This is another, lighter album where the music draws the lyrics behind it like 1989 or Reputation, but she’s figured how to hit that balance better. With the lyrics bearing less weight she can play whimsically with the vocal line while constantly wandering into that thing she does where she’ll invoke one of her earlier songs in rhythm of intonation, or gauzily underdescribe a scenario or characters in a way that they vibe like she’s borrowing from ones she established before
Snow on the Beach, the song with Lana del Rey, is like the fourth most Lana del Rey song Taylor Swift ever released
You’re On Your Own, Kid is another subtle case of her invoking Jenny Lewis
Is still kind of sad the Lover era got rained out by COVID, there were some real anthems in there, and it introduced new like, lore about her attitude to like, men and herself. I suppose one role of this album is to reestablish that stuff with a light touch while not being redundant
Both Midnights and Folklore each feel like plausible follow-ups to Lover, wandering off in directly opposite directions (Evermore felt like a b-sides and outtakes collection)
The aesthetic for this album is definitely early 80s, her dress and hair and eyeshadow in the promo shots established it and yeah, the music is chime sweeps and horns and digital beeps and 808 drums as embellishments but it’s honestly less defining than 1989’s periodizing, which was not even that heavy
Think I bought the deluxe edition but I don’t know which ones are the “bonus” tracks
Oh, they’re on the cover, that’s nice
Paris tossing off a bit about the two meanings of “shade” is a callback to You Need To Calm Down
High Infidelity suffers from the way that her unmarked-plausibly-Taylor-as-narrator stuff lately has been so about healthy relationships and relationship skills that it can’t switch smoothly to be about relationship conflict of any weight. Folklore she very much rendered her narrators as third-party characters
Honestly might be the first Taylor Swift album you could put on while you do something and enjoy even without paying any attention to the lyrics
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