She torture my poet until I depart

The “Just Divorced ❤️” sticker is great

little known fact is that Taylor wants to live specifically in 1830s to fight for Bosnian independence against the Ottoman Empire

you had the perfect opportunity to put (Anthony’s Version) at the end of the title, but you SQUANDERED IT

"She's too big to fail" Damn right. She could make the worst pop album ever and still be celebrated for it...

I appreciate the satire with uploading the original review without a score and then uploading the "deluxe" review

Taylor is surrounded by yes people, same as Kanye. No one will stop her from releasing anything, no one will contradict her, no one will say "thats cringe", "You already made better a song about this", "This song is 3 minute way too long" no, thats not happening. And thats ultimately something bad for the artist.

A second review has hit Taylor Swift

gonna need her next breakup album to be about jack antonoff cause dude is overstaying his welcome

Cliffhanger Reviews gotta happen more often

I consider myself Taylor-neutral, but holy crap that "You know how to ball, I know Aristotle" line has gotta be one of the cringiest lyrics I've read in quite some time.

Anthony been in his bag for his reviews the past couple months. The effort the creativity the takes are THERE.

She has unfortunately started drinking her own koolaid and now shows no restraint in her lyrics. I still enjoy some of them, but then others come along in the same song and bring the experience down. That on top of the fact that there are 30 songs like this makes it disappointing. She needs a much more focused and brief project next time around with more experimental instrumentation, a step out of her comfort zone.

I feel like you hit the nail on the head with the "feels like she is too big to fail" criticism. She has spent the past few years releasing vault tracks and deluxe editions that it's easy to see her thinking that her fans just want as much content as possible. I think there is a defensible album's worth of songs in here, but the bloat makes even the better songs feel redundant when listening to the whole thing.

i can't believe that taylor who made evermore and folklore (both 7's from fantano) is the same taylor who made the first part of this album. The songwriting in both evermore and folklore is graceful, witty and actually kind of poetic. I expected the same level of songwriting from this album because it was named "the tortured poets department" but i was greeted by "tattooed golden retriever" and "where's the trophy? he just comes runnin' over to me". The only songs i liked were "so long london, loml, guilty as sin?". I also liked the idea of clara bow, but the execution was not really good. there were a lot of potentially good songs that were just shot in the foot by either Taylor's corny lines or horrible beats by Jack like "fortnight." ALSO, wasting a FLORENCE WELCH feature on a tourism ad-sounding song should be criminal. the songs sounded like scrapped songs from over the years piled into one album which would explain the reason why it feels all over the place and incomplete. I wish the anthology part + so long london, loml, guilty as sin? and clara bow was the album itself. the other songs shouldn't have seen the light of day. an album being bad is one thing but this was disappointing if you understand what i mean. aaron dessner is the sole hero of this album. anyways it's just my opinion lol

calling out ppl reading the description lmao

a 2 hr album with 31 tracks is diabolical work

I loved the part of the album where she said “THIS IS THE WORST VACATION EVER, I AM GOING TO CUT OPEN YOUR FOREHEAD WITH A ROOFING SHINGLE.” Really drove home the “Tortured Poet” thing, very cool!

clearly, the melon does not know Aristotle and would be living in the 1830s with the racists

SECRET REVIEW???

It been tough being a Taylor Swift fan (a sane one) and constantly defending her music against all the stereotypes and lazy criticism for years just for her to drop an entire album that literally highlighs all her worst traits and tendencies as an artist and kind of proves all the critics have a point. Not to mention she released at a time where everyone is so tired of seeing her and hearing about her all the time, really not a good move from someone who is so PR minded. Im mostly just dissapointed and annoyed by its exsistence... imagine another year and a track list half the size of actually amazing songs and instead we get the equivilent of 6 trays of mediocre cookies pulled too early out of the oven. Like gee, thanks. We just wanted Reputation.

If Taylor could’ve condensed her album into around 10 songs (with the deluxe half being majority of the tracks), she could’ve produced a good hybrid of midnights and folklore.

