Taylor Swift adds “Fortnight” music video to her massive release day

"Fortnight" (feat. Post Malone) is the first track and leading single off The Tortured Poets Department

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Taylor Swift adds “Fortnight” music video to her massive release day
Taylor Swift in the Fortnight video Screenshot: YouTube

While it will probably take a few more days for all the reactions, close readings, and fervor over The Tortured Poets Department to really crystallize, one thing that’s immediately clear about the album is its sheer mass. Including its surprise, 16-track sister album, The Anthology, TTPD is a 31-song, two-plus hour behemoth, covering “a daunting amount of lore,” in the words of The A.V. Club’s Mary Kate Carr.

But Taylor, clearly going for quantity over what could have been slightly more curated quality this time around, isn’t stopping at just 31 songs. (Has she ever?) Swifties were also fed a music video for leading single “Fortnight” today, which features the musical stylings of Post Malone.

Taylor Swift – Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) (Official Music Video)

The video itself has some throwbacks to classic Hollywood, although in a pretty horrific way—including what feel like some visual references to The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. The visuals tell a love story between Swift’s characters and those played by Post Malone; it also features the bizarre visual of Swift wiping her face to reveal Malone’s tattoos underneath. Also, Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke are hanging out in there, along with a few references to The Shining and other classic horror flicks.

“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. I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on Fortnight,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post announcing the release. (Swifties with a Ph.D. in Easter egg spotting will also notice that Taylor’s white dress in the video looks a whole lot like the one she wore to announce the album at the Grammys earlier this year. Hmm.)

“I was a functioning alcoholic/‘Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” Swift sings in the song’s first verse, so The Shining is actually a pretty apt allusion to make for this video in particular. “I love you, it’s ruining my life,” she intones later on. While Taylor is referencing Matty Healy an unnamed ex-lover here, the line could just as easily apply to the pop star’s massive fanbase. While Swift hasn’t announced any additional videos from the album as of this writing, Swifties will likely have lots of plans to cancel if they want to catch what are sure to be numerous future premieres over the course of the next few weeks. Meanwhile, Swift dropped all the lyric videos to her recent releases on YouTube at the same time the video went live, so get to sifting, Swifties.

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