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.

We are joined by culture critic B.D. McClay of Notebook for this conversation!

Further Reading + Listening:

“Taylor Swift Still Isn’t Your Friend,” B.D. McClay’s 2023 Slate essay about the controversy surrounding Taylor’s relationship with Matty Healy

“Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome with B.D. McClay,” Know Your Enemy pod

"Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is written in blood," Ann Powers, NPR

“Come for the Torture, Stay for the Poetry: This Might Be Taylor Swift’s Most Personal Album Yet,” Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

“Taylor Swift seems sick of being everyone’s best friend,” Constance Grady, Vox

“The Real Reason Taylor Swift Dresses Like That,” Cathy Horyn, NYMag

It was sometime last year that it started to feel like Big Conversations about marriage and divorce were *everywhere.*

David Brooks was lecturing young people to “obsess less about your career and to think a lot more about marriage” because marriage rates have been falling. Emily Gould was contemplating leaving her husband and then not over on The Cut. …

Last week, New York Magazine’s The Cut published an all-time banger of a hate read — which is saying something, considering the run they’ve been on recently (from the “$50k in a shoebox” piece to the “tried to leave my husband and then realized I was just having a breakdown” piece). Grazie Sophia Christie’s floridly written and smugly framed essay, “The Case for Marrying an Older Man,” argues, with all the wisdom and certainty earned through 27 years on earth and 4 years of marriage, that leveraging youth and beauty to marry an older man is a cheat code for women, who are otherwise condemned to years of miserable labor alongside insufficient same-age partners.