Can’t wait until he posts the “Taylor Swift Review Complete edition” next. And then the “Taylor Swift Deluxe Review”. And then “Taylor Swift Review (slowed with reverb)”.

I actually think there’s a pretty good 12-15 track album here. It’s a shame it’s so bloated. I hope she takes a break and tries working with new producers next.

My issue with this Taylor Swift record is that Taylor doesn't know if she wants to be Phoebe Bridgers or Adrianne Lenker or Lana del Rey. Its like she's still trying to find herself. Its very weird for an artist who's 11 albums in to her career

I am a long-time Taylor swift fan (bought her second album when I was 15) and I was generally disappointed with this album, but I think The Black Dog was one of the tracks I liked better. It's one of the ones with the most passion and where she paints herself as more flawed and vulnerable and not handling the break up very well. I find that take more interesting than some of the break up songs where the other person is just demonized. But I agree with most of the other points in this video about her being able to develop her sound and tighten the lyrics. Still have a few that I'm enjoying even though I know they aren't as repeatable as some of her previous albums.

3+5=8!!!!! Wow! Anthony is in his Swiftie era ❤

This year has been simply unhinged when it comes to reviews lol.

a surprise 2am double review!!??

its such a shame bc i feel like this 31 song album could be filtered and condensed down to a solid 10-12 songs and it would be great. The material is there its just a mess.....

The AUDACITY to not put the score in the description. You’ll pay for this, Antoine!!!!!!

"Too big to fail" is a perfect way to explain Taylor's position right now. I've never been a fan of hers since I feel like I've never heard her try something new or have songs outside of the variations of love/heartbreak/i dont need you anymore. This album was especially lifeless and I hope the many diehard Taylor fans will wake up out of their coma....they won't but I can dream.

Taylor is so big now she has become the music equivalent of Disney and Marvel, who also think they are too big to fail and can release any old shite and fans will lap it up no matter the quality.

I find it interesting that you say she's not aware of how weird her behaviour comes across on songs like the Black Dog. Listening to it, I felt like she very much is aware, she's just not interested in making herself palatable. To me, the whole album is her describing just how temporarily insane she felt and behaved in this particular moment of her life.

JUST DIVORCE - need that sticker

I get poetry is subjective but this entire album sounds like one bleak song written by an edgy high schooler. I cannoooooot.

Fundamentally, what this needed was someone to say "we're going to release the best 12 tracks you have here, and the rest are going in the trash. Also, someone get me Max Martin". Which is like, what music executives used to be for, right?

2024 the year of melon off the RAILS

Anthony you can’t just give Taylor a 10/10 for free tickets

taylor should still work with Aaron dessner on her future records and at the moment to take a break with Jack. I want her to work with other producers like Glen Ballard ( Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill/ Michael Jackson, Thriller)

I hate that there’s so many artists these days like Kanye, Taylor, Drake, to an extent Beyoncè, where they could shit into a mic for an hour and their fans would call it a 10/10 and send it to the top of the album charts

My sister is a hardcore swiftie and she is so mad she bought the vinyl to listen to it

It's a real shame that there is such an intense and overreactive part of Taylor Swift's fanbase. I've listened to her consistently for 16 years and just have a deep relationship with her music. But never felt the need to dive into her life or decode or defend it, I just liked her and her lyrics. Also acknowledge that her music isn't technically as good as Phoebe Bridgers or Lana Del Rey or Laura marling or Adrianne Lenker, who's music I also love. I just wish the more extreme fans would accept the impossibility of her being enjoyable for everyone. This album was not her best at all, I know I'm gonna enjoy it anyway.

Taylor Swift is now the McDonald's of music. McDonald's has millions of loyal customers. They can drop any new sandwich or drink and a horde of people will go gaga for it, no matter the mediocre taste or the awful nutritional value. And the execs at the restaurant will roll in the colossal amount of income generated regardless of the products' quality.

