If the silent launch was an unexpected twist to a superstar whose previous efforts have been highly touted for months, the end product was nothing short of surprising.
“Folklore” is softer, more sober and mature than Swift’s previous offerings, deepening into darkness on more than one occasion, but the early announcements are brilliant.
The album, which Swift said he developed during the shutdown, features 16 delicately crafted tracks that occasionally rumble in ethereal soundscapes, but never explode into the carefree bubblegum pop that made the singer a star.
“Before this year, I probably would have thought too much about when to release this music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we live in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed,” Swift said before the release. “My gut instinct tells me that if you do something you love, you should put it in the world. That is the side of uncertainty that I can tackle.”
Its poignant new sound perfectly reflects the months of isolation that Swift and his fans have experienced, and his followers were as enthusiastic as the critics. “Once again, Taylor Swift is showing why she is one of the best songwriters in this decade,” was the conclusion of a superfan on Twitter.
“This entire album sounds as if the old books in a forgotten library are beginning to sing their stories out loud to people who can no longer come to take them,” another theorized.
English singer Maisie Peters was also full of praise, writing: “happy folklore day, my favorites are this is me trying, Betty and invisible string and Peace is her best song. This is also her best album.”
The album begins with “the 1”, a contemplative theme that considers an alternative life with which he ran away, and closes with “deception”, a second-person lament about a broken relationship.
“If my wishes came true, it would have been you,” Swift admits in the first episode, sparking an inevitable debate over how autobiographical the song is.
“You hit my heart. I don’t want another shade of blue, but you … no other sadness in the world would,” he sings as he closes the album.
The album was released along with a video for “Cardigan”, which shows Swift getting lost in a dark adventure of “Alice in Wonderland”, getting on her piano to protect herself from a storm.
Much of his admirers’ attention was focused on “Exile,” a slow-building duo developed and sung with folk stalwarts Bon Iver.
“Exile is not just a song by Taylor Swift, it is a lifestyle, a reason to breathe, an escape from this cruel world full of thieves,” wrote a fan on Twitter. “It is art, the first gift you open at Christmas, a hug from a loved one, everything you have always wanted, everything you need.”
And NME considered “The Last Great American Dynasty,” an overflowing biography of twentieth-century socialite Rebekah Harkness, “a contender for the best Taylor Swift song ever written.”
Swift even swears a handful of times on the record, even on his first line, something several fans commented on.
The singer has been silent in 2020 since the release of her Netflix documentary “Miss American” in January. But Swift is still one of pop’s biggest stars, and apparently doesn’t need much fanfare to get attention.
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