‘folklore’

Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth album dropped July 24th. It came completely out of the blue, and not that anyone was expecting it to come so soon, but it’s certainly much different than what anyone expected TS8 to be. Let’s get into it.

First, my general feelings:

I like this album a lot. It’s very alternative and folky, not at all like the albums that preceded it. One of my biggest criticisms of “Lover” was that it wasn’t sonically cohesive, and that is certainly not the case this time around—this album knows exactly what it is. None of these songs are going to end up getting played to death by the radio stations the way songs like “End Game” or “I Knew You Were Trouble” were, but that’s okay: it isn’t Top 40 music and it doesn’t want to be.

As is supported by the fact that Taylor was nominated for several Grammys and won the Apple Music Award for songwriter of the year, the fact that she isn’t making pop music does not mean she’s not doing some of her best work. A lot of fans think this is her best work from a lyrical perspective since “Red”, which was an undeniable lyrical masterpiece. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, "Taylor Swift’s greatest strength is her ability to tell stories, and folklore is an album full of stories; her stories, fictional stories, historical stories, our stories.

Song by Song:

I’ve given each song two ratings out of ten, the first rating is how I felt about it after the first time I listened to it, the second is how I feel about it now, four months later and after dozens of listens.

“the 1”: 6.5/10, 6/10

An interesting way to open the album. It seems like a song that would’ve been a great slower moment on a more upbeat album, but was pretty much in line with the speed of the rest of this album, making it feel not all that exceptional.

“cardigan”: 5.5/10, 5/10

Centering this song around a cardigan was a choice. I hate that this song is the one that the radio stations are playing a little because it kinda drones on and I really don’t think it’s her best, and you need to have heard “betty” and “august” first to really get the most out of this track.

“the last great american dynasty”: 7/10, 8/10

This is one of my favorite songs. I love the history she incorporates, and the twist at the end where she brings it to current day and reveals that she bought Holiday House is a master stroke in lyrical revelations that hits you square in the chest. It transitions to being a song about her rather than about Rebekah Harkness, and it’s a much more eloquent and effective commentary on the modern and historical oppression of women than “The Man” ever hoped to be.

“exile” (feat. Bon Iver): 8.5/10, 7/10

One of the saddests song on the album, “exile” is a terrific example of how men and women have been trained by society to process their feelings. You see a woman express her feelings outwardly, and you see a man keep his feelings to himself and imploding as a result.

“my tears ricochet”: 7/10, 10/10

It’s kind of crazy that a bad business deal led Taylor to write one of her best songs, but that’s exactly what happened here. I hope Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun realize that the pain they inflicted on Taylor by effectively stealing the rights to her first six albums resulted in one of the best songs she’s ever written.

“mirrorball”: 6/10, 5/10

“mirrorball” is interesting. It’s very self conscious and sounds like something from the 80s. I can see why it may ben some people’s favorite, seriously, but it’s just a little slow for my taste and I don’t personally relate to it all too well.

“seven”: 6/10, 3/10

“seven” is just boring. I get that it’s about youth and innocence, which is a solid concept, but it feels like filler to me.

“august”: 5/10, 5/10

This is the second song in the trinity of “betty”, “august”, and “cardigan”, and I appreciate it for its role in telling that story, but otherwise, I don’t really love it. Its probably the most upbeat song on the album, but it just isn’t a bop.

“this is me trying”: 4/10, 2/10

This song is just… so slow and monotonous. I really don’t care for it at all.

“illicit affairs”: 9/10, 6/10

Originally one of my favorite songs on the album, “illicit affairs” just isn’t quite as great as I initially thought. It’s still a very potent story, but it’s extremely situational and not necessarily representative of a situation a ton of people have been in. It does illustrate a point Taylor made on the “folklore: the long pond studio sessions” film though, and that is that in a love triangle or other situation where someone leaves their partner to be with someone else, the person they leave for is rarely as much of a villain as society would have you believe. We’re all looking for the same things, and that’s usually not to sabotage someone else’s love life, it’s to find someone who completes our own and unfortunately we sometimes hurt others in that process. She said that in reference to “august”, saying that she wanted to show that the person on that side of a love triangle isn’t necessarily a bad person, but I think this song makes that point just as well.

“invisible string”: 6.5/10, 7.5/10

This track is very sweet, and it plays on the idea of destiny. As one of the more upbeat and happy songs, this may have been a good way to open the album and create a super smooth transition from “Lover”.

