Dear Gossips,
Taylor Swift will release her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, a month tomorrow.
Taylor has been back in the US for just over a week now following the conclusion of her tour stop in Singapore, flying straight out of Asia to be back in time to hit up Madonna’s Oscar afterparty with Travis Kelce. Last week the big work priority for her was the release of The Eras Tour movie on Disney Plus. Most of the promotion for that though was limited to pre-recorded videos. Because Taylor, quite smartly, has been keeping a low profile so far while back in LA. There were no photos of her and Travis after the Oscars; she and Travis were reportedly out for dinner the other night at Bird Streets Club and ran into Disney head Bob Iger but there are no photos of that outing either.
TNT were very outside for six months during the NFL regular and post-season. But the priority now is the album and I’m so curious to see what the promotional rollout for that will be. You’ll recall, on September 21, exactly a month ahead of the release of Midnights in 2022, she started doing that whole lottery cage series, 13 episodes on TikTok with a random ping pong ball corresponding to one of thirteen song titles from the album that she revealed in succession. It’ll be interesting to see then what games and Easter egg hunts she has planned this time around for Swift Nation.
As many Swifties have already pointed out, there is historical significance to April 19, the day that Tortured Poets is coming out. The Battles of Lexington and Concord happened on April 19, 1775, marking the start of the American Revolution. This is when America began its fight for independence from the British. The expression “the shot heard around the world” comes from this event and I’m sure I don’t have to explain how this might apply to Taylor Swift and her own romantic history. Taylor is too meticulous not to know this. Like even if it wasn’t her original intention to drop an album for this reason on this day, it is unlikely that she wouldn’t have done a simple google search to look up what other moments that day is associated with.
Shots fired then…and now?
We’re one day and one month away from another Taylor Swift album cycle. And you know what would make the whole April 19 thing even more hilarious? If she somehow dropped a lyric about American independence about Meghan Markle, LOL. Probably not, because I can’t imagine Taylor wanting to jump into that royal mess, but she’s not the only one who broke up with England.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
