In the real world, ‘Midnights’ was the Album of the Year in 2022. It won the Grammy for Best Album, sold more than 11 million copies, established Taylor Swift as a streaming artist…
In a parallel universe where some of us doubted that it was one of his most interesting works, the album died after the success of ‘Anti-Hero’ and his other singles were somewhat overshadowed by the boom of ‘Cruel Summer’, an old song that went viral on TikTok late, but very wildly. It has 2 billion streams on Spotify alone.
In the real world, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ is once again the Album of the Year in 2024. It has already sold 7 million copies, has spent 15 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and is going to be nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys.
But in a parallel universe, the album is having some difficulty producing true Swiftie classics. ‘Fortnight’ has obviously been number 1 globally, but it’s not even going to be Post Malone’s most successful song of 2024, a credit that will surely go to ‘I Had Some Help’, his collaboration with Morgan Wallen. ‘Cruel Summer’ continues to be Taylor’s most listened to song.
There was already a desire for a second single from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ and, among the dozen candidates on an album that, let’s remember, has more than 30 recordings in its deluxe version, the chosen one has been ‘I Can Do It With a Brokenheart’. The song was sent to radio a few weeks ago, and we currently find it in the top 25 in the UK, in the top 33 in the USA and in the top 98 of Spotify’s daily Global Chart. In all cases, progressing slowly.
To give her a boost, a music video has just been released. But it is just a succession of images from Taylor Swift’s tour, the most successful in history. A montage of highlights, outtakes and rehearsals that shows some of the show’s tricks, including the one where she hides in a cleaning cart. With it, the artist is definitively telling us that what we will remember most from this “era” will be this mammoth tour, which she can face night after night, even with a broken heart.
“Lights, camera, bitch, smile” is one of the lines Swift used to reflect on the pressure of the media in the middle of a breakup, so the “live video” option is somewhat nonsensical, even if we can think of many ways to develop it in a more attractive way. In the chorus, in addition to that resounding mention of her birthday (“I’m so depressed that I act like it’s my birthday every day”), she sums up: “I cry a lot, but I’m so productive… it’s an art.”
