Taylor Swift had an epic surprise for her fans on the morning of her latest album’s release – 15 more tracks than they bargained for.
On Friday, the record-breaking Grammy winner unveiled The Tortured Poets Department, her 11th album overall, made up of 16 new songs including collaborations with Post Malone and Florence + The Machine.
But Swifties wound up getting more than they bargained for when, just hours after the release, Taylor revealed she had something else up her sleeve.
“The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” she revealed.
“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past two years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”
And yeah… fans were left pretty stunned by the announcement:
When the first half of the collection was released, Taylor told fans: “[The Tortured Poets Department is] an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.
“This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted.
“This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”
At 31 songs in total (the reverse of her “lucky number”, 13), The Tortured Poets Department is officially Taylor’s longest album to date.
Like the first half, the second is produced by frequent Taylor collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dresser, with intriguing song titles including Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus, Imgonnagetyouback, ThanK you AIMee and So High School.
It also features the five “bonus” tracks that had previously been announced for different versions of The Tortured Poets Department’s physical release.