking cozy as they left a party together. Matty was also seen entering and leaving Taylor’s New York City home on multiple occasions, as well as joining her at a recording studio.

Perceptive fans then noticed that both stars mouthed the exact same words during their respective shows in an apparent secret declaration of their love. 

During Matty’s May 3 concert, he mouthed: “This is about you. You know who you are. I love you,” while on stage. Taylor did the same thing during her May 5 show in Nashville. 

Suffice to say, Taylor’s involvement with Matty did not go down well with her fans, who were left disappointed by her decision to associate with him, considering his problematic history. Understandably, Jewish, Black, and Asian Swifties were particularly upset.

But as exposé after exposé on the concerning things that Matty had done started to emerge, Taylor appeared to remain defiant. Although she had previously teased that she sees everything her fans say about her online, she seemingly made a point of ignoring the offense that her new relationship was causing.

In fact, the star was accused of doubling down on her decision to date Matty amid the backlash. Just days after his comments about masturbating to “brutalized” Black women resurfaced, she made the uncharacteristic decision to reference her personal life during her Eras Tour show. 

In a pointed statement, Taylor suggested that she was unfazed by the online discourse, telling fans: “I’ve just never been this happy in my life — in all aspects of my life — ever before.”

And while some defended Taylor by saying that she shouldn’t be held accountable for her boyfriend’s actions, others refuted this by pointing out that she was actually being criticized for her own actions — the decision to align herself with someone who had made so many problematic statements, as well as the implication that she was unbothered by the concerning things that he’d said and done.

Taylor ended up being branded “ another complicit white woman ,” and horrified fans even said that they were canceling their preorders for her upcoming album and selling their tickets to her tour.

Amid all of this, Matty shot down the public outrage surrounding him as he shared his thoughts on the situation in an interview with the New Yorker . 

He claimed: “It doesn’t actually matter. Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”

“If it does, you’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar,” Matty went on. “You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt.”

“It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am,’” he then insisted. “And I kind of want them to do that because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

Matty was called out for his reductive remarks on social media at the time, with people accusing him of having a “lack of empathy” and “hiding behind satire/edgy humor.”

As the scrutiny reached fever pitch, Taylor announced that she had collaborated with Ice Spice for a new version of her 2022 song “Karma” — a move that was branded “ insidiously calculated ” as Taylor was accused of using the rapper to distract from the growing backlash surrounding her relationship.

It was pointed out that this was the first time that Taylor had ever collaborated with a Black woman in her 17-year career, and the timing was considered to be very “ telling ,” with many theorizing that Ice Spice teaming up with Taylor was supposed to imply that Matty’s past podcast comments were a non-issue. 

Things escalated when Adam Friedland, the host of the podcast in question, suggested that Taylor’s collaboration with the rapper was a direct result of Matty’s involvement in the controversial episode. He retweeted an account reporting on the collaboration and simply wrote: “You’re welcome.”

Then, on May 29, photos of Matty wearing merchandise for Red Scare , a cultural commentary podcast hosted by Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan, emerged online. Matty is good friends with Dasha, and he has regularly been spotted with her over the years; however, his continued support for her podcast amid his relationship with Taylor raised eyebrows.

This is because Dasha and Anna have been less than complimentary of the US singer in the past, and in their podcast episode “ Make Americana Great Again ,” the two hosts made cruel comments about Taylor’s body, sexual assault case, and even her mom — who they referred to as “Miss Piggy” — in a 30-minute tirade. 

Just days later, on June 5, it was reported that Taylor and Matty had broken up. At the time, it was said that they had “decided to just go back to being friends” and that “nothing complicated happened.”

But fans questioned this narrative when a video of Taylor choking up while performing her heartbreak song “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” emerged online from one of her first shows post-split. 

In the clip, Taylor looked emotional, and her voice audibly cracked as she sang the line: “Wondering if I dodged a bullet or just lost the love of my life,” prompting speculation that this is how she felt about Matty. 

Around the same time,  TMZ reported that Matty’s various controversies were not a factor in the relationship ending. They stated that Taylor was well aware of Matty’s reputation before they started dating and that she “simply blocked out” the “noise” from her concerned fans. 

Taylor started her relationship with NFL tight end Travis Kelce a few weeks after her and Matty’s split, and the two are currently still together and looked seriously loved up during a recent appearance at Coachella . 

Taylor has never publicly commented on her romance with Matty, but fans believe he will be referenced to in her upcoming songs, with speculation mounting when the track list was revealed in February. 

And with The Tortured Poets Department finally being released on Friday, we thankfully don’t have much longer to wait before finding out.

Topics in this article

• Taylor Swift
• Matty Healy
• The Tortured Poet's Department