My very first article for Her Campus was a praise for Taylor Swift’s album Lover. Lover was a light airy album that altered her sound while maintaining the same honesty and vulnerability about life and love. It was a honeymoon album, a romantic playlist, an album to blast in the car when you hit the highs in life.
Folklore sharply contrasts this. It is an autumn album that feels like walking through a dark forest on a gloomy day. Yet it also maintains a whimsical feel like the forest is filled with mythical creatures. Swift allows us a look into her Folklore world with her music video for “Cardigan” that brings back the fairy princess vibes we love (think “Love Story” and “Enchanted”) as she climbs into an illuminated piano into a moss covered wood.
Swift was clever in the naming of this album. The Merriam-Webster definition of folklore is “traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people.” For Swift, this album acts as another vessel for her storytelling. In a letter to her fans Swift writes “I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t.” Her stories are of moving on with closure that never feels complete, the haunting end of a toxic relationship, being a woman the world believes lost her mind, and many more tales of heartache that are specific yet universal.
There was no warning or prior promotion for the release of the album and personally, I think she did this because she knew there was no way to prepare us for Folklore. She just put it in our hands and said “here you go, now start crying.”
The album was well received and has broken a whopping 17 records including biggest opening day streams for a female album on Spotify, biggest first week sales of 2020 in the US and first artist in history to debut a song and an album at #1 simultaneously.
Swift has done it again. She has created another timeless masterpiece that made a home in the hearts of her fans. Each album has proved that she has something special that isn’t going away anytime soon. I know I’m not alone in wondering what else Swift has in store for us and I am excited for whatever her next step is, whether my heart can take it or not.