“mad woman”: 6/10, 5/10

Another commentary on how women are allowed to behave that’s better than “The Man”.

“epiphany”: 4/10, 5/10

Likely the slowest on the album, but not too bad. It tells modern stories and historical stories, and shines a spotlight on the despair and helplessness of some human experiences.

“betty”: 7.5/10, 8/10

First things first, I predicted the prominence of the harmonica on this track. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, this is one of the best songs on the album, and for the first several weeks, it was my favorite from this album. One of Taylor’s only songs (if not THE only song) from a male perspective, it’s the apology Taylor has been waiting for from all the men she’s written about before. It’s also the final song in the “betty”, “august”, “cardigan” trilogy, which when you look at it from a bird’s eye view, is on par with the complex, interwoven, easter egg-filled storytelling of J.K. Rowling. “betty” is told from the point of view of James, a seventeen year old boy who’s infidelity cost him a relationship he realized he valued after he lost it for a summer fling, told right after the end of that summer when he’s apologizing to his asking Betty and asking her for a second chance. “august” is told from the point of view of an unnamed character who remarks on the fleeting nature of her relationship with James, and this perspective is told a few months or years after the events took place. “cardigan” is told from Betty’s perspective, and expands on her process of dealing with the emotional hurdle of being cheated on and the wisdom she gained from it, and it’s told many years later. Tell me about another artist who writes all their own songs and is capable of telling stories like this that traverse multiple perspectives and time periods, I’ll wait.

“peace”: 5/10, 10/10

I think this is my favorite song on the album. This one is also very self conscious and emotionally raw. Like many of the other songs, it too is quite slow, but I love it.

“hoax”: 4/10, 5/10

“hoax”, on the other hand, is not my favorite. It has a few good lyrics but it’s a bit too slow and aimless at times.

“the lakes”: 8/10, 7/10

This is the most folky song on the album, and it really captures the vibe of the album better than any other song. It’s got a very Walt Whitman-y vibe. As the most “folklore”-y song, it’s hard for me to imagine Taylor coming up with a great song to transition out of this genre for her next album. Maybe we’ll stay here for a while longer, or maybe she’ll make a hard turn back towards pop or to country again. Or who knows, maybe she goes somewhere new entirely; this whole album was certainly unpredicted.

folklore: the long pond studio sessions

“folklore: the long pond studio sessions” is a film on Disney+. I hate that it’s only available on Disney+, though. I don’t have such a hard on for princess movies that I feel the need to pay $7 a month to watch them, so I was a little annoyed that it wasn’t available on a more mainstream platform (or multiple platforms), and there was a bad taste in my mouth from the start. Further adding to my distaste, I stayed up until midnight to watch it when it was released, but due to some presumed technical fuck up, it wasn’t available. I waited up for about 45 minutes but eventually went to bed. I found out the next morning that it didn’t actually go up until about 3:15 AM, which frankly just isn’t acceptable.

The film features Taylor Swift and some of her collaborators and fellow singwriters, including Jack Antanoff, Aaron Dessner, and Justin Vernon, talking through the backstories of these songs and performing them. Most fans had guessed that fellow “folklore” songwriter William Bowery was a pseudonym for Taylor’s boyfriend of four years, Joe Alwyn, and while he wasn’t present in the film, Swift did confirm that he was the pseudonymous songwriter.

It did provide a lot of color and context for various songs, and it made me like one or two of them a bit more. In particular, the backstory behind “this is me trying” went a long way toward making me tolerate my least favorite track. Not my favorite of Taylor’s concert films, but not bad. At least we got to hear each song, unlike with “Lover” (I WILL be bitter until we get a live performance of “Cruel Summer”.)

Final Notes

Someone on twitter noted that this is Taylor’s first album where the album artwork doesn’t feature a close up photo of her, and that that imagery definitely mirrors this album’s tendency to focus less on Taylor’s life and more on the lives and stories of others. I think that’s spot on.

I’m not a huge fan of her bangs in this era, but to each their own—it does fit the vibe.

Whenever the next album comes, I wouldn't be surprised to see her return to country. She was a great country artist because her songs had substance and weren’t all about the common tropes of beer, titties, and trucks, and guns, so I’m sure she could revitalize the country music arena (which is in desperate need of a rejuvenation). That said, my favorite album is “1989” and it’s very solidly in the pop column, so I’m personally hoping she’ll blow us all away with another record full of timeless pop smashes.