Even before its release, Taylor Swift’s new album is generating records and commotion

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AFPTaylor Swift during one of her concerts in Sydney, Australia

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 09:59

The new album by American pop star Taylor Swift has already broken a record on streaming service Spotify before its release. The record has been saved for release most often of all albums, with the so-called folds-function.

On the streaming service you can ‘save’ an album in your own account before release, so that the songs are immediately available to you as soon as they are available. According to Spotify, this has never been done so often as with Swift’s eleventh studio album. They just don’t say how often that was, and who the previous record holder was.

Taylor Swift fans were ready early this morning. The album, The tortured poets department, officially came online at 6 a.m. Dutch time. Officially, because the day before there was actually a glimpse of the new songs.

To rotate or not?

The album leaked prematurely. A link to a number of files on which Swift’s new songs could already be heard was circulated on social media.

That is why there was a discussion on Dutch radio stations yesterday whether anything from the new album should be played. DJ Barend van Deelen of NPO 3FM asked his listeners in his afternoon show, the majority of whom decided not to play the songs.

His Qmusic colleague Domien Verschuuren changed tack and played the latest single from the album in the afternoon, which Swift made with Post Malone. This earned him a lot of criticism from fans. “Disrespectful and disgusting,” was one of the comments on social media.

“Certainly with Taylor, the idea is that you want to listen to it in the way she intended,” a fan said this morning on NPO Radio 2. “So today, at 6 a.m..”

Double album

That was the moment when all fans were officially introduced to the sixteen songs. And there turned out to be even more: two hours after its release, an expanded version of the album was released, with another fifteen new songs. “I’ve written so much over the past two years and wanted to share it with you,” Swift wrote on social media.

It can count on enthusiastic responses from fans. “I was actually a bit nervous about it,” says Annelot Prins, who makes a podcast about the American pop star.

“She is so big and successful that you have to present a lot to keep everyone on friendly terms. But I think she does that with this album,” is her conclusion. “She creates something completely new, but with the sharp lyrics that we are used to from her. I am impressed.”