Dameslore
As promised two Fridays ago, we have thoughts upon thoughts on Taylor Swift’s new album, and they are finally ready to share with you!
As our previous work would suggest, we have been invested in Taylor’s career for a long time, but not without ambivalence. As such, we received this new album with Great Interest, the following chat will demonstrate!
Live footage of Dame M pressing play on folklore at midnight on July 24th.
Margaret: So, first things first: what is your primary impression of folklore? I love it almost unreservedly, but I feel like it hasn’t been as much of runaway success with you?
Sophie: Yeah, it’s a real mixed bag for me. The two main problems I’m having with this album are that it’s way too long and too unvaried. Taylor Swift, please release an album with a tight ten songs! Edit! (she cried, knowing full well her own newsletter is often too wordy!) The songs here tend to bleed into one another, undifferentiated, to my ear. If that’s what she was going for, ok, but I know that’s not for me, and I think it’s a problem artistically.
M: I don’t find the comparative lack of sonic variety as frustrating as you do, but I also think that this whole album is VERY much in my sonic wheelhouse. It’s definitely longer than it needs to be, but I find the lows so much less low than I have on her other album — which I actually think the sonic cohesion helps, because at least the songs that don’t make an impression on me don’t call attention to themselves the way clunkers like “Stay Stay Stay” (Red, 2012) and “How You Get the Girl” (1989, 2014) do.
S: It could well be that some of my issues boil down mostly to preference — one listener’s seamless coherence is another’s sonic wallpaper. The sonic similarity is a barrier to one of my favorite listening experiences, relistening and delving into a song’s sonic and lyrical structure. For example, “seven” is sort of sitting there like a lump between “mirrorball” and “august”, and if it were excised the songs bookending it would sound even better (and they’re two of my Top 5 favorites on the album). I’ve been rewatching random episodes of TheGreat British Bake-Off, so I will mix my media metaphors and say that this album sounds like a very good bread pudding (which is fine) and what I’d like to hear is a sky-high cake with really distinct layers (a triumph).
M: The line between coherent and same-y can be very fine. I put this more on the side of coherent, but you’re far from alone in finding it undifferentiated. There’s a huge array of responses to this album, which is itself exciting to me. From people who prefer Taylor in other modes to people who are really clicking with her work for the first time ever, it’s a rich tapestry! I feel like every track I have seen named as a favorite by one person, I’ve seen named as chaff by another. Which underlines how very different this mode of release is for Taylor — have you seen the documentary she made about her Reputation world tour, Miss Americana?
S: I haven’t! On my list but haven’t gotten to it.
M: I was surprised by how much it impacted my understanding of her career and it has a huge influence on how I’m reading this album. In it, she talks within it frankly and with great insight about her toxic relationship with people pleasing, her desperate need to be seen as good by her audience and fans, and how the reality of being a famous, successful woman (the opposite of eating a Reese’s — there’s no right way to do it) absolutely destroyed her self-understanding for awhile.
And the documentary ends with her stepping away from this life of trying to be all things to all people and instead choosing to be direct with her own truth. It’s a flattering narrative, but also a persuasive one. And I’m definitely receiving this album within that framework — from the surprise drop to the absence of a clear top 40 banger, this feels like the album of a woman who’s not trying quite as hard to be what everyone else wants her to be.
I feel like Taylor Swift’s tragedy has always been that she was born in a time when the dominant mode of female pop stardom was shapeshifting when she shines best at just being herself — she could have been Carole King, but the times demanded she be Madonna. And this feels like a step away from that pressure of disguise, and a step into a new way of transforming.
S: That problem is of course exacerbated by having been a very young teen when she first became famous, so she had to do all of this growing up and into herself in public, and as an increasingly scrutinized huge star, when most people get to do that messy work privately. In contrast, Tapestry, which I think is a pretty good point of comparison as an artistic statement, came out when Carole King was 29 and had already put 10 years of largely anonymous hit-writing under her belt at the Brill Building.
M: Totally! I would love to see the Taylor Swift who would have been produced by that model. She is such a nerd when it comes to the actual craft of songwriting. I can think of few things she would have loved more than grinding away with a bunch of other songwriters in the Brill Building.
S: I feel like if she took some non-disclosure agreement pointers from Beyoncé, she could pull it off as a next act!
M: Maybe she will! I could easily see this album being the lynchpin in her career the way Beyoncé’s self-titled album in 2013 was for hers. The moment when each of them decided they could stop playing by (at least some of) other peoples’ rules.
