Taylor Swift’s Folklore: An Exercise in Wasted Potential

Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album, Folklore, has been at the top of the Billboard 200 for seven weeks now. This isn’t surprising, given her status as a household name and cultural phenomenon, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that this record is really not all that good. Folklore is, in many ways, a prototypical Taylor Swift album. It’s undeniable that Swift has the potential to make good music, but about one-third of this record was wasted space.

This record definitely has an aesthetic, as it’s dreary, sleepy, and a little sad sounding. However, it’s also cinematic, which gives it some energy. This record drips with hard, airy pianos, digital orchestra synths, and acoustic guitar. And, the production is pretty stellar; smooth, enjoyable, with some clever grooves and flowery melodies that manage to be compelling without overshadowing Taylor’s vocals.

 In theory, it’s a great balance and exactly what we needed this year. To put it simply thought, this record just doesn’t manage to stay interesting for its hour long, 16 track runtime. While the second half of this record manages to put forth some compelling material, I simply didn’t feel drawn to it because it was so similar to some of the filler tracks I had to sit through.

The Good:

The good tracks on this record are very solid. And to be fair, there were more good tracks than bad here. My favorites were varied, but there is a lot to like here.

Track 1: “the 1” – A fun but sleepy instrumental and some, catchy, vocal runs make this track sound clean and smooth. It functions well as a solo track, but some of the vocal runs are annoying and it isn’t fleshed out well. This is my least favorite of my favorites.

Track 5: ”my tears ricochet” – One of my favorite songs of this project, this song managed to buck the trend of poor lyricism on this project. Some cool vocal samples give this song great texture, and vocally, Taylor delivers crisp, smooth vocal runs. Overall this song was just easy to listen to.

Track 7: “seven” – This song was poppy without being particularly bright or sweet. It featured some of the catchiest writing on the project, and I’ve found myself coming back to it more than any other track on this album. Taylor’s almost sour vocals juxtaposed against the faster pace and a smooth groove of this instrumental worked really well here.

Track 8: “august” – A nice, soft, listenable entrance, balances this song with Taylor’ssolid vocals and a well-balanced guitar instrumental. It’s energy pleasantly picks up in the second- third of the track; this track is sort of what I was hoping this album would sound like, but that doesn’t take away from its enjoyment.

Track 11: “invisible string” – My favorite instrumental on this record, combined with Taylor’s smoothest vocals and some solid structure and progression, make this song pretty nice to listen to. I especially enjoyed the groove of this track.

Track 14: “betty” – This track was a fun change of pace; the harmonics gave the track some more flavor, the bassline tied it together well, and Taylor’s vocals were expressive and enjoyable. It ran a touch long, but it didn’t get old quickly.

The Bad:

The bad tracks on this record consistently feel longer than they are and feature tiresome lyricim and lazy, frustrating structure. The best descriptor for these tracks is filler and the biggest problem is the amount of filler.

Track 2: “cardigan” – This song was one of the better bad tracks on this album. While it had catchiness going for it, this track features annoying, stale vocal lines, and the same type of cliched “list” style lyricism that is one of my least favorite parts of Taylor Swift’s catalog. The drums didn’t fit well into the instrumental, and it felt much longer than it was, in a bad way. 

Track 3: “the last great american dynasty” – This track was yet another boring waste of time on this record. Strangely clear, over-processed vocals top an uninteresting instrumental. This track suffers from feeling too long as well, especially the sections that feature the more annoying vocal lines.

Track 4: “exile” – Maybe I just don’t like Bon Iver, (and I don’t) but his vocal performance on this track was just offensive. Taylor sings below her range in an unpleasantly breathy cadence and delivers more of the same poor lyrics. This song is legitimately hard to listen to. It has a nice piano instrumental, but that isn’t enough to prevent it from dragging on and grating the listener.

Track 6: “mirrorball” – There’s not much to say here. Bad vocals with strange processing, a tired instrumental, and more poor lyricism. The biggest problem with this album is boring material and this track is a solid example of that.

Track 9: “this is me trying” – Try harder. This track is incredibly flat and uninteresting in every way.

Track 12: “mad woman” – This track started out strong with a really interesting piano melody and some smooth drums. Unfortunately, Taylor’s vocals are pretty bland here, and this song feels too long as well. 

Track 13: “epiphany” – Saving the worst for last, this track is bad in every way. The introduction is pretentious and grating. Taylor’s vocals are rambally and poor and this song crawls at a snail’s pace. This is the only genuinely unlistenable song on this project though, so I guess that’s a plus.

I can’t help but feel like this record had so much potential. The good is really good, and if this record were, say, half the runtime with the filler cut out I could see it being great. In its current state though, I can’t really recommend this record. The good tracks are enough to carry it to an average score, but the filler and handful of bad tracks prevent this album from being what it could be. 5/10.