The Tortured Data Viz Department by Kelsey Nanan

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour left an indelible mark on the cultural and economic landscape of 2024. According to the New York Times, over the course of 21 months and 149 shows, the tour boasted over two billion dollars, twice as much as any prior tour. Yet despite her whirlwind year, Swift managed to write and release her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” a searing 31-track album that covers themes like desire, fame, and heartbreak, and which she later included in her tour. This visualization is a celebration of that album—of its lyrics, themes, moods, and production. It highlights those songs she wrote unassisted, as well as those she produced with longtime collaborators. In addition to this objective data, I provided my own assessments for more subjective data, such as Song Themes, Mood, and Singability.

In design, this visualization seeks to emulate both the appearance of a vinyl record, as well as the sense of discovery and joy evoked by holding and exploring a physical album. The design was inspired by my own experience: as the owner of a turntable (as well as Swift’s records), I’ve found that in our current age of digital streaming, many of the quirks and intimacies of buying a physical album have been lost. Lyrical booklets, supplemental posters, behind-the-scenes photographs and notes from the artist—these are the treasured artifacts of a bygone era, mementos that once helped fans dive deeper into an album. With this visualization, my intention was to recapture some of this vintage magic in a modern way, giving fans the chance to further explore “The Tortured Poets Department”.

“The Tortured Data Viz Department” can exist both as a standalone static visual and, for those superfans wishing to delve deeper into the album, as an interactive visualization. For the latter, they’ll immediately find an introductory animation inspired by Swift’s “Fortnight” music video–specifically, a moment in the video where an EKG reading of Swift’s heartbeat is evocatively transformed into lyrics from the song. In my visualization, I adapted this moment into a pulse that travels around the record’s perimeter, turning from a sound wave into a heartbeat. Once the user begins to interact however, this animation disappears and the full visualization is displayed. In it, each legend and song are interactive. Hovering over a value on any of the three legends (Themes, Singability, and Mood) will highlight songs of the same value. Alternatively, hovering over an individual song will highlight its Theme and Singability, as well as a rotating selection of the song’s most poignant lyrics. Finally, there’s also the option to choose a dark or light version of the entire visualization (or rather, a record or CD version).

Much of the joy in creating this visualization came from the desire to translate my love for this album into an interactive experience. “The Tortured Poets Department” solidifies Taylor Swift’s standing as a songwriter fully in her element, doing it for the love of her craft. Hopefully this visualization is a worthy depiction of such an album.