'Folklore' Review: Taylor Swift Manufactures Indie Rustic Cabin Pop
T-Swift stares wistfully into the hazy Ferngully jungle.
Let me start this review of Folklore off with some T-Swift blasphemy. I’ve never listened to an entire Taylor Swift album. I don’t even know if I can name five songs. Let me see… Kodak Yellow, Old Town Road, Thank u Next, Without Me…This…this isn’t right. Moving on.
What I do know is Folklore is stacked, and it’s probably named Folklore to account for its depth of mythical indie frontmen storytellers. Aaron Dessner of the National helped write and produce 11 tracks. Bon Iver was in the studio. Jack Antonoff is quoted as being around the Folklore production unofficially, so that means he probably just stopped in to blow in the microphones and whisper future Grammys into the mixing boards.
As a snob who was too cool for Harry Potter in 5th grade because everyone else was reading it (I was in the LOTR clique), I understand why I never gave T-Swift a chance.
It’s time.
This is a real-time reaction review to “Folklore” by up and coming lo-fi songwriter Taylor Swift. If shared experiences turn you on, use the Spotify link or listen with big headphones like you’re in Garden State.
Sound good?
Headphones in. Volume UP. Enjoy.
Track One – the 1
Is it making a statement if T-Swift curses seven words in? I think so. Will this be a bad girl album? I don’t know. I’m more expectant of a “screw the haters – this is about me” vibe.
If I had to throw a wild guess in the production wishing well, I’d say Bon Iver helped produce this track and not DJ Khaled.
Track Two – cardigan
It’s notable to see dialogue around Taylor Swift’s new album and see people say “Oh, she sounded hipster during the RED era and political in the Lover era”. I wasn’t around in the sixties but is Taylor Swift on a Bob Dylan level of fame plateau at age 30?
If I had to call it, I’d say her next couple eras are probably a Great Gatsby-style theatrical Pop Queen hostess era, and then around age 38, she escapes to Sweden to dabble in minimalist piano.
Track Three – the last great American dynasty
As a professional editor, the casual lowercase song titles just make me feel like an old man yelling at the seagull shitting on his French fries. I get it, capitalization is hard. Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande made it cool to be grammatically illiterate and it stuck.
Anyway, the song’s unique in that its lyrics follow the actual story of an oil heiress. Swift now owns the decadent mansion of said oil heiress.
Swift wrote an album with an indie nature aesthetic from a mansion in Los Angeles. Makes sense.
Taylor Swift’s Folklore brands itself with the rustic indie aesthetic.
Track Four – exile featuring Bon Iver
Justin Vernon’s voice in the opening verse honestly sounds closer to Aaron Dessner of The National than his normal dramatically high vocal resonance. It’s heavy, weighted with the words. I was hoping this track would be heavily influenced by the Bon Iver sound, and now that I want to crawl into the shower and lay in the fetal position, I’m not disappointed.
Track Five – my tears ricochet
RiCochet TeaRs. A perfume by T-Swift.
Musically, they did beautiful work, setting layers of building strings, ebbing and flowing choral voices, and space to breathe. Her words end and the keyboard lingers before it fades. It’s not punctual because the thoughts she expresses are not a punctuation – they are a lingering reflection, and the keys follow her down that path.
Track Six – mirrorball
The purest “indie-folk” feel on the album thus far. Swift reflects on her relationship with the industry and the public, her confidence now against her confidence in the past, and…well maybe she just likes to wear shiny things.
Track Seven – seven
This song belongs in a coming-of-age tale, a la “The Spectacular Now”. It’s beautiful – I mean that sincerely. It’s also the song the 17-year-old awkward heartthrobby guy plays on a midnight porch on guitar just before the girl tells him she has cancer.
Track Eight – august
I see what you did there, Taylor, August being the 8th month of the year. It speaks to Jack Antonoff’s skill as a producer when you can make a song sound pop but it could also fit in on a coffeehouse singer/songwriter album from 1998.
Track Nine – this is me trying
Aaron Dessner’s fingerprints are on this track. Prominent background strings with a little reverb attached to her voice. Basically a song by The National with Taylor Swift’s voice.
Track Ten – illicit affairs
She uses the phrase “dwindling, mercurial high” to describe what it’s like to carry on a secret romance. If we’re going by the folky theme of this album, that scandalous high takes place in a wooded glen in late October underneath a frayed rope tire swing.
Track Eleven – invisible string
There’s a dramatic irony quality to a song about fate, and the fate discussed in “invisible string” is that one of the biggest stars in history meets her boyfriend in a dive bar. What line did he open with?
“Hi Taylor, want a shot of Fireball?”
Track Twelve – mad woman
“mad woman” is heavy on the “screw the haters” vibe. And by “haters”, I mean her shit ex-labelmate, Scooter Braun. And she said the F-word for the first time! It’s like she’s human or something!
Track Thirteen – epiphany
Ummm, is this Frau Frau? Music supervisors, take note: this song is a slam dunk to feature on an “appreciate front line workers” commercial with a nurse sitting on a hospital bench alone, exhausted.
Track Fourteen – betty
Really nice use of harmonica throughout. Not overwhelming, but a firm presence. I fully expect Neil Young to make a guest appearance by the end of the song.
Track Fifteen – peace
An intimate aspect of being a pop star, Swift laments how she can never really give a lover a peaceful life because of the public scrutiny. To be fair, most of her boyfriends are already familiar with public scrutiny, except, well, the dive bar guy.
Track Sixteen – hoax
It’s the type of debate Greek philosophers used to initiate, as they bathed nude and oiled in their eunuch saunas: Who talks toxic relationships best, Ellie Goulding or T-Swift?
***
I appreciated Folklore. Elite production. Lyrics worth analyzing. Three F-words! I hope Taylor Swift sits in this indie era for an album or two, instead of feeling like she needs to reinvent again in two years.
If we had another 16 tracks produced by
The National, Bon Iver, and Taylor Swift,
would that be so bad?
***
Artist Links:
website for Taylor Swift
The T-Swift Instagram
Songs by Taylor Swift to get you bothered:
It’s already been viewed 32 million times, but the “cardigan” video is a magical thing. It’s like if you dropped Enya in the Jumanji rainforest.
Watch it here.