Taylor Swift — folklore

Part 1. Where I talk about myself.

To be honest, I feel a dilemma even covering this album. As a person who writes these things purely because he’s passionate about music, I feel like I should just write about whatever moves me. And Taylor Swift’s latest album, folklore, has absolutely moved me; perhaps not as much as many of the other albums about which I’ve spoken, but way more than the average album. But the truth is, you don’t need me to tell you about it. I mean, this is an album that broke the record for most streams within the first day of its release. It had over 80 million Spotify streams. It ‘broke’ Spotify. I do think I have some singular points of view about it, and I think I’m going to do a decent job of explaining them. I do believe I am adding something to this conversation. But at the same time, why not give this airtime to someone whose music broke nothing but their own hearts, because not enough people heard it? I don’t know; that’s a hard one to answer.

Part 2. Where I talk about the album.

Often I feel like folklore is attempting to pander to the parts of me that listen to indie electronic folk. Toned down percussions, muted snares, acoustic kicks, more or less completely absent hi-hats, a solid dollop of reverb. And also, by Taylor Swift standards, spare vocals. Often on this album, the emphasis with the vocals seems to be on a central melody sung simply, naturally. A cynic would say it’s a brazen attempt to wave and go, hey look at me, I’m indie. A more forgiving conclusion would be that the pandemic necessitated this approach. Either way, I like the spare vocal production here. I like that the instrumentation is vaporous, non-intrusive, moody, it’s no surprise that the National’s guitarist Aaron Dressner was the album’s main producer.

At over an hour long, however, the album tends to become a bit of a slog. I’ve discovered that my sweet spot for an album (as a listener) is between 35 and 45 minutes. That way it contains enough maal to just stay with, but not so much that your attention wanders. 63 minutes seemed, to me, self-indulgent. In most good albums with an excessive runtime, as with this one, the middle of the album is where the bloat is. That happens here too. Interestingly, this is also where there is a change in producer from the guy from the National to the guy from Fun. In most albums, this sort of change results in, at best, subtle shifts in philosophy, and, at worst, a complete mish-mash of tones; trust a once hiphophead about the consequences of having multiple producers on a single album being both positive a negative. For every Illmatic, there were hundreds of albums that sounded like a mess.

The album’s highlights are as follows:

the 1. The standout is the chorus: “But we were something, don't you think so? Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool / And if my wishes came true / It would've been you / In my defense, I have none / For never leaving well enough alone / But it would've been fun / If you would've been the one.

cardigan. I remember this song from listening to it several times around when the album came out. “When you are young they assume you know nothing”: these lyrics strike close to the heart. That’s the thing with pop lyricism: this magical intersection between relatability and authenticity. Speaking from the heart means speaking to experiences only you have had but doing so authentically suddenly means because of the quirk of human consciousness viz. empathy, everybody starts to go hmm, I get it; I’ve felt that way too.

exile. It has the harmonising I expected to find in a song by an artist that features Bon Iver. Take for example this James Blake song. It’s an indie take on the good ol’ duet. Boy sings and girl harmonises, then girl sings, then boy sings emotionally and girl harmonises, then both sing. That’s the thing with pop music. When done well, the formula works. That’s precisely why it exists. The trick is to balance the predictability of an old song structure with the security that comes with it. To say, it’s ok, the purpose here is for you to feel the feels. Go for it, I won’t betray you with a complex polyrhythm to interrupt your catharsis.

this is me trying. A lot of nose-in-the-air snooty types will comment that is super straightforward and that it’s been heard before, but I don’t agree. I mean, I do agree that it’s Getting it right is still ridiculously hard: verse, chorus with repeated refrain, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, end.  that’s the formula. It isn’t easy to execute.

epiphany. Powerful track.

betty. I know that’s a very powerful song too. A lot of what the album deals with is how society deals with women who know what their needs are, and the needs themselves. And the album suggests that society deals with them poorly. Since this is a Taylor Swift album, that recognition is turned into an effective rallying cry, a message of empowerment. I will now lazily reference Wikipedia for the themes of betty.

betty is one of three tracks on the album that depict the same love triangle from three different perspectives at different times in their lives (the other two being cardigan and august). betty is the tale of the relationship in the perspective of the cheating boyfriend James, who had a summer fling with Inez, the narrator of august. James apologizes about his past mistakes but does not fully own up to them, citing his fear of crowds and Betty's ‘wandering eye’ as excuses, setting forth his irresponsibility. 

To conclude, pop albums are often not intended to be heard all the way through. They’re intended to be singles plus filler. Some say this is a consequence of streaming, but I don’t agree. This was the case with radio, with MTV, with mp3 downloads, and now with streaming. It’s just the way pop is. But despite my belief that folklore can lose 20 minutes and gain so much in terms of coherence and quality, it’s still a lot more good music than filler. Check it out, I’d say.