I love a lot of her music but I couldn't listen to it. The other "Swifties" I asked don't like it either. It's self indulgent and overblown and self congratulatory. It feels like a dare from Taylor herself to see how loyal the fans are. It took me 4 days to listen to a 2 hour record. Haven't listened to a single track since.

This really was an album she should have pared down to the best tracks, with the extras coming like, 6 months later clearly earmarked as off cuts so people had a good sense of what they were getting into going in. Songs like Who's Afraid of Little Old Me, Fresh Out the Slammer and My Boy are frankly putrid but I can appreciate she DOES have a fanbase who wants every last drop of her pen, so fine, give it to them. But don't pretend like it's a song worthy of the same level of attention as The Prophecy, for example (or less, considering TP is on the "extra" "b-side" "deluxe"). I don't particularly mind Jack Antonoff's production, I think he and Patrick Berger worked well with Swift on People's Windows, I actually quite liked Florida!!! too (although Florence was doing a lot of heavy lifting), but I do think Aaron Dessner fits that more introspective sound Taylor's clearly going for a lot better, even if it's somewhat already played out by Folk-more. I just don't understand why she's insistent on this project and Midnights to relegate Dessner's contributions to the second half. Is it to end on a high note? Why not just, come up with a comprehensive and well thought out track list that merges the two? This imagined record would still engender some criticism for rehashing old sounds, but at least it would sound competent and worthwhile. TTPDTA is a sludge, a dirge, a slog, which is so aggravating because it really didn't need to be. Sadly, it feels like she's hearing her fans a bit too loudly because its impinging an otherwise generally decent discography at this point and casting a shadow over her legacy as a songwriter. All good songwriters have clunkers; you have to write a lot to be good, so it's no surprise she has so much to put out. But the mark of being a capable artist is having the taste required to kill your darlings when they actually don't do anything for you. She's in a such a unique and privileged position right now where she's completely mainstream, raking in millions a day, and has everyone, even her critics, sincerely evaluating her output. Very few people are writing her off as "just another pop star", which is great. And once you push out all the poptimistic reviews to find the more levelheaded responses, pretty much all the detractors are saying "there are good moments, it's frustrating that they're surrounded by so many bad moments". Imagine being so revered and squandering that goodwill for what appears to be vanity.

The MCUification of Taylor Swift has begun

This album makes me think maybe she’s the problem.

The amount of "The album is for the fans" discourse that is going around reminds me of how Zack Snyder fan boys talk about his DC movies. This is not a good thing

i feel like “the manuscript” is the only song on the album deserving of the album’s title, not only because it has the meta aspect of her writing about her songs, but because it’s really the only song that actually has a convincing aspect of tragedy to it and doesnt come off as immature like many of the songs on both sides of the album does. taylor has absolutely gone through traumatic events in the past (being a child star, john mayer, etc) but the further into her career she gets and the more and more her fanbase obsesses over “lore” the more it seems taylor has to treat every aspect of her life with the same magnitude in order to keep this image. “the manuscript”, though, because it is about the state of her music, actually does successfully portray a very depressing vignette of what happens when your biggest songs about your experiences with love and how the world defines you largely within the context of your current and past relationships. the last line of the song most likely does refer to john mayer, but i feel like a lot of people are missing the point by focusing on that alone. with the line between her public and private self being so blurred, the story of her life isnt 100% hers anymore - it is constantly digested spat back out by millions and millions of people per day. the prospect of such a thing is terrifying, and yet, that’s her day-to-day experience. i still think the “tortured poet” aesthetic is mostly vapid and self-serving, but, honestly, there’s a little bit of truth to it.

I like her music a LOT- I was in the top 0.05% of listeners the past two years- this album is so monotonous, I can’t stand 85% of it. It’s lyrically clunky, sonically bland. There’s a couple of songs I enjoy, but a lot of the songs I can’t remember the melodies at all because none of them stand out. One review called the production “an amniotic throb” and I feel like that’s the perfect way to describe it.

