Date: December 2021
Why does this matter? Taylor Swift is the greatest songwriter of her generation.
At the age of 31, Taylor became the first woman to win the Grammy for Album of the Year three times. She was named Artist of the Decade by the American Music Association for the 2010s. She holds the records for most songs to ever chart on the Billboard Hot 100, with 157 songs. Billboard named her #8 on its Greatest Artists of All-Time List, the highest among contemporary artists and sandwiched between Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Last month, Billy Joel called her "The Beatles of her generation.”
Folklore and Evermore are sister albums, both released during quarantine with no warning—Folklore in July 2020 and Evermore in December 2020. They were entirely created during the COVID pandemic, as Taylor used her time at home to dream up stories of other people's lives and tell those stories through song.
Analysis: When Taylor introduced Folklore the day of its release, she wrote that for the first time, she had written an album about imagined stories—she had projected her own emotions onto other people's lives, imagining stories. She wrote: “Visuals popped into my mind and piqued my curiosity. Stars drawn around scars. A cardigan that still bears the scent of loss twenty years later." Both of those references are to the song "Cardigan." This song was the first single off of Folklore and became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Analysis: Taylor ****has written that three of the songs on Folklore form a trilogy, written from three perspectives of the same love triangle. They are: Cardigan, August, and Betty. August tells a story of summer love—a fleeting moment of sun-soaked love, wrapped up in bedsheets. It's one of the most beautiful songs on the album, perfectly capturing the feeling of long, ephemeral summer days and young love. Taylor is also known for being one of the best living bridge songwriters, and August has an excellent bridge.
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