The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Megan Brownell social media editor
Taylor Swift surprised Taylor Nation yet again with the annoucement of her upcoming album: The Tortured Poets Department. With the track list already relased, I’m preparing for her release by listening to Folklore. Because of this, I have found a new love for the album and decided to review its beautiful lyricism this week.
This album was released back in July 2020 and the album shot up to the number one album in the first week, and stayed at number one for eight weeks. She also debuted three top ten singles, with ‘cardigan’ at number one, ‘the 1’ at four, and ‘exile’ featuring Bon Iver coming in at six.
This was a different kind of album for Swift, more of indie vibes that showcased incredible poetry writing.
The album opens up with ‘the 1’. It has a great beat and fun lyrics I love to sing along to. The song references a relationship, unknown if this happened to Swift or not since folklore is a lot of story like songs that did not actually happen. ‘The 1’ references how a past lover could have been the one, talking about why it didn’t happen. This song also opens the folklore set on the era’s tour, and those opening beats are so fun and exciting, leading into both the album and its era at the show.
Cardigan comes in next, the single that debuted at number 1 on the billboard charts. This is one of the songs that plays into the ‘love triangle’ about James, Betty, and August. Folklore is fun made up stories Swift wrote to pass the time in quarantine. The other songs that play into it are ‘Betty’ and ‘august’. All are great songs, making an interesting story about a boy who messed up and lost the love of his life, in Taylors words.
My two favorites on this album are ‘my tear ricochet’ and ‘exile’. ‘My tears ricochet’ is a deep felt song that just brings up pain and singing this song is what cures it. The song is about struggling in a relationship, and it is displayed beautifully. After knowing how long Swift struggled in her past relationship with Joe Alwyn, now fans speculate folklore songs were real and about her and Joe. ‘Exile’ is a songwriting masterpiece to me, and her and Bon Iver sound incredible. This is another song voices the hardships of being in a relationship going south, and cuts your deep listening to it.
Towards the end, the songs get super slow and emotional with ‘peace’ and ‘hoax’. Both have such deep lyrics that pass slowly with the music.
She also came out with a bonus track, ‘the lakes’. This is the main song that leads back to Swift’s new album, with its lyrics ‘take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die’. It too is a beautiful song, with that indie feel that makes it fun to sing loud too.
Overall folklore is an incredible album. This gets no skips from me, but two songs that I have to be in a certain mood for but still heavily enjoy when I do listen to them. The stories and gut wrenching lyrics bring this to a 9/10 for me, only being brought down by those two sometimes skippable songs. I would recommend giving it a listen and connecting to these beautiful songs.