Taylor Swift’s latest is the second biggest opening week in recorded history. The Tortured Poets Department racked up 2.61 million units in its first week, including 1.914 million physical sales.
Taylor Swift’s 11th full-length studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, shattered countless records upon release. Notably, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone has landed on top of the Billboard Hot 100 this week. “Fortnight” becomes Taylor’s 7th Billboard Hot 100 #1 debut, and her 12th overall #1 on the chart. See below for other key highlights and listen to The Tortured Poets Department — HERE. The Tortured Poets Department Highlights: Only artist to ever hold the entire top 14 on the Hot 100 Breaks record for most consecutive new albums with a Hot 100 #1 hit (8) Breaks record for most simultaneous Hot 100 debuts (31) All songs from The Tortured Poets Department debut top 55 Only artist to ever hold the entire top 10 on the Hot 100 twice Ties for most #1 hits on the Hot 100 this decade First female artist to earn at least 50 top 10 hits on Hot 100 First female artist with twelve #1 hits on the Hot 100 and twelve #1 albums on the Billboard 200. WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT The Tortured Poets Department “5 Stars” - Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield “Instant Classic” - Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield “The Tortured Poets Department combines the intimacy of Folklore and Evermore with the synth-pop gloss of Midnights to create music that's wildly ambitious and gloriously chaotic” - Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield “5 Stars” - Helen Brown, The Independent “With its playful narratives and hooks like anchors, Swift’s 11th studio album is a terrific reminder of her storytelling powers” - The Independent, Helen Brown “The whole album is a terrific reminder of the intense, personal connection Swift can conjure in song. She fills arenas and dominates the news agenda because listeners can relate to her starry dramas – her tales endow their own experiences with new electricity…Her ability to put her lines over is as compelling as ever. I defy anyone not to lean into Swift’s concisely charged storytelling.” - The Independent, Helen Brown “5 Stars” - The Times, Will Hodgkinson “The Tortured Poets Department is an ultra-confident, ballad-heavy, poetic yet grounded reflection on love in all its forms: destructive, blissful, fantastical, embittered and idealised. And although plenty of the scenarios are imagined, these poetic visions of love’s tangled strands come alive because they are grounded in real feelings.” - The Times, Will Hodgkinson “5 Stars” - The Sunday Times, Dan Cairns “Again and again the songs hit the mark, as rich and concise as a great short story collection and, as ever with Swift, conjuring a scene in an instant.” - The Sunday Times, Dan Cairns “5 Stars” - iNews, Ed Power “The Tortured Poets Department is an aesthetic triumph – who knew books and sad bangers could go together so well? But more than that it is a new chapter in Swift’s ongoing quest for pop perfection and a record brimming with moments to beguile fans new and old.” - iNews, Ed Power “5 Stars” - The Arts Desk, Ellie Roberts “Taylor Swift has once again alchemised pain and criticism into art, surpassing her own already astronomical influence on the music industry with an artefact that deserves to be celebrated forever.” - The Arts Desk, Ellie Roberts “Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is hauntingly brilliant” - USA Today, Melissa Ruggieri “Taylor Swift’s vulnerability is her superpower.” - USA Today, Melissa Ruggieri “‘I Can Do it With a Broken Heart’ is one of Swift’s best Trojan horses” - USA Today, Melissa Ruggieri “...her 11th album feels like a bloodletting: A cathartic purge after a major heartbreak delivered through an ascendant vocal run, an elegiac verse, or mobile, synthesized productions that underscore the powers of Swift’s storytelling.” - AP News, Maria Sherman ““Clara Bow” enters the pantheon of great final tracks on a Swift album.” - AP News, Maria Sherman “Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is written in blood” - NPR, Ann Powers "She spares no one, including herself; often in these songs, she considers her naiveté and wishfulness through a grown woman's lens and admits she's made a fool of herself. But she owns her heartbreak now. She alone will have the last word on its shape and its