Taylor Swift's "Folklore"

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About

Taylor Swift's Folklore is American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's eighth studio album released in late July 2020. The indie/folk/pop album was written during the coronavirus pandemic in collaboration with Aaron Dessner from The National and features a track sung with Bon Iver. The album primarily received positive reviews and signified a melancholic shift in Swift's style.

History

On Jully 23rd, 2020, Taylor Swift made her first announcement regarding the album on Twitter^[1] saying, "Surprise Tonight at midnight I’ll be releasing my 8th studio album, folklore; an entire brand new album of songs I’ve poured all of my whims, dreams, fears, and musings into" (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 833,600 likes and 335,500 retweets in four days. The next day, following the midnight release, Taylor Swift^[2] tweeted, "In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down" (shown below, right). The tweet received over 517,800 likes in three days.

That same day, Taylor Swift uploaded the official music video for the album's lead single "cardigan" to YouTube (shown below). The video accumulated over 27 million views and 1.4 million likes in three days.

Evermore

On December 10th, 2020, Swift announced a surprise follow-up album titled Evermore. Described as a "sister record" to Folklore, it features the same collaborators from the previous album, such as The National and Bon Iver, while also having a feature from pop rock band HAIM. The album was released on midnight, December 11th alongside its lead single "willow" (music video shown below). Like its predecessor, it also received very positive reviews, with the music video for "willow" gaining 5.5 million views within 14 hours.

Reception

Following the album's release, Folklore received mostly positive reviews. The New York Times^[4] stated "The desolate, stubborn, overcomposed indie rock of 'Folklore' […] is a tough thicket to tame. Sometimes she triumphs, wrestling it until it’s slack. But when it stifles her, it deserves all the eye rolls it gets." Pitchfork^[5] called the album "a sweater-weather record filled with cinematic love songs and rich fictional details." Rollingstone^[6] also reviewed the album and said, Swift has "never presented herself to the world that way with quite so much clarity as on Folklore." On July 25th, Twitter account @spotify_data^[3] announced that "Taylor Swift with her brand new album #folklore now holds the biggest female debut of all-time on Global Spotify Congratulations!" (shown below). The tweet acquired over 18,100 likes in two days.

Fandom

Many Taylor Swift fans congregated on Twitter and r/TaylorSwift to discuss the album and post fan art. On July 26th Redditor King_Tyson reposted "Book recommendations based on folklore I found on Instagram" to r/TaylorSwift^[7] which received over 220 points (96% upvoted) in a day (shown below, left). That same day, Redditor BuckAndBandit posted a "folklore themes movie poster" to r/TaylorSwift^[8] that accumulated over 260 points (98% upvoted) in a day (shown below, right).

In the week following the album's release, many media outlets like Bustle^[9] and Mashable^[10] published collections of Folklore-inspired memes.

Album Comparisons

On Twitter, many Swift fans posted memes comparing Swift's last album Lover to folklore. On July 24th, 2020, Twitter user @keatonkildebell^[11] tweeted images of contrasting characters Reese Witherspoon has played labeled with Swift's album titles (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 38,800 likes and 4,700 retweets in three days. That same day, Twitter user @ericrennerbrown^[12] posted images of labeled contrasting houses that received over 1,900 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Album Cover Edits

On July 23rd, 2020, those awaiting the album's release began posting album cover edits. That day, Redditor aggie1328 posted a photo captioned, "My university tweeted a Folklore inspired picture of our mascot" to r/TaylorSwift^[13] that accumulated over 2,000 points (99% upvoted) in four days. On July 25th, Instagram^[14] user Mikethedevine edited in a flyer that reads "putting a nicotine patch on your cat basically jailbreaks your cat" into the album art and gained over 210 likes in two days (shown below, right).