Hey everyone! Welcome back to Take Note with Maddy. This week I will be talking all about the album that took us by surprise back in summer 2020, Folklore. We all know Miss Taylor Swift and she gave us everything we needed with this album.

As per usual, before getting into this album, let’s look into where Taylor Swift began and where she is now. Swift is from West Reading, PA and started her career at a pretty young age. When she was 11, she sang the national anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers game and soon after that she learned to play guitar and started writing music. When she turned 14, she signed with SONY Records and released her first single Tim McGraw in 2006. Soon after turning 16 she released her debut album in 2006 and then her sophomore album Fearless in 2008. Almost all of the songs she released hit the charts and she soon became a teen sensation. After this, she released seven other albums. Speak Now, Red, 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, and Evermore. Over the last 17 years, she has went form being a country music start to one of the biggest pop artists in the world. Her music is played everywhere and almost anyone can name at least one of her songs.

Now let’s get into Folklore.

This 16 track album took us all by surprise and had us going through a rollercoaster of emotions. Before getting into the album, here’s a look at the track list. 

As I’m sure a lot of you know, Taylor Swift is known for using Easter eggs a little clues in songs or videos that hint to new songs or albums. This is no surprise to her fans and anytime she does this, they spend tons of time looking into these clues and analyzing what it could mean. This was the case with Folklore. Since this happened, when the album was released fans and the general public were ready to listen. An article written by Rob Sheffield states “Her eighth album is a radical detour into the deepest collection of songs she’s ever come up with.” This album felt more mature and different than her prior albums. In this article, Sheffield talks about how this album is way out of Swifts comfort zone and these songs are some of her most emotion-filled, storytelling songs she has ever written. He stated that Folklore really feels like the debut album of a whole new Swift” and that this was her best album thus far. Another article was written about Folklore by Jillian Mapes from Pitchfork. The headline of this article states that folklore is filled with “cinematic love songs and rich fictional details.” They express how well she tells a story in each song on Folklore. They make a point to talk about how carefully she puts details into songs and how every little detail she writes into the lyrics are places so carefully and are equally important. Writing meaningful, detailed lyrics is a strong suit of hers and she did a great job of this in Folklore. 

When it comes to Taylor Swift, for me I have gone through different phases of whether I liked her or not and how I felt about her music. In the beginning, I was a huge fan who had all of her albums and listened to them all the time. As she started to change to more pop than country, I went through a phase of not liking her as I know a lot of people did. Once she released Folklore, I fell right back into loving her music. It had such a different vibe and exactly the album I needed during summer 2020 as we were still in quarantine trying to make the best of the summer. I listened to it on repeat and felt like I was going through all the emotions with her. The album has such a beautiful sound and the lyrics are filled with detail and they all tell a story. 

Here are links to listen to the album! 

Spotify: hhttps://open.spotify.com/album/1pzvBxYgT6OVwJLtHkrdQK?si=9dCV2sD6T4ush74ie9o3-A

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/folklore-deluxe-version/1528112358 

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for my next post!