effects." - NPR, Ann Powers "“The Tortured Poets Department” also showcases Swift’s gifts as a songwriter, musician and producer.” - LA Times, Mikael Wood “4 Stars” - Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney “Her vocals resemble soliloquies with immaculately timed shifts in pace, tone and emphasis.” - Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney “This is the signature style that she has evolved, the sound of the Swiftularity.” - Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney “4 Stars” - The Telegraph, Neil McCormick “What we have here is a very smart, seductive, lyrically sharp set of smooth synth-pop songs about affairs of the heart, crafted with love, intelligence and passion – another hugely appealing addition to Swift’s expanding canon.” - The Telegraph, Neil McCormick “Swift knows her way around metaphors and similes and delights in conjuring delicately cascading tranches of clever puns and dazzling word play rooted in real feelings.” - The Telegraph, Neil McCormick “Vulnerable in a way we've never heard before.” - BBC, Mark Savage “the sparse tremolo guitars of I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) lay the perfect groundwork for Swift's darkly self-deluded lyrics.” - BBC, Mark Savage “4 Stars” - The Guardian, Alexis Petridis “Swift is an authentically skilled songwriter: melodically gifted, thoughtful, witty and willing to take risks in a risk-averse era for pop.” - The Guardian, Alexis Petridis “But Daddy I Love Him is a tremendous, Springsteen-like mini-epic” - The Guardian, Kitty Empire “5 Stars” - The Sun, Jack Hardwick “Taylor Swift's 11th album The Tortured Poets Department proves she's firmly at the top of her game - with the most clever and savage lyrics of her career so far." - The Sun, Jack Hardwick "Lyrically, Taylor has never been stronger either." - The Sun, Jack Hardwick "Peppered with similes and metaphors, the album is easily the most vulnerable, and brutal, Taylor has ever released." - The Sun, Jack Hardwick “It’s a testament that no matter the range of emotions circulating through the album, Swift’s finest fountain pen moments come from a somber place.” - Rolling Stone, Maya Georgi “Taylor Swift Renews Her Vows With Heartbreak in Audacious, Transfixing ‘Tortured Poets Department’” - Variety, Chris Willman “As a culmination of her particular genius for marrying cleverness with catharsis, “Tortured” kind of feels like the Taylor Swift-est Taylor Swift record ever.” - Variety, Chris Willman “It’s clear songwriting is Swift’s specialty, and her new album features her superb storytelling.” - The Hollywood Reporter, Mesfin Fekadu “Pop Perfection” - Vogue, Suzy Exposito "After spending more time with the two-hour sonic feast, more methodically touring through its subtleties and nuances, I am ready to declare that it is one of Swift’s best works yet.” - CNN, Oliver Darcy “The singer-songwriter is at her most confessional on her 11th album” - Huffington Post, Jillian Capewell “On “TTPD” more than any other album, it feels as though Swift is working through these feelings in real time, wrestling her biggest monsters and giving us a front-row seat.” - Huffington Post, Jillian Capewell “Being Taylor Swift, she tells us, is not all glittering bodysuits and dreamy suitors — but if you’ll stay awhile and listen, she’ll tell you all about the thorny, messy, unbeatable real thing.” - Huffington Post, Jillian Capewell “‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Is Messy, Unguarded And Undeniably Triumphant” - Billboard, Jason Lipshutz “Swift is a hurricane across the album, blowing the doors off of the agonizing details of her recent reality.” - Billboard, Jason Lipshutz “As Swift continues this current astonishing run of superstardom, she has once again pushed herself to strike a new pose. It’s what makes her special — and what turns The Tortured Poets Department into yet another triumph.” - Billboard, Jason Lipshutz “Swift packs a purposeful punch” - Billboard, Hannah Dailey ““LOML” features some of the most devastating insights on Tortured Poets, including a punch-in-the-gut twist of the song’s title at the very end.” - Billboard, Hannah Dailey “Despite the high expectations put on her, Swift manages to blow them out of the water. She’s made it clear that she’s not comfortable resting on her laurels–ever. She’s constantly evolving and pushing her limits.” - American Songwriter, Alex Hopper “Swift’s confidence as an artist is at a peak.” - American Songwriter, Alex