At midnight on 19 April 2024, Taylor Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, her eleventh studio album, and within two hours she stunned the internet by doubling it: a surprise second disc, The Anthology, brought the total to 31 songs. It was a release engineered for the streaming age, and it broke records across the board.
The album, a dense, confessional work reflecting on heartbreak, celebrity and the public dissection of her relationships, debuted to enormous numbers: within its first week it was the most-streamed album ever on Spotify, and it moved more than 2.6 million units in the United States alone, becoming the fastest-selling album of the decade. Vinyl copies, pressed in lavish variants, flew off shelves.
The release arrived in the middle of the Eras Tour, the highest-grossing concert tour in history, and it sealed a year in which Swift was, by almost any measure, the most powerful force in popular music. Her domination prompted questions about consolidation and her influence over the industry, but there was no arguing with the scale: in spring 2024, the story of music was, to a remarkable degree, the story of Taylor Swift.