Taylor’s New Record Sounds Rushed at Best and Phoned in at Worst.
Taylor Swift has always remained a bit enigmatic to me as an artist.
Her monstrous commercial success, substantial catalog of music, and huge reserves of talent and resources make her an artist who should be entirely capable of putting out a classic album. But somehow, she hasn’t yet. And while Evermore isn’t a bad record by any stretch, the spiritual successor to Folklore leaves me more bored than confused.
When Taylor Swift sits down and puts more effort, time, and thought into an album she will achieve a good rating from this reviewer. But at this point in her career, she seems to be focused more on quantity more than quality. If you’re a Taylor Swift fan, I’m sure you’ll like this record. But for the rest of us, it’s more of what we’ve heard without anything new and what we heard last time wasn’t compelling enough to demand a sequel.
If I sound like a broken record when I describe this album it’s because it’s so similar to Folklore. Playing them back to back would sound like one dreary monolithic project crafted for Spotify playlist packing and empty airplay. It’s not that the individual tracks are bad, some of them are actually quite good, it’s that this record is a chore to listen to as a sequel to folklore, especially when it doesn’t actually add anything to that release.
The Good: This record has some great tracks, and I don’t want my overall negative opinion of this record to take away from that. In some ways, the highlights on this record were more compelling than those on Folklore. Here are my favorites, from most enjoyable to least.
Track 1: “willow” – This track has a nice, smooth, relaxed, groovy instrumental and some stellar vocals from Taylor. The change-up for the bridge was unexpected and pleasant but this song is painfully catchy. I’m not sure how much sense this track makes as the intro to this project but, as a standalone piece, it’s excellent.
Track 10: “ivy” – This track has a really nice guitar riff and some great vocals and harmonies from Swift. The little percussive elements set off the melodies nicely and give this track a really full, crisp sound. I like the bridge and song structure as well, which is a trend for the highlights of this project.
Track 14: “closure” – A crunchy, speedy, almost lo-fi drum sample packs smooth piano chords for a pretty excellent instrumental. Taylor sings expressively on this track with a bit of an unusual affectation that works surprisingly well, and her vocal lines are quick and catchy.
Track 6: “no body, no crime” – This track’s main selling point is its solid storytelling lyricism, something which we don’t usually hear from Taylor swift. The country-influenced but still very poppy instrumental combined with some interesting vocal lines make this track incredibly catchy.
The Bad: The bad tracks on this record are pretty dreadful, and they substantially sour the listening experience. There aren’t a ton of really bad songs, but there are enough that the filler on this record isn’t the biggest problem. Here they are, from worst to (relatively) tolerable.
Track 11: “cowboy like me” – The greatest sin of this track is that it is mind-numbingly boring. From the gentrified country instrumental to the boring vocals and painful runtime, this track brings very little of interest to the table.
Track 12: “long story short” – This track feels unfinished in a number of ways. The instrumental is annoyingly upbeat and bright, and the jerky, overly quantized drums are way too high in the mix. Taylor Swift’s vocals are boring on this track and it too goes on far too long.
Track 13: “marjorie” – This song is forgettable and uninteresting on all levels. It’s better than the previous two tracks in that it’s inoffensive, but it’s still a boring waste of time.
Track 15: “evermore” – This track isn’t actually all that bad, and there are definitely a number of worse tracks, but I’m including it here because I want to complain about Bon Iver. The instrumental on this track is ultrasimple and straight to the point and Taylor’s breathy vocals are pretty nice, but damn, Bon Iver seems dead set on ruining everything I enjoy. Constantly droning outside his range and stacking his miserable vocals on top of each other in pseudo-harmonies, Justin Vernon sounds like a musical satire of himself on this track.
If Folklore was a rushed, low-effort record from Taylor Swift then Evermore is the perfect sequel. Instead of having too much filler, Evermore hits the listener with bad or incomplete tracks that are made all the more frustrating by how good the high points of this record are. I’m still waiting for the day that Swift releases a cohesive project that realizes her potential, but until then I’ll have to go from album highlight to album highlight to enjoy her music more than one track at a time. Taylor can do way better than this, no question. 4/10
MOOSE PRINTS 