In 2020, Taylor Swift came out with two unbelievable albums, folklore and evermore. They were both pandemic albums. They were both lyrically brilliant. They were natural. They showed her talent and her ability to persevere through the industry. They paved the way for her future albums and her jaw dropping Eras Tour. They made her who she is today.
In 2017, Taylor released Reputation. The album was her comeback album after she disappeared from the public eye, following her scandals in 2016. This album is a favorite of mine but publicly it was either hit or miss. It was produced by Max Martin and Shellback, so it has elements of EDM, rap, and R&B, with a lot of drum sounds and synths. Jack Antonoff also helped produce this record so it carries good stories and lyrics as well. She dropped Look What You Made Me Do and it hit #1 on the Billboard charts where it stayed for three consecutive weeks. In 2018, the tour for reputation became the high grossing North American tour at the time. Then in 2019, she released Lover. While reputation had a darker more vengeful persona tied to it, Lover was the opposite. It was full of glitter gel pen songs, rainbows, fun, politics, and gay pride. To many Lover is considered to be her ‘flop era’. The album debuted #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, but it only sold 679,000 copies in the first week. Compared to her past successes, 679,000 is a downgrade. Reputation sold 1.216 million copies and 1989 sold 1.287 million copies in the first week. No singles reached #1 when the album was released. Cruel Summer finally did in 2023 due to the massive success of the Eras Tour. Taylor has always been a hit single kind of artist to the mainstream public, with songs like We Are Never Getting Back Together, Love Story, Blank Space, Style, and Shake It Off. So when songs like You Need To Calm Down and Me! didn’t reach #1 many thought Taylor’s career was dying. In her documentary, Miss Americana, Taylor mentions this herself by saying, “this is probably one of my last opportunities as an artist to grasp onto that kind of success. So, as I’m reaching 30, I wanna work really hard while society is still tolerating me being successful”. Even Taylor herself had come to the conclusion that her time as a popstar might be running on fumes.
Another point I want to draw attention to is 1989‘s shadow. While I absolutely adore reputation and songs like The Man, False God, and Cornelia Street, at this point it seems like Taylor’s music is living in 1989‘s shadow. 1989, released in 2014 is a pop bible. Every track is a smash hit. Taylor won a Grammy for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for 1989. It seemed like her success couldn’t be beat, 1989 is still one of the most defining albums ever, not just in Taylor’s career but in music in general. For music it was huge: it marked a full rebrand from country to pop and it was successful. It opened the door for many artists to switch genres to reinvent themselves.
Taylor’s first rebrand is important to folklore and evermore‘s story. In her documentary, Miss Americana Taylor says, “The female artists that I know of have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists. They have to. Or else you’re out of a job. Constantly having to reinvent. Constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny. Be new to us. Be young to us. But only in a new way and only the way we want. And reinvent yourself but only in a way that we find to be equally comforting, but also a challenge for you. Live out a narrative that we find to be interesting enough to entertain us, but not soooo crazy that it makes us uncomfortable.” Artist rebrand a lot because they have to it’s just not always successful. When she rebranded her country to pop, she did it perfectly (I think). Red was a combination of soft ballads that remind you of country and upbeat bangers like We Are Never Getting Back Together that leads into the pop sound of 1989. I think this is what happened with Lover except the rebrand wasn’t what people were looking for at the time. She went down the path of basic pop. I imagine her thinking was that reputation was too edgy so she reverted back to 1989 sound, but it’s not 2014 anymore. Lover was a sound she’d already done and it wasn’t different and anticipated like Reputation, so it’s release wasn’t taken as well by the public as her pervious releases. While her attempted rebrand in Lover might not as been as successful as 1989, folkmore (evermore and folklore) was. I will elaborate more on this later.
The time period of its release is also an essential part of folkmore. In the spring of 2020, the pandemic hit. Taylor’s Lover tour never happened and being locked indoors left her to her pen and paper where she happened to write exactly what people wanted to hear. folklore was released July 24, 2020. There was no promotion, no warning, nothing. Taylor just dropped it. She announced it on Instagram and dropped the album later that night. Which is unusual considering many artists promote their albums heavily before it drops. Taylor had never done this in her career before either. evermore is folklore‘s sister album and she dropped it December 11, 2020 in the same way. cardigan and willow, both lead singles, hit #1 on the Billboard chart. Taylor said, “In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result… Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve.” These albums are lyrical masterpieces. She dives into this slower folk sound that she’d never done and it was exactly what her career needed.
These albums follow the fictional story of characters like Betty, James, and Augustine. seven tells the story of a little girl who doesn’t know her friend lives in an abusive household. epiphany and margorie tell the stories of her grandparents. She grabbed hold of the foundation of her career, what she had built everything on: the idea that she was a songwriter first and foremost, and fully justified it. She challenged herself in the best way. The sound of the album was unlike anything else she had made and the lyrics were brilliant. It’s impressively good lyricism also brought in a new audience of listeners. Songs like exile, cowboy like me, my tears ricochet, and mad woman approach more real topics and, in turn, brought her music a new, more mature audience. This deep personal songwriting made it seem like Taylor was reading from your diary, making listeners feel utterly understood. Which is why I, along with other Swifties, love Taylor’s music so much. It also showed she had fans that didn’t just want autobiographical songs, that she could sing about anything and people would still listen. In the cardigan music video she clings to her piano. I think this can be seen as a metaphor to what her music was at the time; it was a lifeline. She wrote what came to her naturally. She wasn’t intentionally writing a pop album or a revenge. She wasn’t trying to rebrand it, just happened. It was a time period where she was just writing and releasing because she could, no expectations to be met. Her rebrand happened without her intentionally planning it and it was better than the one she planned with Lover. Now her rebrand seemed effortless and truly Taylor. It felt like we saw her true self in this rebrand not some fabricated popstar. With this rebrand she seemed more bare, more authentic, and more mature. Her music was more mature and so was she. She wasn’t the same teenager writing about breakup songs, she was a talented, deep artist, who was able to produce a Grammy-winning album with no promotion, just raw talent.
All of these together are what led folkmore to be the success that is was. Although I don’t want to credit all of it to chance and timing and luck. Taylor’s consistent dedication and determination to step out of the box and take creative steps in her music are to credit, too. Really no ones does it like she does. She’s constantly working, constantly writing, constantly trying to be the best of the best. Even if it fails she will try one more time.
All of Taylor’s other albums have been held to the high standards of folklore and evermore. This has caused many of her fans to compare her new albums to folklore and evermore, however it’s hard to beat your best and many fans think folklore and evermore will never be beat. I think that regardless of your favorite Taylor album or your opinions on Taylor in general, you can listen to folkmore and tell that they are good, well-written albums. With that said, I thank folkmore for reviving Taylor’s career and making the way for Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department.