Taylor Swift - folklore (2020)

Reason for Listening:
#1 on the Billboard 200 (Week of 20200808). Both news surrounding the release and talk among coworkers motivated me to listen to this album.
Last Week: - | Peak: 1 | Weeks on Chart: 1

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Released 20200724.
16 songs. 63:29. folklore (2020)
Wikipedia

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Notes:
--20200805--
First listen. Passive listen on second half.
This first song is slow but feels like potentially a great open to the album. ("the 1")
I should note that the last album I listened to, SUPERBLOOM (MisterWives), was also just over an hour long with lowercase song titles.
Second listen.
After completing this post, I passively listened to the entire album a third time.

3: "invisible string";
2: "the 1"; "august"; "illicit affairs"; "mad woman"; "betty"; "peace";
1: "the last great american dynasty"; "exile" (ft. Bon Iver); "epiphany";
0: "cardigan"; "my tears ricochet"; "mirrorball"; "seven"; "this is me trying"; "hoax";

Summary:
The entire album has a very cohesive sound. In general, the album focuses around the folk genre with emphasis on vocals and minimal usage of instruments, a stark contrast to heavy use of digital beats. Furthermore, I would say that the overall tone is heavier and more serious, and moments of somber. Personally, I"m not in the mood to do a listen of the album along with lyrics, but I'm sure most of the songs would benefit from this. In other words, I believe that just listening to the sound of the songs is sufficient for an album experience, but a lot of additional value will be derived from reading the lyrics and both interpreting those lyrics at a personal level and at the artistic level (i.e., empathizing with the artist's point of view). Despite not particularly feeling excited by the album or truly feeling captured by a particular song, the album clearly stands as a high quality album in many aspects. I would also add that I feel much more positively about this album than Lover.* I'm going to go ahead and give this album a "temporary" 5.4 out of 5.

Overall Rating: 5.4/5
Favorite Song: "invisible string"

*Though apparently that's not saying much because I rated Lover a 2.X.

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