Album Review: Folklore - Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift - Credit: Beth Garrabrant

Returning with her 8th studio album, Taylor Swift has released Folklore after announcing the album’s release only one day beforehand. The album, which was released at midnight on July 24th, has been critically well-received and overall, listeners and critics alike agree: the album is spectacular. Swift’s new album is soft-spoken, but incredibly intimate. It touches on a variety of personal stories and moments in Swift’s life and really tugs at the heart strings. Unlike Red and Lover which are firmly in the Pop category, Folklore is much more folk. The album consists of 16 tracks, which have an overall even quality to them. The album was produced in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and features one track with Bon Iver.

Swift’s latest album was a surprise indeed. Not only was it dropped with hours’ notice, it is a powerful knockout of an album, with complex lyrics and a perfectly complementary accompaniment, Folklore stands out among Swift’s body of work as a shift not only in her messaging but in her artistry as well. While Swift has famously gone through changes in her music before that were mostly career motivated, Folklore feels like a logical next-step following her documentary Miss Americana. Clearly, Swift has reached a point where she feels comfortable letting her audience and the world at large in on her personal life beyond her relationships. Folklore is not only an exploration of Swift’s life, but a deep dive into some of those universal feelings of melancholy that have come to the forefront of people’s lives in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. Tonally, the album is completely cohesive and there aren’t many songs that feel out of place. Additionally, there is little variation in the quality of the songs. Each song feels unique in its messaging and contents, which boosts the overall quality of the album. In the past, some of Swift’s songs have felt long despite being short, or felt obnoxiously long in general. The opposite is true in the case of Folklore, which is chock full of songs that are more than four minutes long. The beauty is that Swift’s album has spectacular pacing and flows extremely well. Folklore is the perfect album for a long car ride or deep thoughts at 2am. Simply put; it’s good. It’s explorative, it’s sad, it’s relatively new for Swift and deserves your time.

From the sounds of Folklore, it’s clear that Swift is growing as a person and as an artist. Being able to track her growth through her work is a beautiful thing and Folklore is the latest look into who Swift has become. Lyrically, the album is impressive as it discusses several personal stories but also delves into a greater conversation, particularly about women; their friendships one another, the way they are treated by the men in their lives, and how society perceives them. The album is a powerful commentary that comes at a time where conversations about social change are lighting up cities from coast to coast. Overall, the album is very much in Swift’s wheelhouse in terms of sound. For the average listener, Folklore is well worth a listen. For those who are less familiar with Swift’s work, such as myself, Folklore is also a good album to sit down and listen to for a while, if only a few of the songs on the album. Folklore is complex, well-rounded, and as a whole sits high on my list of 2020 releases thus far. There’s much to discuss in this album and it will no doubt start many conversations among listeners, fans and non-fans alike. Whether or not Swift decides to continue down the road of intrapersonal exploration in her work, Folklore will remain a testament to the power of her artistry.

Rating: 9/10