• Source: Fortnight (song)

"Fortnight" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift featuring the American singer-rapper Post Malone. The two artists wrote the track with Jack Antonoff, who produced it with Swift. Republic Records released it as the lead single from Swift's eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19, 2024. A 1980s-inspired downtempo electropop, synth-pop, and new wave ballad, "Fortnight" is instrumented by a pulsing synth bassline. Its lyrics portray a woman in an unhappy marriage who rekindles with an ex-lover who is also married, and the two vow to escape to Florida.
According to Swift, "Fortnight" explores "fatalism, longing, pining away, lost dreams." The single broke the record for the highest single-day streams on the streaming platform Spotify. In the United States, the song debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, marking Swift's twelfth and Malone's fifth number-one song. "Fortnight" earned Swift her fifth number-one single on the Billboard Global 200 chart and peaked atop the charts in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. The vocal chemistry between Swift and Malone in "Fortnight" was the subject of critical praise, but some critics found the production weaker compared to Swift's other singles. At the forthcoming 67th Annual Grammy Awards, "Fortnight" has been nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
A music video for "Fortnight", directed by Swift, accompanied the song's release. It stars Swift and Malone as lovers, and the American actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles as mad scientists experimenting on Swift. Employing a black-and-white aesthetic by Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, the video features clips of a gothic Swift in a psychiatric hospital, and a Victorian Swift romancing with Malone in an office. "Fortnight" garnered nine nominations at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, winning five, including Video of the Year, and won Best Video at the 2024 MTV Europe Music Awards as well. It has been nominated for Best Music Video at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards and the 32nd Camerimage festival.




Background and release



At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, Taylor Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department, her eleventh original studio album. The following day, she announced the track listing via social media; Post Malone was revealed to be the featured artist on the opening track, "Fortnight". She had worked on the album while on the U.S. leg of the Eras Tour in 2023. During an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, Malone said that Swift initiated the collaboration by simply "hitting him up". He then "rolled in the studio" and hung out with her, having a "good day" together. At the time of the interview, Malone revealed that he had not heard the full song yet.
The track was released as the lead single of The Tortured Poets Department on April 19, 2024, concurrently with the album's release. Republic Records serviced "Fortnight" to contemporary hit and hot adult contemporary radio in the United States, while Universal Music promoted it on radio airplay in Italy. The track was also made available for purchase as a CD single through Swift's online store in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and Germany and Switzerland.
A remix produced by Blond:ish was released on May 21, 2024. Starting from the May 2024 shows in Nanterre as part of the Eras Tour, Swift revamped the set list to include songs from The Tortured Poets Department in a new act, including "Fortnight". For its performance, the stage features a "TTPD"-emblazoned bed and dancers dressed as nurses. Swift sings the song as she sits on a typewriter, across from a dancer. On July 8, 2024, an acoustic version and a remix produced by Cults were released.




Music and lyrics



"Fortnight" is an 1980s-influenced downtempo electropop, synth-pop, and new wave ballad. Its subtle electronic production is instrumented by a pulsing synth bassline generated by 8-bit synth plucks. The song is written in the key of B major in common time signature with a tempo of 96 beats per minute. Some critics opined that "Fortnight" was stylistically similar to the music of Swift's 2022 album Midnights. Clash's Lauren Webb wrote that the track had a 1980s power ballad sensibility reminiscent of such artists as Roxette, Cutting Crew, and Phil Collins. Writing for Billboard, Jason Lipshutz observed how "Swift sings in a dulled monotone that flares up with the stabs of emotion" in the verses before Malone "swirls around her upon arrival" in the bridge.
Some American publications pointed to the fact that the title is a British English noun meaning "two weeks". The lyrics are about a woman's account of how she becomes a neighbor of an ex-lover, who is now married to another woman, while she herself is unhappily married. That she lives next-door to her ex-lover makes her fantasize about killing the wife ("Your wife waters flowers/ I want to kill her"). After the second verse, during the double chorus, Swift's character finds out about her husband's infidelity ("My husband is cheating/ I wanna kill him"). By the end, Malone's character, representing the ex-lover of Swift's character, sings about escaping to Florida ("Thought of callin' ya, but you won't pick up/ 'Nother fortnight lost in America/ Move to Florida, buy the car you want/ But it won't start up till you touch, touch, touch me").
In an album premiere special with iHeartRadio, Swift shared that the single "really exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout [the album]", including "fatalism, longing, pining away, lost dreams". She added, in a commentary for Amazon Music, that "Fortnight" displayed "fatalistic" themes with hyperbolic and dramatic lyrics ("I love you, it's ruining my life"), which represented the album. The New York Times' Lindsay Zoladz thought that the track is "chilly and controlled" until it "[thaws] and [glows]" after the lyric "I love you, it's ruining my life". In American Songwriter, Thom Donovan summed up the storyline as "a former love affair turning into a suburban nightmare". Consequence's Mary Siroky opined that the lyrics had a heavy "air of death" ("I want to kill him"), while USA Today's Melissa Ruggeri thought that they were "darkly funny" ("I was a functioning alcoholic 'til nobody noticed my new aesthetic"). Helen Brown of The Independent suggested that the lyrics were autobiographical, but Pitchfork's Shaad D'Souza suggested that they blended the confessional and fictional, evoking the songwriting of Swift's 2020 album Folklore.