Hopper “Taylor’s most cathartic release to have created is her most cathartic to listen to; a spell-binding, toxic, chaotic illustration of what floating adrift and losing yourself looks like.” - Clash Magazine, Lauren Webb “Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Isn’t The Breakup Album You Were Expecting — It’s Better” - UPROXX, Josh Kurp “On The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift Has Grown Up, Is Telling the Truth and Letting Go of the Past” - HITS Daily Double, Holly Gleason "For a serious work of art, and this is perhaps the album stans have waited for, Swift delivers an album where she weighs and measures all that has happened. An honesty about what she wanted and why, and even knowing better, exonerates the humanity within any woman chasing a dream or desire, but it also offers freedom from the person people expect her to be." - HITS Daily Double, Holly Gleason "Just as Midnights and Folklore broke from the sleek pop gleam and almost self-mutilating lyrics people craved, it was only a matter of time until Swift spun it all into a superTay cocktail of expansive songwriting with hooks that embedded and confessional lyrics that clawed to the bone. Tortured Poet’s delivers on those, profoundly." - HITS Daily Double, Holly Gleason "By leaning into her own brand of diaristic songwriting– and breaking more fourth walls than ever before –Taylor Swift has delivered her most cohesive and fascinating record to date with The Tortured Poets Department." - The Line of Best Fit, Paul Bridgewater "It’s one thing to be prolific. It’s another to keep things fresh. Swift, somehow, manages to do both, and no matter how many times she does it, the world remains awestruck.” - American Songwriter, Alex Hopper "It's moody and raw, quintessentially Taylor Swift but with a more mature, scorned, and utterly exposed vibe." - Daily Star, Mollie Quirk "The Tortured Poets Department is an extraordinary body of work that showcases Taylor's fusion of poetry and music. The album is profoundly deep and moving, complex to decipher yet easy to immerse in and relate to one's own life." - Daily Star, Mollie Quirk "TTPD proves that there’s no limit to Taylor’s artistry, and for that reason this album is the defining moment of her career to date." - Marie Claire, Bree Player "There’s this release through all of the stages of heartbreak, devastation, and grief. We are experiencing this Taylor Swift as what she feels is her true self. She’s gotten to this age where she feels secure enough that she doesn’t have to hide. She can be sad, excited, giddy, all of these things, and share them all with us." - Elle, Selena Schorken “The most anticipated album of the year – and Swift’s career – is wicked, thrilling and funny” - Esquire, Henry Wong "In moments, her 11th album feels like a bloodletting: A cathartic purge after a major heartbreak delivered through an ascendant vocal run, an elegiac verse, or mobile, synthesized productions that underscore the powers of Swift’s storytelling." - AP, Maria Sherman "Swift sings about a tortured poet, but she is one, too. And isn’t it great that she’s allowed herself the creative license?" - AP, Maria Sherman “4 Stars” - The Toronto Star, Aisling Murphy "With “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift has assembled an album that’s both sonically cohesive and lyrically diverse, suggesting a glittery, grimy world of torrid love affairs and broken promises." - The Toronto Star, Aisling Murphy “4 Stars” - The Observer, Kitty Empire “Ultimately, this may be Swift’s most Swiftian album: the unhappiness profound, the details generous, the lessons absorbed.” - The Observer, Kitty Empire “4 Stars” - The Daily Mail, Adrian Thrills “…an immersive, cinematic affair that often feels more like an old Hollywood film script than a straightforward pop record.” - The Daily Mail, Adrian Thrills “4 Stars” - Dork, Dan Harrison “As ever, the meticulously crafted lyrics are a cornerstone of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’s frantic public appeal. Each song is packed with the kind of Easter eggs and intricate wordplays that have become a hallmark of Swift’s songwriting, but this time around, they feel less guarded than ever before.” - Dork, Dan Harrison “The Tortured Poets Department seems like the liberating exhale of an artist at the height of her powers.” - British Vogue, Suzy Exposito “The Tortured Poets Department is 31 songs of Taylor Swift excellency.” - Wonderland, Sophie Wang