Taylor’s been posting positive reviews from critics on her IG story lately. But I really want her to link to your videos and watch the absolute mayhem unleash in these comment sections 😂

The Prophecy and How Did It End? were my favourites from the extended version. Really beautiful tracks imo.

i have to completely agree. i’m a hardcore swiftie, and i will still listen to it on repeat, but for every track that rlly gets me goin, there’s 2 or 3 others that i’ll tolerate, but certainly not enjoy to its fullest. i love tracks 1-3, track 5 is okay, and there’s plenty of others scattered through the project i enjoy, but not enough. i used to think evermore was weak for having 3 or 4 skips on it, but now i see that evermore is godly, at least compared to ttpd. thanks, fantano

A necessary reminder to please ignore any troll/ragebait accounts that may flood this comment section. They crave attention and even if you argue they’ll never change their mind.

I’ll never understand why the Swifties sanction her creepy obsessive behavior towards her exes, when they would be up in arms were the roles reversed…

It's definitely a hard album to judge, but I think a lot of people are taking a negative stance on it without trying to understand what she's going for here. From the start, I listened to the album not as some deep carefully-crafted masterpiece, but as a sort of melodramatic satire. She's portraying a character throughout the album-- the tortured poet. The lyrics are meant to be cheesy and fun and humorous. You're not meant to take it super seriously. Some of the tracks, of course, set a more serious tone to them, and when they do it's pretty obvious, but tracks like "Down Bad" are very clearly just TS's millennial humor kicking into gear. She's making fun of the people who are making fun of her for thinking that she's some poetry god. It's a weird meta thing, but there's definitely something interesting there if you think about it. I think it's fun to hear her talk about GTA and sex, not taking every song as if it's the most precious thing in the world, and then on some other tracks putting in the effort to make some truly beautiful moments. It's essentially a switch-up between how she's done albums in the past (mostly serious with one or two fun songs sprinkled in, like Karma or This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things). Sonically, I do agree that it's a bit repetitive at times, because she's been very comfortable in that kind of sound she's gone for in the past few albums. Very indie, soft, almost mesmerizing production. It works wonders with her voice, and it's incredibly relaxing, but it could have definitely benefited from a switch-up in order to make the album a more cohesive experience.

"sitting there, angry on your private jet, watching a dot on a map and acting like you were the perfect partner" god I wish I could subscribe to you again

Doing Fortnite dances for 10 minutes straight isn’t a review Anthony

"You know how to ball, I know Aristotle". Yeah, I can see this relationship working fine for many, many years.

If only Taylor named her album To Pimp A Tortured Poets Department

the amount of anthony and cal content we’ve been getting were really eating out here 🙏

Usually I support Anthony’s opinions, and I don’t think this album is great at all.. but just because a song is autobiographical why does it mean that the song has to paint the writer in a good light? maybe Taylor is more self-aware than Fantano manages to understand.. sure she is stalking her ex, but she Isn’t saying that is an example to live by - it’s the same weird critique he would give Lana back in the day.

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed most of this album I really appreciate your perspective-genuinely. I definitely feel like a sense of passion was lost because I agree that maybe Taylor has reached a level of fame that overrides the ability she has to put out genuinely amazing music. I also came into this expecting much more mind-blowing songs and a lot of it is things we already knew just repackaged. Buuuuuuut I also do really enjoy a lot of the songs either way but seriously thank you for being genuinely critical/objective about artists and projects instead of just avoiding the absolutely intolerable swifties who cannot stand someone giving critiques to their idol 🤢

I want to thank you for being so honest in your review. I'm a swiftie and I just can't vibe with this album, which is a big disappointment! I know these things are subjective but it's evident that ttpd needed more time and thought. And it's like everyone on the internet is obsessing over it just because it's Taylor. I've watched other people reacting to the album and everyone seems to be in denial because "how could you criticize Taylor"? This isn't one of her best works, let's just admit it, instead of going on and on on how much this album is for the fans or finding excuses everywhere.