S: I know we’ve said this many times, many ways, but it is infuriating that women as talented and with as much to say as Beyoncé (whose Black is King we’ll be covering with a dedicated link round-up in the next couple of weeks) and Taylor have the most power when they say the least outside of their art. We get these occasional tiny glimpses of how funny and cute Beyoncé is, and I wish she felt ok showing that side of herself publicly more often. Same for Taylor. According to “Lover”, she relishes dirty jokes. I would love to hear her tell one!
M: While I would just kill for a chance to have a really in-depth conversation with her about music. She is such a nerd for her craft and I just feel like she must be checking out all the Girls with Guitars who do Tiny Desk Concerts and all I want is to know what she thinks of them! To talk with her about the perfection of Mitski! But there is no way for her to do that without being accused of posturing — there is no reward to showing the full spectrum of herself to the general public. It just gives people more to criticize and interpret in bad faith.
S: I agree, and it’s so disappointing. I very much wish it were otherwise! Talk to me a little bit more about why and how this album is so enchanting for you.
M: My first thought, when I listened, was delight at hearing an album that sounded as mature as Taylor actually is. Now, by that I don’t mean that an album in the sad indie rock mold is sonically more mature — that claim is as patently absurd as the people on Twitter crediting the quality of this album exclusively to Taylor’s male collaborators. These songs are extremely of a piece, in terms of quality and melody, with everything she’s produced before. And there is just as much artistic mastery in creating a solid-gold pep rally jam like “Shake It Off” as there is in holding your own in a duet with Bon Iver. But I think the question of maturity can best be demonstrated by looking at the emotional growth you see when you compare “Starlight” (off 2012’s Red) to “the last great american dynasty.”
M: Both songs are inspired by women from the 20th century — “Starlight” was inspired by a picture of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy dancing, “the last great american dynasty” by Rebekah Harkness, the madcap socialite who owned Taylor’s Rhode Island mansion from 1947-1983. I think the tracks are meant to be in conversation with one another because of how prominently both use the word “marvelous.” “Starlight” sounds like the work of a young woman with very little life experience, to me — Flat and overly-romanticized. While “the last great american dynasty” is really sly and defiant.
S: I’d love to hear a future album from Taylor that’s a batch of songs about 19th & 20th century heiresses, eccentrics, and iconoclasts. She’s got such a good eye for them and I think feels real kinship with women who were Too Much for their times (see: the video for “Blank Space”, especially).
M: HEARTY co-sign. I think she does a great job of creating a vivid picture of that time with just a few lines. “The wedding was charming but a little gauche / There’s only so far that new money goes” gives me such a clear sense of the Chorus of Disapproving Newport Matrons.
S: You know who was a Newport Matron in that period? (Well, she’d be quite old by the time of the marriage described in the song, but still!) Lady Cora Levinson Crawley’s mother, Martha Levinson. Of course, she was a New Money Arriviste herself, but I’m very tickled to think of Shirley MacLaine lurking in the background somewhere, making amusing & cutting remarks.
M: Strong same. I mean, more Shirley MacLaine in everything.
S: Yes, please!
M: So, when I say the album sounds as mature as she is, I’m speaking of the perspective and insight, not the sonic styling. I think the songs on her display some of her keenest self-insight to date. “mirrorball,” for example, one of our mutual favorites, is the first thing that’s rivaled “Blank Space” for Taylor writing analytically about herself. “I’ve never been a natural-- all I do is try, try, try” is an instant classic line, and one that makes such good use of the emotionally transparent vocal best described by Tavi Gevinson).
“While Taylor is not technically an exceptional vocalist on this first album, she knows exactly how to make each word sound on an emotional level. Her instincts are just right, her cadence is so her. Like, it’s not just that her lyrics perfectly match up with the music and together they accurately capture a certain emotion—you can also just hear it when she’s smiling, or looking up, or thinking. This, I would argue, is more important than technically good vocals, and it’s also very rare.”
S: I love that insight! I also want to revisit what you were saying about songs on folklore being in conversation with songs from earlier albums, because I hear “mirrorball” — which is excellent all on its own — as the continuation of the Great Story of Taylor and Joe she’s been telling since “Delicate”. It sounds to my ear like the culmination of what she was writing about in “Delicate” and “Lover”. What starts with hesitation (written into a future radio hit, so, not that hesitant) over the unexpected and overwhelming feeling of being bowled over in a new relationship, and then deepens into the established relationship dynamics of “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but I want them all”, is now the assured, years-long nuance of “I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight” and “spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you”.
