Post Malone Breaks Out of the Psych Ward

Taylor Swift welcomed followers to “The Tortured Poets Division” Friday night, debuting a music video for “Fortnight,” her first single off of her new album.

The music video options the singer-songwriter and Submit Malone, who options on the only, forged as ex-lovers who, per the lyrics, carried on an affair that solely lasted 14 days. Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who starred in “Useless Poets Society,” additionally make shock cameos as a pair of scientists finishing up exams on Swift, who overpowers the heavy equipment and sends it into electrical crackling. Intertitles evocative of silent cinema bookend the music video.

“I wished to indicate you the worlds I noticed in my head that served because the backdrop for making this music.  Just about every little thing in it’s a metaphor or a reference to at least one nook of the album or one other,” Swift wrote in an announcement on social media timed to the music video launch. “For me, this video turned out to be the proper visible illustration of this file and the tales I inform in it. Submit Malone blew me away on set as our tortured tragic hero and I’m so grateful to him for every little thing he put into this collaboration.”

“Fortnight” had been closely teased as the primary music video off of “The Tortured Poets Division,” although Swift solely formally introduced its debut shortly earlier than the brand new album dropped Friday at midnight.

“The primary single from The Tortured Poets Division is…………. Fortnight,” Swift advised her followers on Instagram Thursday afternoon. “I’ve been such an enormous fan of Submit due to the author he’s, his musical experimentation and people melodies he creates that simply stick in your head ceaselessly. I bought to witness that magic come to life firsthand once we labored collectively.”

Swift first introduced “The Tortured Poets Division” in her acceptance speech for greatest pop vocal album on the Grammy Awards — marking a swerve from what many followers anticipated could be a reveal of “Status,” one of many final two remaining albums in her “Taylor’s Model” re-recording mission. Pre-order hyperlinks promptly went up on Swift’s official web site and socials.

In Selection’s overview of “The Tortured Poets Division,” senior music author and chief music critic Chris Willman wrote that Swift’s newest “feels prefer it comes the closest of any of her 11 unique albums to only drilling a tube immediately into her mind and letting listeners mainline what comes out” and hailing it as “bracing, and wounded, and cocky, and — to not be undervalued on this age — handmade.”

Swift additionally shocked followers (and media members) by saying that “The Tortured Poets Division” was a secret double album, releasing 15 additional songs within the early a.m. to make the occasion launch that rather more eventful. The artist additionally broke Spotify information on launch day, with the album turning into the first-ever to achieve 200 million streams inside 24 hours.

Watch the “Fortnight” music video right here.