Taylor Swift Curates Playlists Based on Stages of Heartbreak for Apple Music Ahead of ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Release
Swift will release her new album on April 19
Taylor Swift is telling the end of a “love story” on her terms.
On Friday, April 5, the pop megastar, 34, shared five exclusive playlists with Apple Music that explore the five stages of heartbreak — something fans had theorized her forthcoming album The Tortured Poets Department would be exploring.
According to a press release, with each playlist, Swift has chosen songs from her own catalog that fit each stage: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life Songs represents denial and features songs like “Lavender Haze” and “Style (Taylor’s Version).”
“This is a list of songs about getting so caught up in the idea of something that you have a hard time seeing the red flags, possibly resulting in moments of denial and maybe a little bit of delusion. Results may vary,” the 14-time Grammy winner told Apple Music.
On You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs, Swift tackles anger with songs like “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor’s Version).”
“These songs all have one thing in common, I wrote them while feeling anger. Over the years, I’ve learned that anger can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, but the healthiest way that it manifests itself in my life is when I can write a song about it, and then oftentimes, that helps me get past it,” she said.
With Am I Allowed to Cry? Songs, Swift dives into bargaining with tracks like “Soon You’ll Get Better” and “This Is Me Trying.” She explained that these songs embrace the act of “trying to make deals with yourself or someone that you care about.”
“You’re trying to make things better, you’re oftentimes feeling really desperate, because oftentimes we have a gut intuition that tells us things are not going to go the way that we hope, which makes us more desperate, which makes us bargain more,” she told Apple Music.
Swift tackles depression with Old Habits Die Screaming Songs, which features songs like “Champagne Problems” and “Forever Winter (Taylor’s Version).”
With this playlist, she dives into “the feelings of depression that often lace their way through my songs.”
“I often feel like when I’m either listening to songs or writing songs that deal with this intensity of loss and hopelessness, usually that’s in the phase where I’m close to getting past that feeling,” she said of the playlist.
The final playlist is I Can Do It with a Broken Heart Songs, which represents acceptance and features songs like “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Long Story Short.”
Swift said this collection of songs “represent making room for more good in your life, making that choice because a lot of time when we lose things, we gain things too.”
The “I Can See You” performer’s 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department — which she announced during the 2024 Grammys while accepting the award for best pop vocal album for Midnights — is due April 19.
