Album Review: ‘Folklore’ by Taylor Swift
A sharp deviation from her last few mainstream pop albums, Taylor Swift’s “Folklore” contains pensive, calm and minimalist atmospheric pop ballads.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In a year full of unexpected developments, Taylor Swift’s Grammy-nominated album “Folklore” is exceptional in that it was one of the very few welcome surprises. The announcement of the album mere hours before its release, rather than Swift’s norm of months of calculated fanfare, was unprecedented, foreshadowing an album that departs from Swift’s usual brand. “Folklore” did not disappoint. With no major blunders, it took the world by storm with different sounds, different stories and different perspectives to the standard synth-pop autobiographical Taylor Swift album.
The album’s soundscape is largely shaped by mellow pianos, elegant orchestral violins and softly picked strings, a combination that infuses a sense of gravity and raw honesty into each track. These soft, atmospheric pop melodies, courtesy of Swift’s collaboration with indie-rock band the National’s guitarist Aaron Dessner for 11 of the album’s 17 songs, allow Swift’s excellent songwriting skills to shine through. Her vivid and evocative vocals, instead of being overlooked or drowned out in the heavily produced radio-friendly sounds of her past few albums, leave listeners feeling a curious mix of wistfulness, nostalgia and hope all at the same time.
Another striking feature about “Folklore” is that Swift goes beyond her trademark autobiographical songs about past flames. In essence, “Folklore” is a collection of stories, real and fictional, from various perspectives that are intricately woven through 17 tracks, to produce an album which comes together to create a narrative greater than each track could ever convey individually. This aspect of “Folklore” is best brought out by the predictable high school love triangle between the fictional characters Betty, James and Inez, told in a novel manner through each one’s perspective in the three songs “Cardigan,” “Betty” and “August.” Thus, what we would perceive to be a simple case of boy cheating on girl turns into a complex emotional saga of Betty’s broken heart, James’ regret about cheating on his true love and Inez’s bittersweet revelation that the object of her summer romance was never hers to love. Akin to this teenage love trilogy is the fan-favourite duet “Exile,” where Swift and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon croon out a heart-breaking tale of the end of a long-term relationship. Told from the viewpoints of both the man and the woman, “Exile” exposes us to the intricacies of how love is destroyed by miscommunication.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
However, although sonically different and unique in its kind of storytelling, “Folklore” is not really a thematic outlier in Swift’s repertoire of albums. Just like she had in 2017’s “Reputation,” Swift sings about the challenges of rising to fame and staying there in “Mirrorball,” where she is a disco-ball that “changes everything” about herself to fit in, and how people revel in watching her “shattered edges glisten” when she breaks into a “million pieces.” The tracks “Hoax,” “This Is Me Trying” and “Peace” similarly portray her various insecurities and personal struggles with stardom. Swift’s feminism shines through in “The Last Great American Dynasty,” a song about Rebekah Harkness, who lived life flamboyantly without a care for the world’s opinions. Swift, who bought her $17 million villa in 2013, shows us how her muse’s life resonates with her own in the last chorus when she switches from third to first person: “I had a marvellous time ruining everything.” “Mad Woman” can be viewed as a sequel, reviving the anger of “Lover” track “The Man,” at the hypocrisy of the manner in which gender norms dictate women’s emotions.
What sets “Folklore” apart from previous albums is that it contains a pervasive new dimension of maturity, presumably the product of Swift reaching her thirties. This is explicit in “Seven,” a remarkably colourful and blatantly nostalgic song about her naïve childhood, where she knew no darkness and when she thought that her best friend’s dad was always angry because her house was “haunted” rather than it being the other way around. Swift’s maturity is also implicit in each track of “Folklore” – take her depiction of infidelity for instance: “Illicit Affairs” has several parallels with the plot of Swift’s 2017 hit “Getaway Car,” but they are worlds apart in terms of how Swift paints the picture of the affair. While the latter is about the transient white-hot passion and excitement of an escapade, the former voices the grittier, realistic attractions and torments of cheating; this is a clear indication that Swift has grown in how she reflects on her past.
Even though it is rare, criticism about “Folklore” always seems to be along the lines of the album having a greater-than-average number of supposedly similar sounding tracks. Personally, I don’t see how or why the songs seem identical to some. The absence of a catchy radio pop tune does not equate to the tracks being non-differentiable – it would be like claiming that all of indie-folk or atmospheric pop sounds the same. As far as the length of the album is concerned, I agree that a 17-song track list is rather long, but I am uncertain as to how “Folklore” could have been pruned. Should “The 1,” the album’s first song that successfully sets the tone for the album, have been shelved, or should “Epiphany,” incredibly appropriate for the pandemic-stricken world, not have made the final cut? Or should “Invisible String” and “The Lakes,” Swift’s melancholy but charming love songs about her boyfriend of three years, Joe Alwyn, have been left out? We would be missing out either way. Each song tells a tale that we wouldn’t have heard, had “Folklore” been any shorter. Besides, it’s not like we had many better things to do during our summer lockdown, so a long album can be forgiven, and perhaps even lauded, for keeping us occupied with listening to great songs and hunting for the easter eggs buried within them.
I will forever remember “Folklore” as Swift’s indie album which offered me a reprieve from mainstream pop, entrancing me with its intimacy and beauty. However, that Taylor Swift thrives on evolution, and that “Folklore” is just the latest stage in her progression are undeniable facts. Her next album might be entirely different, just as the latest one was to its predecessor. Nevertheless I look forward to it because, if “Folklore” is any indication, Swift’s best is yet to come.