Taylor Swift - Folklore

Do any of you know if she is a reader, or if she's ever recommended or mentioned any books she's reading? I'd be curious.

It's obvious her sense of metaphor has expanded in the last decade, which means she no doubt reads or is at least sponging from the right sources.

I think a key thing I like about this album was that it *isn't* a "Taylor Nebraska" thing, or rather, that what I kinda figured might be the case -- some sort of vocal/guitar only thing -- wasn't. (And I know that while his pseudo-Walden days were long ago, the announced presence of Bon Iver also had me wondering.) As I muttered I really don't think about the National at all so if this is what they sound like then I'm perfectly content to listen to this rather than them, honestly. Alfred's point about Taylor's 'lightness of being' strikes me, and could also possibly explain why I'd find this much more interesting a prospect all around than the National straight up or LDR, the truest of blank zones. But to get back to the sense of sound beyond all these other points raised -- it's not a 'return' to a past so much as a comfortable shift, one which underscores the argument I've had (in my head only, maybe) for years that 'roots music' is a fetishized and misunderstood concept, given that our collective memories shift more and more to a point where it's been electronically mediated and supported as much as 'really' played by someone.

xxp She's a fan of Sally Rooney, which makes sense:
https://lithub.com/sally-rooney-is-trending-again-and-this-time-its-because-of-taylor-swift/

Yeah the Rooney connection makes sense. They're both very good at taking stock situations -- boy-girl, misunderstanding, mixed feelings, etc. -- and peeling back clichés to get to the underlying messiness.

I am surprised by how much I'm enjoying this album

And speaking of her metaphors, I was just appreciating this one: "You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town."

You get this sense of her really working to get to the specifics of the feeling.

t's not a 'return' to a past so much as a comfortable shift, one which underscores the argument I've had (in my head only, maybe) for years that 'roots music' is a fetishized and misunderstood concept, given that our collective memories shift more and more to a point where it's been electronically mediated and supported as much as 'really' played by someone.

This is a great point.

If anything, this album reminds me aesthetically -- not sonically -- of something like Blood on the Tracks, on which a decade of rummaging for cool sounds to complement the increasingly sophisticated songwriting strengthens a suite of ostensibly acoustic tunes. Think also of Tunnel of Love or Sleater-Kinney's No Cities to Love.

a comfortable shift

Yeah, Ned, this that you wrote jumped out at me, too. She adapts so well to this shift it doesn't even sound like an adaptation.

Thanks to you both -- your comparisons there, Alfred, are striking.

Yes to the "This Love" comparison

didn't read this thread but this is a good album, the first one I've liked since 1989 (ok I never really gave the last one a shot)

This is reminding me a lot of the second half of Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous, right down to the unwelcome vocals of a guy on a solitary track

So is there an actual Varg connection or…?

similar love of knitwear?

me after I’ve left the neon lights of the city behind to get back to the land and listen to Folklore, but there’s some part of me that just can’t let go of who I used to be pic.twitter.com/nxzWsgRP0e

— Sam Lansky (@samlansky) July 24, 2020

Do any of you know if she is a reader, or if she's ever recommended or mentioned any books she's reading? I'd be curious.

Still see this poster hanging in public libraries:

https://www.walden.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/taylor-swift-768-1.jpg

can someone shop White Fragility in there

Women like hunting witches too
Doing your dirtiest work for you too

tbh She's in the movie version of "The Giver," so there's a bit of what's good for the goose in there. And to go full tin-hat, that was at the end of the promotional cycle for "Red," and seeing her in a bright red dress with bright red lipstick next to the word "READ" kills a few more birds with one stone too. She's a clever one, that Taylor Swift.

i cannOT stop crying to "mirrorball"

think a key thing I like about this album was that it *isn't* a "Taylor Nebraska" thing

Yeah, it's not really a Taylor Nebraska! But it checks all the marks Healy seemed to suggest when he mentioned the concept.

I'd be interested in seeing more of those pop star library posters. I know the one with Bowie is totally classic.

I had the R.E.M. one for a while:

https://www.hakes.com/Image/MediumRes/96585/1/image.jpg

(mine was not signed, it was taped slightly askew on my door room wall)

xp I remember seeing that Healy comment at the time and thinking, "You can't really produce a Nebraska for someone else; if you want Taylor to make a Nebraska you'll just have to find some way to lock her in her house for a year with a guitar and a harmonica."

Just ordered the vinyl and they were like "this ships in 16 fucking weeks", which is kinda perfect because although yes, this is a melancholy summer album, it will slot in really nicely with my fall and winter and winter favorites as well.

just saw a headline declaring this "the perfect quar album," and now I have a new abbreviation to loathe

idk I think it's kinda cool

weren't Quar the worst band of all time at one point

This Taylort Earth

'fraid of the 'rona, gotta quar

james is totally a girl btw

pretty good album but man, it's kind of a bummer, isn't it? like i'm trying to get ready for the weekend and now i'm kind of sad.

Yeah - it's both very good, and not the kind of territory that I think I will want to revisit too often.

(btw - the vocal melody at the beginning of "Seven" reminds me of Big Thief's "Cattails.")

It's not outright depressing, it's more like sweetly melancholic, which of course makes it even worse.

I hadn't looked up which tracks Antonoff worked on, but when that final section of "August" hits - like, he may as well have signed it in Sharpie.

xp: I listened to it twice this morning and it inspired me to listen to more sad albums. So I reached for Get Lonely and this is kinda a rough way to usher in the weekend.

Definitely overshot my target.

Once you get deep into the stretch starting with Track 9, it feels like any sense of momentum has been lost.

idk "invisible string" is track 11, it's pretty buoyant

but also it's a sustained mood, the momentum is by nature unhurried throughout, patient and observational in a way that a late injection of energy would absolutely undermine

the sequencing makes me feel like i'm wandering through some feverish cloudy interzone that connects all the regions of these songs, her best sequencing ever incidentally

I do like "Invisible String" a lot. But the 2nd half of the album hits me as a bunch of slow, pretty songs strung together, without enough variation; maybe I'm just not in the right headspace for that mood.

(or it worked better on a Thursday night than a Friday morning)

"it's obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together" - lyric of the decade

i get it, part of me keeps starting the record over again after i hit "august," mostly because i want to hear "the 1" all the time. but i really value how much of this album takes place in a unified sonic world because hybrid-country-pop and post-country taylor swift only made one other album like that and it's reputation xp

long suite of slow atmospheric songs is a feature it shares with the last national record too so it's possible i prepared myself for this by falling really hard for i am easy to find. but though they're the same length taylor's record feels shorter

Sounds like this is her Sea Change.

oh dear lord no

The last National album is the only one in their storied catalog I loved, in part because of crucial female support.