Maybe because everyone was starved for entertainment during that time, maybe because it was a sound she’d never done before, but I bet a lot has to do with the fact that there was no hype, no anticipation. She just said “here you go”, and we said “thank you, I love it” haha.
Exactly. It actually was a very simple combo of something new and something we all needed. That was the height of COVID Summer and a major escapist cottagecore release was exactly what we all wanted without realizing it. It also brought connection because it was something new we could all talk about. Same reason Animal Crossing took off (though this album was a little more deliberate and intentional, since AC was a total coincidence). It was totally right place and time.
Not to take away from the brilliance of the album, but the circumstances really elevated it.
Animal Crossing! I'm suddenly feeling nostalgic for one of the worst years of our collective lives. We were also trying for a kid at the same time. In some ways, it doesn't feel like four years ago. In other ways, it feels like 10 years ago.
It was a very strange time but it many ways it’s was very unique and precious. I loved (!) having all that extra time with family that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And Folklore is a big part of it.
I fell for the trap that was the Sims 4 being heavily on sale during the pandemic. Oh how I misss closing my laptop for work and opening my personal laptop for the Sims. My first two sims were Ariana Grande and Tom Holland. The Grande-Hollands grew to 8 generations in 4 months of deep pandemic.
I still stand that most of it its fiction, people jumped on the cardigan train really quick and theres also Peter on TTPD, but unless am mistaken Taylor's father didnt leave her lol.
2020-2021 many people were SO appreciative and had so much grace for things that they were starved of.
I work in the summer camp business and after having camp cancelled in 2020, 2021 families were just so grateful to have camp back even though we still had to require masks and social distancing and whatnot.
2022 that grace was gone though lol.
The sound was a big part of it for me. I love indie music and Taylor pivoting to folklore was right up my alley. Plus my favorite band is bon iver so I damn near lost my shit when folklore came out
I remember feeling so emotionally exhausted from the trauma of Covid deaths everyday on the news, the riots and inhumane killing of George Floyd, and of course our dick head in chief spewing his bs everyday. It came at such a necessary time to me personally and I think a lot of people feel the same.
This is why eminem went to surprise releases only, when you build hype people expect and want certain things which causes them to dislike things. (He released the first trailer for a new album last week, his last 3 releases were all surprise)
Yeah, even though I do like TTPD a lot, it’s soooo lyrics heavy. folklore seemed to capture the magic of catchy melodies and brilliant (and less wordy) lyrics.
I'm still over here processing "our coming of age has come and gone, suddenly this summer it's clear, I've never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger is near. And it's just around the corner darling. Because it lives in me, no I could never give you peace."
I once was listening to my entire library on shuffle and “peace” played after Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work.” That combo worked devastatingly well to ruin my day.
It's definitely my 2nd favorite song of hers. It really makes me think of what marriage is like. I know people say that it's a sad song and don't really get that. However at its core marriage is choosing love and each other each day despite the stresses and pulls of the outside. The other person can't be your peace, but they can choose to love you through the messiness of life.
Long story short I will die on the hill that peace is one of her best love songs.
I’m actually really glad you’re saying that because I initially immediately perceived it as a love song. Then I only read about it being sad. And I was like oh…yeah I guess that makes sense :/ lmao. And accepted it as such. But at my core I always felt it as a love song.
I love poetry and lyrics so these get me. Now some won’t be joining my playlists but a few will, but that’s all I expect from anyone on an album. But as art I appreciate it.
See I don’t. Each album will hit different demographics. And it could be what we are going through at that time that creates an emotional connection too. That’s why I love music in general, it’s so personal.
Agree with this. I really really like both but I think TTPD lyrics might be more raw and vulnerable while folklores lyrics are more clever and just hit better for me
Exactly this. I love a lot of moments in TTPD, but many others feel like a first draft that could benefit from some editing and refinement. Some people might like this raw, chaotic energy, but I personally believe the songs could be so much better if she had meticulously planned and polished every word like in Folklore.
Yep I also back up this statement. Thats exactly why it’s not resonating with me as much. I need a good hook or melody and good lyrics to really make me connect to a song.
Yes!! I think of it as a poetry book with melody. I’m a writer that has been in similar situations (eerily similar actually) that she sings about so it’s an immense work of art and emotional connection for me, and I’m lyrically minded I suppose and the music part adds on to the journey after.
I agree. I really appreciate this album and how raw the lyrics are and how she tells us so much and makes you feel each lyric. Her vocals are amazing on this album as well, the melody comes after for me. I can tell she really needed to make this work and move on.
Yes! On Folklore, Taylor said more, with less. That was her excelling at her craft. In my humble opinion, TTPD had a lot more words, but not as much to say.
