Swifties are swarming The Grove in Los Angeles in a days-long hunt for clues about Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department (2024). In advance of the album’s April 19 launch, the singer-songwriter collaborated with Spotify on a three-day pop-up “library installation” that went on show within the open-air shopping mall yesterday, April 16, providing dozens of easter eggs in regards to the new album and different potential future tasks which have but to be formally introduced.
Before daybreak yesterday, over 1,200 followers of the artist lined up to sneak a peek on the set up, which is teeming with dark academia props together with seemingly worn manuscripts, typewriters, fountain pens, clocks, and cabinets lined with books.
According to Hyperallergic contributor Matt Stromberg, who was on the bottom, the group was generationally various, with a number of youthful guests attending with their mother and father and “a couple of guys wearing Iron Maiden and thrasher t-shirts.”
While the information of the pop-up could have followers excitedly lining up in an outside procuring heart earlier than daybreak, the precise set up itself has many Swifties divided on-line.
On X, customers had been fast to poke enjoyable on the set up’s tea-stained lyrics, which misspelled the phrase “talismans,” with one individual discovering humor within the pseudo-artifacts’ inclusion of a light Spotify brand:
Others took problem with the pop-up’s location within the beloved-and-hated luxurious industrial heart, which has been criticized over its parking policies:
But probably the greatest feedback got here from the Los Angeles Public Library, which couldn’t resist providing its ideas on the momentary set up:
Simply visiting the pop-up as soon as gained’t encapsulate all the expertise, because the makeshift library is frequently up to date every day, however followers unable to attend the pop-up for its whole run in-person can keep in-the-know on the most recent clues by way of the streaming service’s social media accounts — or by way of all of the memes and TikToks lampooning it.
“Additionally, followers ought to preserve their eyes peeled on the occasion and on Taylor’s countdown page for surprises main into Friday’s launch,” a press launch reads.
Regardless of whether or not audiences discover a “library installation” cheesy or tasteful, the pop-up attraction is simply the latest public relations gimmick Swift is at present utilizing to advertise her new music — a QR code mural in Chicago that’s a part of a global Swiftie puzzle apparently linked folks to a YouTube quick with the message “Error 321” and a light “13.” At the top of the day (9pm for those in line at The Grove), this appears to solely gas her devoted fanbase.
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