Critical reception



Upon its release, the song received mixed reviews from music critics. Alli Rosenbloom of CNN described the song as a "dynamic first track" and "perhaps the album's catchiest", praising how Swift's and Malone's vocals go well together. Mesfin Fekadu of The Hollywood Reporter also picked it as an album highlight. In the Irish Independent, John Meagher opined that Malone's guest appearance was restrained compared to his usual tendency for "melodramatic performances", and the result turned out to be "all the better". Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph wrote: "His breathy singing voice dovetails surprisingly with Swift's angsty coo". Lipshutz ranked "Fortnight" fifth out of the 31 tracks on the double album edition of The Tortured Poets Department, praising how Malone's appearance suits well with Swift's vocals and gives the bridge "subtle power and hangdog charm". In PopMatters, Igor Bannikov complimented the "buoyant" synth-pop production and acclaimed the track as "the best opening track in her career". Zoladz complimented the lyrics, describing "Fortnight" as a "potent [reminder] of how viscerally Swift can summon the flushed delirium of a doomed romance".
In less enthusiastic reviews, Callie Ahlgrim of Business Insider and Laura Molloy of NME deemed "Fortnight" uninventive for Swift's artistry, arguing that its sound is too similar to Antonoff and Swift's previous collaborations. Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal labelled it "so-so". Variety's Chris Willman regarded the single as a good choice for pop radio, but he contended that it was "not much of an indication of the more visceral, obsessive stuff" for the album's remainder. Paste and Our Culture Mag's Konstantinos Pappis criticized the sound as empty and bland, while Alex Hudson of Exclaim! wrote: "I'm genuinely shocked that a seasoned hit-maker like Swift could possibly consider such a dreary, unmemorable song to be a single."




Commercial performance


After one day of release, "Fortnight" set the single-day streaming record for any song on Spotify, surpassing the all-time peak previously held by Mariah Carey's song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (1994). The single debuted atop the Billboard Global 200, marking Swift's fifth number-one song and tying her with Bad Bunny for the most chart toppers among solo acts. It was one of the 9 tracks from The Tortured Poets Department to debut within the top 10, extending Swift's number of top-10 entries to 33.
In the United States, "Fortnight" debuted at number 9 on Adult Pop Airplay and number 13 on Pop Airplay. It tied her own "Shake It Off" (2014) as the highest debut on the former chart, and “Bad Blood" (2015) as the second-highest debut on the latter chart. On the Adult Pop Airplay chart dated June 22, 2024, the single reached number one to become Swift's record-extending 13th chart topper and Malone's second. On the Billboard Hot 100, "Fortnight" debuted at number one on the chart dated May 4, 2024, with first-week figures of 76.2 million streams, 31.1 million radio airplay audience impressions, and 19,000 copies sold. It registered as the second highest first-week streaming figure since Billboard removed YouTube song user-generated content from its chart metrics in 2020. As Swift's 12th number-one single and seventh number-one debut, it tied Swift with Ariana Grande for the most number-one debuts for a female artist. "Fortnight" also marked Malone's fifth number-one single and first number-one debut. The single spent two consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100.
"Fortnight" also debuted at number one and was Swift's fourth number-one single in the United Kingdom and 12th in Australia. The single also topped the charts in Canada, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Billboard's Hits of the World charts for Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Across other European territories, "Fortnight" reached the top five in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Belgian Flanders, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, and Iceland. The track peaked at number two on the chart for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In Asia-Pacific, "Fortnight" peaked in the top five of Billboard's Hits of the World charts for Taiwan and Indonesia.




Accolades






Music video



Swift wrote and directed the music video for "Fortnight", with cinematography handled by Rodrigo Prieto. Four hours prior to the album's release, Swift posted a teaser for the music video on social media. The music video was released on April 19, 2024. It has a black-and-white cinematography and features Swift and Malone as ex-lovers, and Dead Poets Society's co-stars Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles as mad scientists carrying out tests on Swift.
The video starts with Swift seen in a white dress, chained to her bed in a mental facility; the bed is suspended on the wall. After a faceless person comes to give her a "Forget Him" pill, Swift is seen wiping her face to reveal tattoos, before walking into a white room filled with typewriters with her and Malone typing; she is now seen in a black mourning Victorian dress. Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph thought that this part symbolizes Swift's grievance from a broken relationship, demonstrated by the switch from a white wedding dress to a black mourning dress. Slant Magazine's Alexa Camp wrote that Swift and Malone's typewriting was in "a sort of relationship rehabilitation center where they're tasked with reliving happier memories of each other".
The video then shows scenes of Swift and Malone embracing on a lone highway before being caught up in a tornado that causes loose papers to swirl around them; Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone thought that this part seemingly tells "the story of star-crossed lovers". Back at the mental facility, Swift is seen strapped to a gurney, in a laboratory. The doctors (Hawke and Charles) perform shock therapy on her as Malone watches from the side. In the final scene, Malone calls from a telephone booth that Swift is on top of in the pouring thunderstorm rain, on an isolated cliff. He ultimately comes out of the booth and grabs Swift's hand. The video ends with silent-film credits.
Swift shared via social media that the video summarizes the aspects of the album, "I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music. Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another". According to some publications, the music video evokes the 2023 movie Poor Things. Megan Thomas of CNN wrote that the video is "strange yet beautiful". Power thought that the video had a haunting quality, saying that "here, she gets under our skin like never before".




Personnel






Charts






Certifications






Release history






Notes






References

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• A Hard Day
• Inggris
• The Tortured Poets Department
• Daftar penghargaan dan nominasi yang diterima oleh Taylor Swift
• The Eras Tour
• Zoe Saldaña
• Madhuri Dixit
• MTV Video Music Award untuk Lagu Musim Panas
• Fortnight (song)
• Fortnight (disambiguation)
• List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 2024
• Down Bad (Taylor Swift song)
• 2024 MTV Video Music Awards
• List of Billboard Streaming Songs number ones of 2024
• I Can Do It with a Broken Heart
• The Tortured Poets Department
• List of songs by Taylor Swift
• Double Fine