"crummy 80s-ass gated drums" beautiful phrase, no notes

Someone said tortured ears department and been screaming ever since

Can’t wait for The Tortured Poets Society (Taylor’s Version) so I can buy 48 more vinyl of each color that ends up dropping exclusively at Target

I swear to God you have the best posture in the world it impresses me every time when I remember the fact that you were sitting all the time.

i tried to see the score early from the description 😂😂 you got me

Also, why are we forgetting that this album produced so much carbon emissions 😅

Taylor once again proving that even tho she thinks she CAN be, she most definitely is NOT Lana del Rey

They call it Soundtracks for the Blind (Taylor's Version)

I think part of why Madonna's post Music work is far less consistent (relative to her past work, most of those albums are still WAY better than most anything anyone else was putting out in similar time frames - but we don't judge superstars against weaker craft, do we?), is because of a quote from her that occurred after Music and before American life where she said "at this point I feel like I can do whatever I want". Yeah, Taylor is having that moment now, and while she can always bounce back from it (Confessions on a Dance Floor and Hard Candy are way better than given credit for, for example), it might just mean this is now the era of a slow decline in relevancy. It happens to literally everyone. Katy Perry aint having now the days she was having back during Dark Horse, plus or minus 4ish year. It can't be 1989 forever.

“I feel like I’m reading bad sexual fanfic on Tumblr” LOL damn

I actually laughed out suspiciously loud when cal selected the machete from his inventory

fantano really be edging me with these 'cliffhanger' reviews

Omg I am actually crying tears of joy from the sheer amount of Cal content in 2024. The Fantano multiverse is insane rn.

Sorry melon i went straight to the description, I never thought your big brain would predict my impatience😢

“She’s too big to fail” is the perfect sentiment for this album bc as a major Swiftie, I felt Taylor lost her focus here, I was lost after the 1st hour

made for the charts not the arts

Eventually superstars don't have to try anymore. Once you obtain the rabid fanbase, you can feed them mediocrity with an occasional dash if talent forever, and they'll remain obsessed and impressed.

The biggest downside of Taylor Swift today is that she's TOO immersed in herself, which is understandable to a degree considering she's been rercording her own music for the past 3 years and just drowning herself into her own character more and more each time. She's too self-aware to know exactly what her fans wants from her and what the general public expects, but to oblivious to the outside world to just ponder for a second on how overexposed and obnoxious everything she is doing is coming across. To be honest I really liked this album and lowkey wish this is how Midnights would've sounded, however it is impossible to deny just how unnecessary it was.

i love cliffhanger reviews, you gotta make more bc is a fun thing

The gta lyrics are genuinely so gross and unsexy

I agree it's definitely an album for the swifties because I think people who are not would just not listen to a 2 hour album especially if the first half isn't very captivating. I personally took a lot of time to listen to it and I think the second half of the album is definitely better I loved the simple production and the lyrics were also poetic which is what you'd expect from it and from Taylor. I personally think everything she does with Aaron turns out beautiful. The prophecy, Peter, The Bolter, How did it End? are my favorites.

Im sure he's not going to get an Album Review Retweet from Taylor now lol...

