Flop Or Cult Classic? Tortured Poets One Year Later

Evolution of a Snake: The Taylor Swift Podcast

The Snakes & Studio71

Society & Culture, Music, Music Commentary

4.8 • 826 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

GET TICKETS TO EOAS LIVE: https://www.evolutionofasnake.com One year ago, Taylor Swift dropped her messiest, most divisive album yet: The Tortured Poets Department. Critics rolled their eyes. Fans fought in the comments. But what really happened? And why does this era still haunt us? In this episode, we review the rollout, the reviews, the backlash, and the brilliance. We unpack the most savage takedowns, the misunderstood lyrics, and the cultural moment Taylor tried to close the book on, only for it to linger louder than ever. Was it a flop? A cult classic? Or something even weirder: a misunderstood masterpiece hiding in plain sight? JOIN US ON PATREON FOR WEEKLY EPISODES: https://www.patreon.com/swiftologist https://bit.ly/evolutionofasnake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by ORA.
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0:42.2	day free trial and start protecting you and your loved ones that's a u r a com slash defense certain terms
0:50.2	apply so be sure to check the site for details. Welcome back to Evolution of a Snake.
0:55.0	I'm Zach.
0:55.8	And I'm Madeline.
0:57.1	And today we are revisiting the department.
1:00.6	We're here.
1:01.3	We're at the restaurant.
1:02.3	We have returned to be served another delicious meal of torture.
1:07.7	That's a long buffet.
1:08.9	The buffet hasn't closed.
1:10.4	People are talking about we want this,
1:12.0	we want that. I'm still at the buffet, baby. I'm still chowing down. I'm still waiting for things
1:18.1	to click. I was walking to the gym today and I was listening to Fortnite and I was like,
1:23.6	is she playing 4D chess here? Like, is there something that I'm just not getting about this song?
1:28.6	Because the more I listen to it, the more confused I get.
1:31.4	And the more that I start to believe there is like a Fortnite spiracy afoot where there is
1:36.9	something very deep and meaningful about it that I have just had a mental block towards.
1:42.4	Well, some people have been understanding it.
1:44.1	The locals, oh, they've been understanding it for months.
1:47.8	They have their big hit.
	...

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