Taylor Swift fans are buzzing with excitement as the singer’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, appears to have leaked online a day before its official release.
The leak has caused a frenzy among fans who have been sharing tracks on social media platforms, with some mentioning a Google Drive link containing the full 17-song list.
While some Swifties have eagerly dived into the leaked music, others are adamant about waiting for the official release on Friday out of respect for the artist’s hard work. The BBC has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment on the situation.
The singer first announced the upcoming album, her 11th studio album, at the Grammy Awards in February. It will be her first collection of entirely new material since the release of Midnights in October 2022.
On social media platform X (formerly Twitter), fans expressed mixed reactions to the leaked tracks. Some fans refused to listen to the leaked music, emphasizing the importance of waiting for the official release. Others flooded the platform with false links to confuse users and prevent them from accessing the leaked content.
Speculation arose that the leaked tracks might be artificial intelligence-generated fakes, but some of the “AI” tracks turned out to be older, lesser-known songs by Swift. This isn’t the first time Swift has encountered issues with AI, as X had previously blocked searches for her name due to explicit AI-generated images circulating on the site.
Despite the leak of her previous album, Midnights, which also occurred ahead of its official release, Swift’s commercial success was not tarnished. The album sold 1.6 million copies in its first week in the US and went on to win Album of the Year at the Grammys, making Swift the first artist to clinch the award four times.
Fans have been eagerly anticipating Swift’s new album as it will provide new material for her blockbuster Eras tour, scheduled to hit Europe this summer. Earlier this month, Swift made headlines for entering the Forbes World’s Billionaires List for the first time with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion, alongside other notable figures like Elon Musk and the creator of the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