M: I totally agree! I hope Taylor, savvy businesswoman that she is, releases like a wedding commemorative songbook with all the Taylor and Joe songs. My favorite, prior to “mirrorball”, was “New Year’s Day” from reputation, which has a similarly lived-in vision of romance — “I want your midnights, but I’ll be picking up bottles with you on New Year’s Day.”
S: I really love this lyrical mode — sort of Taylor chilling at home in cozy yet stylish loungewear? — for her. She’s such a craftswoman, always, but there’s more space in these songs. I mean that both sonically and lyrically. Often, Max Martin and Jack Antonoff seem to want to fill every moment with a sonic baroqueness, just wall to wall festoons and flourishes. These new songs aren’t light, but they don’t feel like hermetically sealed pop gems, either. Likewise, the lyrics. I think so much of Taylor’s reputation hinges on filling every line with rigorous specificity, and folklore’s songs feel very personal, but also far more open to interpretation by the listener to be about the listener’s life and experiences, and less about the Easter eggs the songwriter might be leaving behind. And I think that’s a big part of what’s driving the enthusiastic embrace of this album I’ve been seeing on Twitter.
M: Yeah — like comparing “mad woman” to any of the songs from reputation really illustrates that to me. It’s like she’s finally gotten the hang of making her experiences a mirror for others, rather than merely a window into her own experiences. Thematically, it’s very of a piece with a lot of the angry songs on reputation, right down to the lines about witch hunts, but it really does feel animated as much by general patterns in society as it is by her personal experience. And I also think the insights in it have so much more depth than previous songs taking on society, like “The Man” from Lover. When I listen to “The Man”, I think “I am really glad twelve-year-olds are going to hear this song.” When I listen to “mad woman”, I think how glad I am to hear it. That said, I do have one reservation in my love for the album. I wish she’d picked even one woman to collaborate with.
S: I obviously feel the same.
M: I think she absolutely picked collaborators whose work she sincerely admired. But it’s so easy to read her choices like an attempt to confer legitimacy on her work. I wish, if she were looking to kiss the ring, that she picked bigger legends, or that, if she were looking to collaborate on terms of equality that she’d do it with women who would benefit from her shine. WHICH IS WHY… we made a list of artists we want Taylor to collaborate with in future.
Collaborations we long for!
Collaborating with The Chicks is a great start! KEEP GOING IN THAT DIRECTION!
We created a playlist of some collaboration inspiration we are certain Taylor will definitely see and take under consideration. It’s an overstuffed sofa of musical goodness (same) and we just want to highlight a few songs and artists that we think would make particularly interesting foils for her:
“Dreams Tonight”, by Alvvays (Sophie) — I picked this one because it’s got a dreamy, shoegazey feel strongly reminiscent of “mirrorball” and if I were Taylor, I’d be seething with warmly collegial envy over the line “If I saw you in the street, would I have you in my dreams tonight?”
“Washing Machine Heart”, by Mitski (Margaret) — Two of our preeminent poets of the devastatingly toxic crush. I think Mistki would mesh well with Taylor, but also teach her to love her messiness a little more.
“It’s Like That”, by Little Jackie (who you may know from her previous nom de plume, Imani Coppola, of “Legend of a Cowgirl” one-hit wonder fame) (Sophie) has released two albums of drum-tight Motown revivalism that I am an eternal sucker for. This is a mode of songwriting Taylor could be great at, but I haven’t seen her try hand at it yet, and I want to!
“Never Chase a Man”, by Esmé Patterson (Margaret) — This song is one from a concept album by Patterson where each of her songs is written from the perspective of the woman from another famous song— here it’s Jolene. Taylor would c r u s h this assignment.
“Furnace Room Lullaby” (Neko Case), “Hyperballad” (Björk), and “Orinoco Flow” (Enya) (Sophie) — if Taylor is going to lean into being a witchy forest lady, I would like her to apprentice herself to three undisputed queens of that genre of womanhood. Neko Case, Björk, and Enya work in wildly varying musical idioms but there’s a unifying aesthetic of unapologetic, idiosyncratic oddballery that I think she’d find compelling and worth excavating within herself.
“House Full of Empty Rooms” by Kathleen Edwards (Margaret) — The second I saw Bon Iver’s name on this album, I was gripped by a fierce longing to replace it with Kathleen Edwards. Edwards collaborated with Justin Vernon on her album and found herself so completely overshadowed by him in its reception that she quit making music for 8 years. She’s finally making music again — her new album comes out next Friday!! — and I think she and Taylor would complement one another so well.
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You guys are commenting so intelligently on this album! Even as a longtime Taylor Swift fan, all I've noticed is how surprising it is that every song appears to be someone's favorite.