folklore
A mere 11 months passed between the release of *Lover* and its surprise follow-up, but it feels like a lifetime. Written and recorded remotely during the first few months of the global pandemic, *folklore* finds the 30-year-old singer-songwriter teaming up with The National’s Aaron Dessner and longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff for a set of ruminative and relatively lo-fi bedroom pop that’s worlds away from its predecessor. When Swift opens “the 1”—a sly hybrid of plaintive piano and her naturally bouncy delivery—with “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit,” you’d be forgiven for thinking it was another update from quarantine, or a comment on her broadening sensibilities. But Swift’s channeled her considerable energies into writing songs here that double as short stories and character studies, from Proustian flashbacks (“cardigan,” which bears shades of Lana Del Rey) to outcast widows (“the last great american dynasty”) and doomed relationships (“exile,” a heavy-hearted duet with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon). It’s a work of great texture and imagination. “Your braids like a pattern/Love you to the moon and to Saturn,” she sings on “seven,” the tale of two friends plotting an escape. “Passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long.” For a songwriter who has mined such rich detail from a life lived largely in public, it only makes sense that she’d eventually find inspiration in isolation.
Made from afar, primarily with the National’s Aaron Dessner, Swift’s eighth album is a sweater-weather record filled with cinematic love songs and rich fictional details.
folklore may or may not reflect a permanent musical shift for Swift. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be a grand step forward—that it’s a whimsical and intriguing album offering new insights into Swift’s work is completely enough.
Folklore finds Taylor Swift elegantly evoking amid a perfectly reduced sound by collaborating with The National and Bon Iver
The NME review of Taylor Swift's surprise-release eighth album, which features collaborations with Bon Iver and The National's Aaron Dessner
In 2012, on her hit single We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Taylor Swift expressed her disappointment in an ex-boyfriend for listening to “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine.” Now, with album number eight, she’s finally made a cool one of her own.
Review: Taylor Swift's new album, 'Folklore,' is a radical detour into the deepest collection of songs she's ever come up with.
This is an unconventional record – at least for the world’s biggest pop star. It’s also brilliant
Taylor's surprise release features both The National and Bon Iver and reclaims her position as pop's best songwriter, finds Rhian Daly.
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Taylor Swift is a master of bombastic media campaigns. Whether her lead singles were pop earworm mastery, such as “Shake It Off,” or a pastel self-love anthem such as 2019’s “Me!” all provided ostentatious introductions to titanic album rollouts
The second to last song on Taylor Swift’s quiet, exquisite album 'folklore' is called 'peace'. A once-vindictive Swift, once at the
Swift’s lyrical power just about survives the greige indie atmospherics supplied by the National’s Aaron Dessner
Taylor Swift's surprise collaboration with The National's Aaron Dessner is a disarming, subtle record on which Swift sounds more human than ever
The album anticipates questions surrounding the singer’s genre bona fides and leans into each contradiction.
The songs on Taylor Swift's 'Abandon' lean into a more earthy, elemental, and wounded mode, and her art feels all the better for it.
Folklore by Taylor Swift album review by Adam Fink. The full-length is now available via Republic Records/Unniversal Records
Released with little fanfare this move to more muted songwriting is proof Swift’s music can thrive without the celebrity drama
Taylor Swift - Folklore review: Taylor Swift once again changes her skin, only this time it's drained of color and spirit.
Pop queen's eighth album features collaborations with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, The National's Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff
Emotional, self-aware songwriting brings comfort in a time of global uncertainty
When she announced her “surprise” 8th album on social media this week, Taylor Swift described its subject matter as a combination of “fantasy, history and memory” told with “love, wonder and whimsy”. For the listener, this hits home around track three. “The Last Great American Dynasty” tells the story of Rebekah, a “middle-class divorcée” who marries a heir to the Standard Oil fortune and spends her widowhood - and inheritance - on boys, ballet and annoying the neighbours of her Rhode Island mansion. And then?