Taylor Swift sparks backlash by dropping 15 MORE tracks just two hours after fans shelled out over £100 to buy multiple versions of her new album The Tortured Poets Department

Just hours after Taylor Swift’s fans shelled out for her new album The Tortured Poets Department, the star sparked a social media frenzy by dropping 15 more tracks.

Despite already splashing out for multiple versions of the record in a bid to get their hands on all four bonus tracks, fans will have to part with even more hard-earned cash to get their hands on the super-sized record.

After releasing her new album at midnight ET (2am UK time), Taylor took to Instagram to announce her latest record was actually a surprise ‘double album,’ after sparking a flurry of speculation by posting a countdown clock on social media.

Captioning the post, Taylor told her followers that she’d written ‘so much tortured poetry in the past two years’ that she wanted to share it with her fans.

Sharing the double album was called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, she wrote: ‘It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️ 

‘I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.’

While the deluxe version is not yet available for Taylor’s website, there were four dfferent versions of the original album available, each containing a different bonus track, and priced at £13.99 ($17.38).

The vinyl version, including bonus track The Manuscript, costs £33.99 ($42.23), while a ‘phantom clear vinyl’ is price the same.

This means, that if Swifties were willing to splash out on every incarnation of the album, it’s already set them back over £140 ($174).

It remains to be seen how much more this new supersized version of the album, and its various vinyl counterparts, will cost. 

Despite the hefty price tag, many of Taylor’s fans, who were still dissecting the first 16 songs, went into meltdown that there were even more tracks for them to enjoy.

Posts included: ”Swifties are insane” babe TAYLOR SWIFT IS INSANE like girl what do you MEAN ”surprise!!” secret double album hehe;’

‘Ok Taylor Swift is incredible. She releases an album at Midnight… then 2 hours later announces it’s a surprise double album and drops another 15 songs?!’

‘A DOUBLE ALBUM. AND ONE OF THE SONGS IS CALLED CASSANDRA. I GET TO HEAR TAYLOR SWIFT SAY MY NAME. OK;’

‘I’M STILL RECOVERING FROM THE STANDARD EDITION BUT LETS DO THIS!!’

‘GIRL HOLD ON I’M STILL LEARNING THE FIRST!’ 

It’s possible that the money-making move had been orchestrated by the star’s money-savvy father, who previously garnered a $15.1 million payday when her catalog was sold to Scooter Braun in 2019.

At the time, Braun via his Ithaca Holdings company, purchased Taylor Swift’s original label, Big Machine Label Group, from then-owner Scott Borchetta, 60, for a $330 million sum. 

A rep for 33-year-old songstress in 2019 said that her father wasn’t aware of the deal and didn’t have foresight of what was in store to inform his daughter. 

Fans were already fraught with excitement when Taylor hinted another announcement was looming, just two hours after the release of her latest album.

After the 34-year-old superstar’s project, then just 16 tracks, dropped at midnight, Swift’s fans noticed that a two-hour countdown went live on her Instagram page. 

Many fans also speculated that the star might be planning to release her version of her 2017 album Reputation, in the same way she’s been re-recording her former records amid a battle for ownership of her work. 

Swift has teased the 2:00 o’clock on numerous occasions in the past weeks.

In a teaser video for the release of the album she had a clock on the wall which was stuck at the 2:00 o’clock hour. Fans pointed out that in that same clip she also had two stars around the name of the album. 

The clocks at the library pop-up and in her mysterious Fortnight music video announcement from earlier this week have all been set to 2 o’clock as well.

At her Tortured Poets Spotify library installation in Los Angeles there was a peace-sign statuette as well as another clock set to 2 o’clock.

Swift also made a two sign during her Grammys acceptance speech, the same night she announced the album for the first time. 

Other fans pointed out that the Tortured Poets Department logo itself looks like a Roman numeral two. 

A visual showing the album name also popped up on her account on Thursday. 

Regardless, the new record earned a flurry of praise from fans on social media, with fans quickly labelling the LP a ‘masterpiece.’

One typed, ‘IM CRYING RN. TAYLOR WE LOVE YOU!!!!’ while another added, ‘This is going to be the best album Taylor has made I know it.’ 

’13 seconds in and its already the best album,’ a follower penned, and one excitedly wrote, ‘OMG Taylor this is a masterpiece!! Thank you for this amazing album!! Love you.’ 

