folklore by Taylor Swift's smoldering pop rebellion

The great fascination enveloping folklore, Taylor Swift’s mossy, surprise eighth LP, lies not within the album’s steadfast execution but the attempt itself — that during a global crisis which has paralyzed entire nations, a pop monolith would venture to swerve from her honey-soaked Lover’s lane and rumble deep into the forest, fixated on sonic reinvention. Hell, Swift’s fans would’ve been satisfied with a simple music video for her 11-month-old synth-bop “Cruel Summer. ” Instead, she’s written furiously in isolation, launching an organic rebellion far beyond the pseudo-defiance of Reputation (nine Max Martin co-writes don’t exactly scream disobedience) and churning out the quickest album turnaround of her career. For studio expertise, she tapped the National’s indie-rock svengali Aaron Dessner and comfy producer-pal Jack Antonoff, who together shepherded a kaleidoscopic stream of consciousness unlike anything remotely resembling Swift’s past work. “Bad Blood” now feels light-years away. As Swift noted on Instagram Friday morning, folklore comprises songs of “fantasy, history and memory” — rarely is it obvious across the 63-minute project that Swift is singing from genuine personal experience. “My imagination ran wild, ” she said. “Cardigan, ” the lead single (not that it matters), is a slow-burning, sonic cousin of “Wildest Dreams, ” driven by tender piano and a clopping drum sample, accompanied by a fantastical self-directed music video. The song is one of three on the album to examine a love triangle, Swift revealed Friday morning, with each track — “cardigan, ” the shimmery cut “august” and country-dusted “betty” — honing a different lover’s perspective. Though the story may very well extend further, considering “illicit affairs” is about just that and the break-up tune “my tears ricochet” is surely open to interpretation. While Swift’s patented easter eggs are all well and good— comb through her ravenous subreddit to read fan theories about how credited songwriter William Bowery is likely her partner, Joe Alwyn — the album’s grandest highlight is “Exile, ” her encompassing duet with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who opens the track with a rare untreated voice. “I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending, ” both wail as Dessner’s lush arrangement builds wistful piano into a sweeping, cinematic panorama. It’s immediately one of Swift’s most arresting collaborations to date, a worthy successor to her ethereal 2013 Hunger Games pairing, “Safe and Sound, ” with the Civil Wars. While the album tends to lull around its middle, folklore is far less concerned with its individual tracks than the greater, twisting conversation — the sort of hours-long, sanity-affirming chats that have become vital over these last four months. One musing bleeds into the next; sonic themes maintain a brilliantly downcast cohesion, like smooth obsidian glass. It’s a record born of necessity, a testament to her deep need to make music, even when it makes no sense to do so. She’s become a consummate songstress, even if she still feels underestimated, as she quips on “Cardigan”: “When you are young, they assume you know nothing. ” She’s been proving otherwise since signing her first record deal at 15, half her life ago.