Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ drops

Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated record "The Tortured Poets Department" on Friday — the 11th studio album from the megastar who is already having a blockbuster year.

"New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out now," she wrote on her Instagram account, ending the announcement with a heart emoji.

Two hours later she posted: "It's a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album.

"I'd written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here's the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn't mine anymore... it's all yours."

Swift had revealed the album's release at the Grammys in February, a night that saw the 34-year-old billionaire win a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year prize.

With the drop of "Tortured Poets" in the United States at midnight Eastern time (0400 GMT Friday), the artist could be on track for a fifth.

Since her bombshell announcement, Swift's loyal legion of Swifties had been working around the clock shelling out fan predictions.

The working theory has been that the album centers on her ex, British actor Joe Alwyn, who Swift dated starting in 2016 until they broke up about a year ago.

Alwyn ("The Favourite") and fellow actor Paul Mescal ("Normal People") revealed in 2022 that they had a group chat entitled "The Tortured Man Club," which also included Andrew Scott ("Fleabag," "Ripley").

The Swifties think their queen's album title is a likely reference to that text circle.

Announcing the album release Swift wrote: "An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author's life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up."

Before their breakup, Alwyn had multiple songwriting credits on her albums under a pen name, William Bowery.

Swift had already revealed the tracklist, with titles including "So Long, London," "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" and "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived."

Florence + The Machine is among those set to make cameos on the album, as is Post Malone, who Swift said Thursday will feature on her first single "Fortnight."

"I've been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever," she wrote on Instagram.

Swift said a video companion for the track will come out late Friday after the album drops.

Agence France-Presse