It doesn't mean you're a Taylor Swift hater to concede that The Tortured Poets Department is a slog. 

This is a heavy record, a long record -- especially when doubled in size for The Anthology version -- and a record that doesn't play like it was necessarily meant to satisfy anyone but Taylor Swift herself. As a result, it proved one of the more contentious articles to date in the Swift canon, with both fans and critics divided over we really needed so much mid-tempo self-scrutiny from our girl Taylor. And for a pop record of its stature, The Tortured Poets Department really doesn't make it easy on you: it's more than an hour of wordy slow jams, half of them on the synth-y side akin to Midnights and cooked up with right-hand-man Jack Antonoff and the other half on the folk/country side conjured with the National's Aaron Dessner in the spirit of Folklore and Evermore.

All that debate, of course, didn't stop The Tortured Poets Department from topping the year-end charts in 11 territories and selling something like six million copies worldwide. Which goes to show that, even in the absence of a truly bangin' single and 100% popular support, Taylor Swift can do whatever she damn well pleases at this point and get away with it spectacularly.

The "smoke gray" version includes the bonus track "The Albatross."