‘Me as soon as each track begins; ‘I love this song!’

‘I love it so much already; THIS IS THE BEST ALBUM YOU’VE EVER MADE.’ 

‘You literally have a way with words that no one else has, it’s SO breathtaking. THANK you for all that you do, once again. now if you’ll excuse me, I got an album to stream all day;’

‘Fortnight is so so soooooo good you and @PostMalone together #TSTTPD I can’t believe I went this long without you two on a track together! I’m so excited to delve into this album!’ 

‘the realization that this album is more about matty healy than joe alwyn; Joe Alwyn breathing a sigh of relief tonight #TTPD;

‘She so real for this. This album is so good and the same unique.’

‘It’s crazy but her saying that they think Charlie Puth should be bigger just confirms for me that the song is 100% Matty. That is exactly something Matty Healy would say;’

‘joe alwyn to matty healy tonight,’ a fan penned, along with a GIF of, ‘Call the ambulance! But not for me!’

‘joe alwyn you will begin to cough in two minutes,’ and shared the lyrics, ‘And I’m p***ed off you let me give you all that youth for free.’ 

Listeners commented on other lyrics, such as in the track titled, loml, where she sings: ‘And I’ll still see it until I die/You’re the loss of my life.’ 

Fans also mentioned Swift dropping names in the lyrics to Tortured Poets Department, with some theorizing she was referencing to pals Jack Antonoff and Lucy Dacus. 

‘THE LUCY DACUS AND JACK ANTONOFF NAMEDROPS??!?’ one wrote, and included the lyrics: ‘But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen.’

One fan included the lyrics, ‘At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on. And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.’ The Swiftie then added, ‘OH WHEN I CATCH HIM.’ 

Swifties had also been speculating since October about when the singer would announce and release her fifth ‘Taylor’s Version’ album. She released her fourth re-recorded album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) last October.

The star initially announced that she would re-record earlier versions of her albums in 2019, after Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun acquired Big Machine Records and her catalog of master recordings.

Swift re-recorded four of her albums – Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989 – and renamed them by adding ‘Taylor’s Version’ at the end of the album name.

Reputation is her sixth studio album, released on November 10, 2017. It was her last album under Big Machine Records.

She now only has two previous albums left to re-release: her self-titled debut album Taylor Swift from 2006, and Reputation.

As her new album hit streaming platforms Thursday night, Swift published a lengthy statement on Instagram where she described it as ‘an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.’

She continued: ‘This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted.

‘This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.

‘And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry,’ concluded Swift, as she announced: ‘THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT is out now.’

Along with her thought provoking words, the lyricist shared a slideshow of gorgeous black-and-white portraits as part of the album’s artwork.

The Bad Blood songstress – who recently teased a ‘timetable’ to her fans ahead of the LP’s release – initially announced the album while attending the 2024 Grammys earlier this year in February.

The title of her latest work had caused fans to speculate that the name was aimed at her ex, Joe Alwyn. And earlier this week, Swift appeared to reference the actor as she shared lyrics from the album on X.

Hours before the album dropped, Swift revealed that the album’s lead single would be Fortnight featuring rapper/singer Post Malone.

She also released a moody teaser for the song’s music video, which will be released Friday at 8pm EST (1am on Saturday UK time).

While taking to the Grammys stage two months earlier, Swift sent Swifties into a frenzy as she revealed that a new album was on the way.

In the captioned, she had penned, ‘All’s fair in love and poetry… New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out April 19,’ followed by a white heart emoji.

Since then, she has announced three additional versions of The Tortured Poets Department: The Bolter, The Albatross and The Black Dog. Each version – which could be pre-ordered by listeners – also contained an exclusive track.

One day after her album announcement, Swift dropped the official track list to the LP. She also has collaborations with other artists such as Post Malone on Fortnight and Florence & The Machine on the song called Florida!!!

As if 16 songs weren’t enough, fans learned Thursday that Swift included a ‘summary poem’ with the album, where she appears to allude to the end of her and Alwyn’s relationship as well as the fling with rocker Matty Healy that kicked off soon after.

Swift did not confirm that ‘Fortnight’ would be the album’s lead single until Thursday as she unveiled the cover artwork on social media.

‘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,’ she raved.

‘I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on ‘Fortnight’,’ added Swift.

Soon after, the Pennsylvania-born beauty teased the single’s black-and-white music video that stars both Swift and collaborator Post Malone.