Taylor Swift’s 11th original studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was released last week into a world feverishly gripped by anticipation for a Taylor Swift album. Some were primed to adore her latest work, which Swifties broadly expected to be a thorough excavation of her relationship with her ex-partner of six years, actor Joe Alwyn; others were primed to mock and flame it. We, two rather casual Swift fans, were drawn in by the sheer intensity of the gathering discourse — not to mention our own anticipation of another album. And after almost a week of listening and relistening to the album, following the critical reactions to it, and stewing in the public debates raging about it, we decided we were ready to wade in.
But not without help! For this conversation, we’re joined by writer, critic, and Taylor Swift scholar B.D. McClay, (
),who has written some of our favorite pieces of Swiftian criticism. You can find her work at outlets like The New Yorker, The Baffler, and Commo…
