Ritwik Shukla

Despite its fascination with novelty in sound and perspective, pop music originates and continues to thrive by grappling with fundamental questions. The perennial question: how does one handle a broken heart? Though it's a well-trodden theme, each experience of romantic failure carries its unique weight. A broken heart resembles a wailing infant, demanding comfort, and care until it matures and learns to cope. It remains evident in figures like Taylor Swift, who has long associated songwriting with the process of emotional healing, starting with one of her initial tracks "Teardrops on my Guitar" 18 years ago. Her 11th album, "The Tortured Poets Department," reflects this raw and confrontational flavor, with her emotions laid bare like blood on the pages of a classic tragedy. "Tortured Poets" represents the zenith of Taylor's repertoire, which is replete with tracks in which Taylor has taken us into the bedrooms where men pleasured or misled her, the bars where they charmed her, the empty playgrounds where they sat on swings with her and promised something they couldn't give. When she sings repeatedly that one of the most suspect characters on the album told her she was the love of her life, she's sharing something nobody else heard. That's the point. She's testifying under her own oath. If I have to recommend one song from the album - it'd be "Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?" which is a song for all the misunderstood, silent teenagers who were forced to grow up and fight their own battles even when they needed to be protected the most, those who were a child trapped in adult bodies, who were yelled at for being too childish and getting beaten for not being 'mature enough', those who were laughed at as a joke, who had parents but never got a family, who had a house but never got a home, whose innocence was so psychologically abused that they started to hate everyone, including themselves. This is written for all the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' stans who were so full of love, but never got an ounce in return. This album will take time. It is NOT for everyone. Nor it should be. All is fair in love and tortured poetry...