Taylor Swift announced her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, onstage at the Grammys in February, but as the April 19 release date looms, I’m convinced that Swifties should be bracing for impact. Not just because what we’ve seen of TTPD looks emotionally devastating but also: Has she been hinting this whole time that she’s actually dropping two albums on Friday?
It’s not such a wild idea, logistically. As Anne Helen Petersen wrote, Swift “likes to work.” When the world was first in lockdown in the early days of COVID-19, she recorded Folklore and Evermore, complete with a cast of lovesick teenage characters and Bon Iver. See also: The “(From the Vault)” tracks that she’s released with each of her (Taylor’s Version) re-recorded albums, songs that she wrote at the time but that didn’t make the cut for the final album when she originally released it, perhaps because they were too personal (see: “You’re Losing Me”) or for some mysterious other reason (“Is It Over Now?,” an all-time bop). She has no shortage of material.
Swift’s work has been fueled by the relationships in her life, romantic, imagined, platonic, and otherwise. If you’d been romantically entangled with someone for over half a decade, then rebounded with another person with decidedly different vibes, then started very publicly dating one of the NFL’s most famous players, and you also happened to be prolific musician Taylor Swift, you might have a song or two about it. Of course, it’s not just my personal and professional interest in Swift that has me clearing room on my shelf for two new vinyl sleeves. If I’m right, Swift has been dropping clues about a twofer all along—maybe Reputation (Taylor’s Version), maybe something entirely new.
Take a look at Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album, her thirteenth Grammy and the venue for her album(s) announcement: In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, at about the 1:33 mark in this video, she holds two fingers up. That could be explained by what she’s saying, which is that she’s kept a secret “for the last two years,” but that’s before the barrage of hints that, taken together, I’ve taken to calling the Unified 2 Taylor 2 Album Theory.
Why This Might Be Two Albums
In a teaser video posted to Swift’s social media channels Wednesday, the viewer is led from a room with iconography reminiscent of Midnights, her last album, down a sterile hallway and through the keyhole of a room with a placard reading “The Tortured Poets Department” on the door. In that second room, there are two desks outfitted with two typewriters. We zoom in on a timetable pinned to a bulletin board, with “The Tortured Poets Department Release Day” handwritten on April 19, along with “8pm ET – Music video release!!” and a tally adding up to 14, implying that the music video will be for the Post Malone collab track, “Fortnight.” But here’s what caught my attention: The release day note is accompanied by two stars on either side—perhaps two stars for two albums? And then there are the clocks: In both the Midnights and TTPD rooms, prominent wall clocks are set to 2:00. Additionally, Swift’s website has a mysterious countdown clock that seems to end at 2 p.m. Thursday.
That same day, Swift tweeted a reminder that TTPD is out in two days. Normal, factual. However. She used the peace sign emoji in place of the number 2, or spelling it out, which feels like a significant choice.
In a pop-up Spotify installation at Los Angeles’ Grove Mall this week ahead of the album, which Spotify heralded as “highly curated to represent the direction of the new record,” fans spotted several clocks set to, you guessed it, 2:00. And take a gander at this logo for TTPD:
Negative space in the wordmark forms a Roman numeral two: II. Too (2?) much of a coincidence, if you ask me.
On the library-style display shelves, there are also plaster casts of two hands holding up two fingers each. One is black and one is white, and they appear to be a right-left set, suggesting not only two albums, but, again, a yin and yang relationship between those two albums. Take another look at the logo, specifically the far right where the P and D meet. That also looks like a yin yang and, if you squint your eyes and say Bloody Mary into the mirror three times, also looks like the letter R inside a circle.
Why It Might Be Reputation (Taylor’s Version)
Swift has only two re-recorded albums she has yet to release in her quest for ownership of her masters: Reputation and her self-titled debut. Before her Grammys announcement of TTPD, there were plenty of hints that Rep would be next. There was the strategic use of snakeskin, the part of the Eras Tour where she frees the past versions of herself onstage but can’t crack Rep-era Taylor’s cage, and on and on. Audiences are already primed for the release.
That said, there’s the yin and yang of it all: Reputation has several songs that are seemingly about meeting and falling in love with one Joe Alwyn, with “Dress” seeming to reference meeting him at the 2016 Met Gala, “King of My Heart” positioning herself as his “American Queen,” “Delicate” being dazzled by his eyes, “never seen that color blue,” and so on. Reputation, which notably featured a monochrome color scheme as well, just saying, is all about coming out of a dark period and finding someone who “likes me for me.” Now, TTPD has a new color temperature, though still moody monochromes, and it’s looking to be heavily influenced by her split from Alwyn, her brief relationship with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, and her life in the past two years since 2022’s Midnight. TTPD and Reputation could be seen as a set, and there’s little doubt that after taking in the new album, fans will turn to Rep to recontextualize. If the (Taylor’s Version) project is for ownership over her songs, it would also make sense for Swift to profit off those streams by pointing listeners to the fresh edition, one that she owns entirely.
Poetically, since we’re in the department and all, releasing the final two (Taylor’s Version) albums in this order would mean reclaiming first her reputation, and, finally, with the re-release of her debut album, her own good name.
There’s also Target to consider. The retailer will have an exclusive version of TTPD, but some shelves with barcodes labeled “Serpentine” have been spotted as locations prep for the release. When the UPC is scanned on the Target app, it leads to another version of TTPD, but. But! Could that be a placeholder, to be swapped in for, oh, say, Reputation (Taylor’s Version) at the last moment? Not only does “Serpentine” work as a code name for its snake imagery, it also has the same number of letters as “Reputation,” a method that Swift has talked about using in the past while working on Folklore.
Finally, murals have been going up in cities around the world ahead of the TTPD release, leading to short teaser clips. One of these features the message “Error 321,” which also appeared on her website the night of the Grammys. One meaning of this error is associated with a bad disc or cassette, with a suggestion to insert a new cassette or turn the disc over. Hmm, like a double album? Is this a glitch, much like the title of the song on (you guessed it) Reputation?
That’s not to mention the possible numerology at play: 3+2+1=6, and Reputation is Swift’s sixth album. The Spotify popup also has a card catalogue with six drawers open, and her relationship with Alwyn lasted about six years. So, there’s that.
Also when Swift performs “Delicate,” one of those Joe songs on Reputation, in concert, fans shout “1, 2, 3, let’s go bitch!” If you reverse that, naturally, you get 321. Could she be signaling that she’s going back in time to the Reputation era to revisit that relationship, and taking us along for the ride?
Whether we’re in for a surprise double drop or not, class is in session. Part of the fun of being a Taylor Swift fan is the extra credit: Comparing notes on Easter eggs and decoding winks to committed listeners, leading the study group’s discussion even some topics most assuredly won’t show up on the final exam. Like the work of the ink-stained wretches Swift hopes to evoke with The Tortured Poets Department, close reads of her work, and indeed her life, and holding what you find up against your own lived experience, is part of the joy of the experience.
A representative for Taylor Swift did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair‘s for comment.
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