Taylor Swift put together five Apple Music playlists about heartbreak and released them to her devoted fanbase on Friday.
The 34-year-old pop star is awaiting the release of her album The Tortured Poets Department, which is thought to be structured around the stages of grief.
Adding grist to the rumor mill, Taylor has now treated her fans to five playlists representing five different emotional components of a breakup.
Each playlist contains some of Taylor’s own past songs, including old hits like Bad Blood and We Are Never Getting Back Together.
The playlists are indeed based on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ famous five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Taylor Swift put together five Apple Music playlists about heartbreak and released them to her devoted fanbase on Friday; pictured onstage in April during The Eras Tour
Out April 19, Taylor’s new album comes amid her flowering romance with Travis Kelce – but also her first album of new songs since her official split from Joe Alwyn.
She boasts a formidable A-list dating history, ranging from John Mayer and Calvin Harris to Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Hiddleston, among many others.
However some fans have speculated that The Tortured Poets Department is specifically about the end of her six-year relationship with Joe.
Her first Apple Music playlist is called I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life and is full of old Taylor Swift songs connected to the denial stage.
In a personal message before the music, she says: ‘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.’
Songs in the playlist include Lavender Haze, Betty, Cruel Summer, Style, Treacherous, Untouchable and her duet with Lana Del Rey, Snow On The Beach.
Next comes You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs, which is about the anger stage and is sprinkled with some of her most enduring hits.
‘Over the years, I’ve learned that anger can manifest itself in a lot of different ways,’ Taylor said in her message: ‘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.’
Out April 19, Taylor’s new album comes amid her flowering romance with Travis Kelce, whom she is pictured with at one of his NFL games in January
However some fans have speculated that The Tortured Poets Department is specifically about the end of her six-year relationship with Joe, whom she is pictured with in 2019
For the bargaining stage, she assembled a playlist called Am I Allowed To Cry? comprised of songs in a plaintive mode like I Wish You Would and Afterglow
Her classic songs Bad Blood, I Knew You Were Trouble, We Are Never Getting Back Together, Dear John and Better Than Revenge are all included in that playlist.
For the bargaining stage, she assembled a playlist called Am I Allowed To Cry? comprised of songs in a more plaintive mode.
Taylor explained in her message to the fans: ‘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.’
The Great War, This Is Me Trying, Death By A Thousand Cuts, Soon You’ll Get Better, I Wish You Would, Better Man and Afterglow are part of the playlist, among others.
For the next stage – ‘the feelings of depression that often lace their way through my songs,’ in Taylor’s words – her playlist is called Old Habits Die Screaming.
‘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 explained.
Some of the songs she bundled into Old Habits Die Screaming were You’re Losing Me, My Tears Ricochet, Champagne Problems and Forever Winter.
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart Songs is the final playlist, centered on acceptance, which is to say ‘making room for more good in your life, making that choice because a lot of time when we lose things, we gain things too.’
Her playlists come after her collaborator Jack Antonoff shut down an interview after being asked if he was working on The Tortured Poets Department; he is seen in March in NYC
Midnight Rain, Labyrinth, Closure, I Forgot That You Existed, Now That We Don’t Talk, Innocent and Breathe are all part of that grouping of songs.
Her playlists come after her collaborator Jack Antonoff shut down an interview when he was asked if he was working on The Tortured Poets Department.
The songwriter and record producer, 39, has frequently worked with Taylor in the past, hung up on a Dutch news outlet NRC after being questioned about the project, as per Page Six.
‘You know I don’t talk about that. If you’re looking for clickbait, you’ve come to the wrong place. Thank you for this conversation,’ he said, before ending the interview.
Earlier in the conversation Antonoff — who recently slammed Swift’s nemesis Kanye West — mentioned Swift as he compared his latest project Bleachers with the music he has produced for Swift as well as songbird Lana Del Rey, 38.
‘I don’t see it as producing. I create music with my friends. It comes as it comes. I’m not the kind of producer who likes to give commands from behind a mixing console.’
The record producer, 39, who’s frequently worked with Swift, 34, in the past, hung up on a Dutch news outlet NRC after being questioned about the project; the two seen in 2024
‘I concern myself with the music itself; the way in which you can manage the creative process,’ he explained.
‘Success is a strange phenomenon. It distracts attention from the ordinary mechanisms that lead to good pop music,’ he added.
‘Being able to listen to each other well is one thing. The artists I work with trust that I can help them make their music better.’
Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s 11th studio album scheduled to be released on April 19.
Swift shocked fans when she announced her new album while accepting a 2024 Grammy in February for best pop vocal album for Midnights, which Antonoff co-produced. He also co-wrote 12 of the 13 songs on the LP.
It’s not the first time Antonoff has proved to be a fiercely loyal friend to Swift, after he defended her songwriting abilities and said questioning it ‘is like challenging someone’s faith in God.’
Two years ago, Gorillaz and Blur frontman Damon Albarn scoffed to the LA Times that the pop star ‘doesn’t write her own songs.’
Outraged, Jack took to Twitter to call the 55-year-old Englishman an ‘herb’ and wrote: ‘I’ve never met Damon Albarn and he’s never been to my studio but apparently he knows more than the rest of us about all those songs Taylor writes and brings in.’
‘You know I don’t talk about that. If you’re looking for clickbait, you’ve come to the wrong place. Thank you for this conversation,’ he said, before ending the interview; seen in 2021
Earlier in the conversation Antonoff mentioned Swift as he compared his latest project Bleachers with the music he has produced for Swift as well as songbird Lana Del Rey, 38
‘I don’t see it as producing. I create music with my friends. It comes as it comes. I’m not the kind of producer who likes to give commands from behind a mixing console’
Antonoff and Swift’s collaboration began sometime in 2013. Jack went on to write and produce songs on her albums 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and Midnights
‘I’m a little b**** sometimes,’ Antonoff told the LA Times last month about the Tweet.
‘But you come after my friend Taylor, you’re toast to me. [That] is like challenging someone’s faith in God. You just don’t go there.’
Damon decided to ‘apologize unreservedly and unconditionally’ after Taylor tweeted: ‘I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really f***ed up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.’
Last month Jack also slammed Kanye West and said he needs ‘his diaper changed’ amid the ongoing feud between the controversial musician and Taylor.
Kanye has feuded with Taylor ever since he crashed the pop idol’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs when she won the best female video prize for You Belong With Me.
At the time Kanye barged onto the stage and interrupted her acceptance speech, saying Beyonce deserved the award.
In recent weeks, Kanye, 46, has claimed he has actually been ‘been far more helpful to Taylor’s career than harmful’, and denied claims that she got him kicked out of the Super Bowl when he tried to ‘upstage’ her.
But hitting back at the rapper’s continued tirade, producer Jack said he ‘just needs his diaper changed so badly’.
Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s 11th studio album scheduled to be released on April 19
Swift shocked fans when she announced her new album while accepting a 2024 Grammy in February for best pop vocal album for Midnights, which Antonoff co-produced
Antonoff and Swift’s collaboration began sometime in 2013.
Jack went on to write and produce songs on the blonde billionaire’s albums 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and Midnights.
The New Jersey native – who wed Margaret Qualley on August 19 – produced the modern cover songs for Todd A. Kessler’s dismally-reviewed 10-episode Christian Dior biopic The New Look, which airs Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
Jack’s band The Bleachers released their self-titled fourth studio album on March 8.