ICYMI, pop superstar Taylor Swift announced she has a brand new album coming out April 19 titled The Tortured Poets Department.
The singer—who is back out on the road with her intensely popular Eras Tour this week, kicking off with four consecutive shows in Japan—won two Grammys over the weekend, including the highest honor, Album of the Year. This win was historic, making Taylor the first artist in history ever to win the coveted award four times, breaking her tie of three wins with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon.
Earlier in the night, after winning her 13th Grammy of all time for Best Pop Vocal Album, the artist took to the stage and used her speech to announce the aforementioned album to the absolute shock of her devoted fanbase, who were completely primed for her to announce the rerecording of Reputation next—not an entirely new album.
In the time since the announcement, her new album’s title has sparked a lot of conversation and even more memes with Swifties cracking jokes left and right, which only continued when she later revealed the full track list of songs:
However, some sharp-minded Swifties were quick to notice a link between the album’s title and Taylor’s ex, actor Joe Alwyn.
Taylor and Joe dated for six years, keeping their relationship extremely private from the public the entire time, though Taylor was always open that many songs on her albums Reputation and Lover were about Joe, and that Joe even helped co-write songs on Folklore and Midnights under a pseudonym.
When their break-up was announced back in April of last year, many fans joked that we’d have a break-up album coming soon, with many Swiftie conspiracies even pointing to the theory that the Midnights album was their break-up album.
However, over the past few days, folks have called attention to a couple of old interview clips involving Joe and a group chat of actors he was a part of—a group chat which was apparently named “The Tortured Man Club”:
Naturally, fans were very quick to link the two titles, believing that this confirms that the album will not only be mostly about Joe—but it will be a classic Taylor Swift scorched Earth break-up album:
And of course there were a few who took issue with the idea that a billionaire could be a “tortured poet” in the first place:
Whether this album title is a direct reference to the group chat or merely a coincidence (though, given Taylor’s track record of Easter eggs—that’s highly doubtful) remains to be seen, so be sure to catch what’s destined to be another hit album when The Tortured Poets Department is released on April 19.
