Swiftie speculation: What you need to know about Taylor Swift's new album

It's only April, but it's hard to imagine any album will be heard more this year than Taylor Swift's The Tor‐ tured Poets Department.

The album took less than 12 hours to break this year's record for most single-day Spotify streams, and is pro‐ jected to sell two million units in its first week. On Thursday, Spotify announced it had broken the record for the most pre-saved album in the platform's history.

Swifties have known it was coming since February, when the singer announced it while accepting a Grammy Award for her previous al‐ bum, Midnights. But Swift surprised fans after its mid‐ night E.T. release by dropping an additional 15 tracks at 2 a.m. Friday.

"It's a 2 a.m. surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album," Swift wrote on Instagram. "I'd written so much tortured po‐ etry in the past two years and wanted to share it all with you, so here's the sec‐ ond instalment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn't mine anymore … it's all yours."

Fans stayed up all night

Swift had cryptically teased a 2 a.m. countdown as part of an elaborate mar‐ keting campaign in the leadup to the album, which even included a physical "library installation" in Los Angeles, curated with items that dropped hints and refer‐ ences to the inspirations be‐ hind the songs.

The hype boiled over after tracks from the album leaked online Wednesday, causing a frenzy on social media.

WATCH | Swiftie talks about the new Taylor Swift album:

Karleena Squires in Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L., a self-de‐ clared Swiftie, the nickname for the singer's fanbase, says she stayed up for the album drop at 1:30 a.m. Newfound‐ land time Friday. She said she was surprised by the an‐ nouncement of the addition‐ al tracks, which also she stayed up to listen to, two hours later.

Squires told CBC News she loves The Tortured Poets Department, saying it is dif‐ ferent from Swift's past re‐ leases, but with hints and callbacks to older albums.

"This one feels like it's truly completely from her heart, for probably one of the first times ever, where the full album is really a deep dive into what she's been going through for the last few years," Squires said.

The album has been met with plenty of critical acclaim, with Rolling Stonecalling it "wildly ambitious and glori‐ ously chaotic," although some critics called it a weak effort - Exclaim!called it "mud-tier" synthpop with "mushy and monotonous production."

Ex-boyfriends celebrity feuds

Fans have been fervently speculating online about the and meaning behind the songs, and specifically, who they were written about. Some as‐ sumed the album would focus on Swift's six-year rela‐ tionship with British actor Joe Alwyn that ended last year, while others pined for dirt on The 1975 lead singer Matty Healy, whom she briefly dated last summer. Both camps appear to have been satisfied, as fans have picked out potential references to both men.

The lyrics have also been met with mixed reviews. Many Swifties said they deeply resonated with the themes, while others poked fun at lines like, "You smoked then ate seven bars of choco‐ late; we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger ar‐ tist; I scratch your head, you fall asleep; like a tattooed golden retriever." Many have speculated that bit, taken from the title track, to be about Healy, a tattooed smoker whose band has a song called Chocolate.

So Long, London, mean‐ while, could be about Alwyn, whom she lived with in the U.K. "Thinkin', how much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me? Oh, the tragedy," she sings. "So long, London, you'll find some‐ one."

Fans have said they be‐ lieve the track thanK you aIMee, from the 2 a.m. re‐ lease, to be a jab at socialite and fellow billionaire Kim Kardashian, with lines like, "All that time you were throwin' punches, I was buildin' somethin'," and "I can't forgive the way you made me feel."

Swift has been known to hide messages in the capital‐ ization of certain letters, in this case spelling out "Kim." She and Kardashian have a long-running feud that started when rapper Kanye West, whom Kardashian later married and has since di‐ vorced, interrupted her on‐ stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards to declare that singer Beyoncé should have won the award Swift was re‐ ceiving.

The references are not limited to the living. The final track from the midnight re‐ lease is titled Clara Bow, after the superstar actress from the silent film era of the 1920s.

"You look like Stevie Nicks in '75, the hair and lips," Swift sings. "Crowd goes wild at her fingertips, half moon shine a full eclipse." Nicks, who rose to stardom with the band Fleetwood Mac and has also had a successful solo ca‐ reer, contributed directly to The Tortured Poets Depart‐ ment, writing a poem fea‐ tured prominently in the liner notes.

Swift, who was added to Forbes magazine's annual new billionaires list earlier this month, released the al‐ bum while on a short break from her globe-spanning Eras Tour, also the subject of a Disney+ concert film.

The Tortured Poets De‐ partment is her 11th studio album.