‘Folklore’ is Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album and was released in July of 2020 by Republic Records.

Taylor Swift is well known for her pop and up-beat music, but when she surprisingly released the album Folklore on July 24, 2020, it left some fans in shock because of its different genre of music.

On a previous Instagram post from July of 2020, she wrote, “In isolation, my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like. Stream of consciousness.”

This record also earned her a Grammy award for Album of the Year, iHeartRadio Music Award, as well as Danish Music Award for album of the year. 

The album has 16 tracks and is an hour and three minutes in length. She collaborated with a band named Bon Iver in the song “exile”, the fourth track.

This album is much different from the majority of her previous projects. It represents her writing talent conveying a story through lyrics and melody. She also wrote the complete album from a studio home, making it unique.

Swift conveys emotional story-telling in three songs from this album titled “betty”, “cardigan”, and “august”, calling it the “Folklore Love Triangle.” She has three different characters named Betty, James, and Augustine. Each of these songs are told from their point of view.  The songs suggest that James and Betty are together in the beginning, but James leaves her for a fantastic summer with Augustine, shortly realizing he loves Betty more. In the end, Taylor likes to think Betty and James end up together.

All of the songs on this album are told with substance and meaning behind them, but the song that resonates with me the most is the tenth track, “this is me trying”. In my opinion, this song is about seeing the mistakes she made in a relationship and trying to work through those issues, and always trying to be the person everyone else wants her to be. I highly enjoy the message behind this track and the well written lyrics.

I also highly appreciate “august”, the eight track, mentioned before. This song is told from the perspective of Augustine of the Folklore love triangle, and is explaining she is in love with someone she can clearly see no future with, but tries to keep convincing herself otherwise.

Overall, I rate the album a 10/10. The songs are well produced and the entire album was such a wonderful experience to listen to. I always enjoy listening to Folklore whenever I get the chance to.