So it seems to me that things like tortured poets department and midnight have been more mellow than her previous albums such as 1989 and reputation. Personally, I don’t like them as well. They are still good. There’s no question about that, but I prefer the more upbeat style she used in reputation, especially.
Edit: Pretty sure my favorite song from Tortured Poets Department is probably “Down Bad”.
I prefer Midnights to TPD - I’ve played the former on heavy repeat, but have found is easy to forget about TPD. This is partly my fault for downloading the Anthology - it turns out there’s such a thing as too much Swift. I got into her because of ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore’, and I’ve never gone back and listened to much of her earlier stuff (I remember liking the music video for ‘Shake It Off’, though).
My favourite song from Tortured Poets is probably ‘I can do it with a broken heart’. It doesn’t feel that much different than ‘Down Bad’ tbh, which is part of my problem with the album (it’s all a bit samey). My other problem is that break-up songs are usually more about the idea of a break-up, and are relatable to your own circumstances, but there’s songs on there that are too specifically about the break-up with one particular dickhead bloke, and I’m left realising I’m not enough of a fan to know who’s she on about.
Same actually, I downloaded the anthology specifically because it had more tracks than the other one did. I paid a little bit more money for it, but I figured if I’m going to buy the album anyway, I might as well get everything I possibly can. Although my guess is that I’m missing exclusives that were on each version of the album or whatever, because she does that, which is kind of irritating.
I’m actually the same way, it’s been hard for me to listen regularly to TTPD, but Midnights I have on almost daily. You’re right, it almost feels like you have to know here really really well to enjoy this, and I don’t mean that in a good way. It’s less approachable or relatable because it’s so specific to her. Sometimes I like that, a whole album of it though is just… a bit depressing for me.