Take your seat because Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department meeting has officially been called into session.
The Grammy-winner released her highly anticipated 11th studio album today, appearing on Apple Music around 15 minutes prior to its scheduled release time of midnight in the US (2pm AEST).
The 16-track album has a moody and chill sound with classic Taylor lyrics reflecting what sounds like her internal monologue.
To mark the occasion, Swift herself wrote that the album is "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" on Instagram page today.
"This period of the author's life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted," she wrote.
"This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that's left behind is the tortured poetry."
Tortured Poets includes 16 tracks with one bonus track titled The Manuscript.
It features collaborations with Post Malone on a track titled Fortnight, the album's lead single, and with Florence + The Machine on a song titled Florida!!!.
The music video for Fortnight will be released at 10am tomorrow AEST, according to Swift, who wrote on her Instagram page yesterday that she's been "such a huge fan" of Post Malone "because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever".
Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, two of Swift's frequent songwriting and producing collaborators, are credited as co-writers on a number of songs throughout the album, with Swift being credited as the sole writer on two – My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys and Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?
The Tortured Poets Department comes amid Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour and Grammy wins earlier this year, and is on track to more than exceed sales and streaming expectations.
"This is probably the most anticipated album ever that I've seen in my career," Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer & president for iHeartRadio, told CNN in a recent interview.
"It's not just a music event, it's a pop culture event that I think that everybody in America will be talking about and celebrating together."
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According to Spotify, the album yesterday became the most pre-saved album in the music streaming platform's history.
In February, Swift announced the album at the Grammys, while accepting the award for best pop vocal album for 2022's Midnights.
"It was really a lifeline for me," Swift said of Tortured Poets during a February concert in Melbourne, according to video footage posted to social media.
"Just the things I was going through, the things I was writing about," she said.
"It kind of reminded me why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life."