hi fantano, thank you for this review. i'm in my early 20's, poc, and a relatively recent/moderate Swift fan with a big range in music taste (currently listening to euphoria on repeat lol), and agree completely that the few good moments on this album were not enough to make it a good album. i watched your part 1 review thinking it was a review of the whole "anthology" and was a bit confused about why you barely referenced the songs in part 2. it seemed at odds with your usual comprehensiveness. then i saw this video, and chided myself for doubting you, lol. i appreciate you shouting out "the bolter," easily my favorite song on the album and imo the most innovative/inspired. a few weeks post-release, it's one of the few songs i still listen to frequently. same goes for "the manuscript" - not on my heavy rotation bc the instrumentals are a little boring, but i thought it had the strongest, most subtle and reflective writing on the album. i liked "the prophecy" too - it's got a fantasy-esque, witchy vibe - but i don't listen to it often. i agree with most of your critiques of the individual tracks. "loml," which i found very pretty and moving, had some very jarring lyrical moments. i cannot abide the title track "the tortured poets department" (the one with the charlie puth line) because its lyrics are SO bad, even if they're ironic. a lot of swifties seem to love "the black dog" and "so long, london" but they didn't impress me. also, thanks for not fixating on the 1830s line in "i hate it here," it's a clunky, ill-considered, dumb lyric but not much more than that. especially in context which, as you mentioned, is a critique of excessive nostalgia for the past. it's a good sentiment, but i agree that its execution here is far too messy/convoluted, to the point where the goal of the song isn't readily apparent. and "florida!!!" lowkey makes no sense as a song, even though i think florence's ~one~ verse is actually great. that said, i liked a few tracks that you didn't care for. "i can fix him" really grew on me, it's got this dark, languorous country feel but is also short and sweet. you mentioned that it wasn't clear if Swift was criticizing or endorsing the idea of dating a bad dude, but i thought that the final lyric "i can fix him, no really i can ... woah, maybe i can't" was straightforward and sufficient given the song's simplicity. i see it as the more realistic, cynical sequel to "but daddy i love him," which also had country vibes but focuses on the exuberance of ill-advised young love. if anything, the solemnity of "i can fix him" underscores that the narrator of "but daddy i love him" is delusional and overly optimistic about her situation. also, i'm pretty sure "the alchemy" is about travis kelce because it's full of silly football references, so the "heroin but this time with an 'e'" probably wasn't another dig at healy. i don't love the song but i agree with you that the heroine line was one of its more clever lyrical moments, perhaps a nod to kelce's goofy-yet-wholesome vibe. finally, i liked "my boy only breaks his favorite toys" and "guilty as sin" because they're fun to sing. all in all, this album was too inconsistent for me. i see myself listening to 4-5 out of 31 songs on a semi-regular basis, maybe another 5 when the mood strikes. that's still barely 1/3rd of the tracks. sadly this was not the banger folklore/evermore-esque project i was hoping for. i really hope Swift puts more care and thought into her next album, because when she's at her best, she has written some compelling, lyrically beautiful music.

While I do agree with much of your commentary, reading her "In Summation" poem that went along with the album far elevated my listening experience - especially regarding some of the commentary of her lyricism on songs like The Black Dog.

The Tortured Swifties Department (Anthony's Version) No honestly, this was great two part review. There is so much hype for her that she gets away with mediocrity and still breaks all the records. Mind blowing

Wow I'm really gonna miss you melon Your memory will live on in our hearts

Fantano Lore before GTA 6, this is insane ☠️

I’m liking the two parter Anthony! Keep staying creative!

Double album double review...makes sense

these reviews have been very humanizing and empathetic, i do want to say i appreciate that and agree nearly completely with your takes on this

if the album was called "good poet, m.A.A.d swiftie", you would've given it a 10.

Taylor pulling the "I'm not old, it's just a phase" card

I've been a huge Taylor Swift fan for a long time now and I feel like she's either stuck in a rut or found what she wants to be long-term and is just sticking to it. Her earlier albums after "going pop" each had a distinct era to them. 1989 was very summer fun album, Reputation was a bad-girl album, and so on. While keeping the Taylor Swift sound they had their own niche of what that meant. My favorite album she's ever put out was Folklore, but then Evermore came out and it was... the same.. then Midnights came out and was... sonically a little different but vocally and writing wise, very much the same. I was disappointed in Midnights feeling that the writing wasn't up to the usual standard and the vocals felt very same fron the previous 2 works Now TTPD feels like some weird middle-step between Folklore/Evermore and Midnights. Why are we finding a middle point between past records instead of growing into a new sound? For Tortured Poets, some of the writing is great while other parts are embarrassingly bad. Is Taylor too busy and overworked to give new music full attention? Is her time up with Jack and she needs to get a new team around to challenge her? Or have we finally reached the end of her song writing capabilities destined to get this style of writing and music forever? Either way, I'll be cautious when checking out her next release.

Great job Anthony! You had us all on the edge of our seats with the cliffhanger 😅

Luv that you waited to reveal the score nice touch