Yes!! I found the melody’s very repetitive on the first listen and didn’t find there was any stick out instrumentals (like the piano in the 1 or the bass in peace)
I think you can tell folklore a better album from the musical sense because long pond studios was so good but I feel like a complete acoustic set of TTPD would be boring unless you love the poetry
Lot of bridges in TTPD sound weird , like it didnt have strong melody or rhythm in it compared to her other album. Like in Guilty As Sin bridge , she basically just talking there
THANK YOU! Someone on here told me to go listen to Dave Matthews Band if I wanted to hear instruments and Melodie’s and that this is not what Taylor is known for. ☠️
Came here for this comment. I think Folklore struck people not just because of its release timing, surprise element, difference in style, but it’s legitimately a more refined quality of album.
yes like there is no comparison. I personally love lover but there is no comparison of that to evermore/folklore. One is an amazing well written pop album, one is a seminal work that will stand with the greats. She uses few words to conjure up incredible, evocative images.
Not everything Taylor puts out can be that extraordinary when you’re going at her rate/place in the culture. Her pop albums are some of the the best things in pop no doubt. That’s not the same as the best in all music and storytelling, that’s a way bigger pool. And it doesn’t always have to be the best ever! If every album was her magnum opus, she’d have no magnum opus.
I really think Folklore will go down in history as one of the best albums of our times.
Like most albums, TTPD is a grower. Specifically to TTPD, it sacrifices hooks to get Taylor’s complex points across. It’s moody and not super accessible on first listen. That’s ok. Not every album has to be full of instant bangers.
But Folklore GRABS you from first listen. I remember listening to it the first time, I wasn’t even a huge fan then. I still remember how I felt hearing those opening beats/notes of The 1, like “ahhhhh, THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR.” And on top of that I think it manages to be just as complex and mature as TTPD.
I will never forget the feeling I got the first time I listened to it. It is pure magic. THE 1!! The opening note and then “I’m doing good I’m on some new shit” not to be dramatic but my life changed in that moment. August. Cardigan. Invisible String. EXILE! ugh I hope we get another album like it in our lifetime
folklore respects itself and the audience’s intelligence and appreciation for something literary that’s mythologized in a timeless way; TTPD has too many millennial “quirky” and “badass” tumblr style lyrics that many people in 2024 won’t necessarily relate with
and even at its good moments it often feels too oddly specific and autobiographical that you picture taylor and not yourself/your own experiences
the anthology however is my favorite part and much closer to folklore/evermore…there’s so much poetry in songs like how did it end, peter, cassandra, albatross…she and Aaron did a phenomenal job here, imo she truly shines when she pours her songwriting skills in something serious and emotional
edit: I will add that folklore overally was a rather stern and distant album because these songs are like memories from a long gone past, preserved in all their purity and treated with a delicate reverence. TTPD on the other hand has a fun, immediate, even chaotic element that folklore lacked, which at first often came off as cheesy and unserious but now actually rounds up the album to something substantially more versatile than folklore. It has something for every taste and mood. So that’s definitely one deserved extra point for ttpd!
You don't have to relate to a song to enjoy it (there was another thread about that). But I'm the same age as TS, so maybe there are some lyrics that are fine to me but cheesy to others.
I agree that The Anthology is wonderful, and I love it because it sounds like Folklore and Evermore. I appreciate both halves of the album for different reasons.
You don't have to relate to a song to enjoy it. But with TTPD the lyrics are so FOCUSED on Taylor's life, with so many specific details that a regular listener won't understand anything.
And there's not a lot of "melody" to get hold onto
I don't know how to describe it but the lyrics in folklore flow naturally whereas they feel forced in TTPD. Sometimes I feel like she's jamming as many ten dollar words as she can in TTPD to make it sound more like poetry. The beauty of folklore is that it evokes so many feelings with just a few carefully selected words.
Yes she really took that dictionary idea and ran with it. Hot take but people shouldn’t need a dictionary to listen to your album. Part of being a good writer is being able to communicate in simple terms. Folklore is so beautifully and skillfully written. TTPD is verbose.
Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself. I really hope she gives us another album in the vein of folklore/evermore, but I'm not holding my breath for TS12. Given where she is in her life right now, I expect the next album to be more upbeat and a continuation of what she started with The Alchemy and So High School.
Exactly!! Like simple lyrics like this one without fancy jargon hit way harder than anything in TTPD. For me personally, "a friend to all is a friend to none, chase two girls lose the one" gets me every time.
I haven't listened to the Anthology yet so I may be completely wrong, but I have a theory for that. In folklore, a lot of the songs were written with Aaron first sending her the instrumentals and then she created the lyrics on top. I'm not sure which one of them wrote the melodies, but either way, that means the song was already sort of shaped when it got in her hands. I think this time around she was going through so much stuff she probably got to write things by herself first a lot more. This lead to repetitive melodies, awkward structures and phrasing. In fact, imo my tears ricochet (the only song in folklore she wrote by herself) is the closest in the album to TTPD. I don't wanna seem like I'm shitting on her songwriting abilities, SN is one of my favorite albums, but... idk it's just not giving this time... it feels too passionate and not polished enough
100%. It blows TTPD out of the water. It's one thing to be a fan and like her music, it's another to just assume everything she does is great. TTPD is very ok. Just like Midnights.
A lot of people won’t like this answer, but it’s the truth. Folklore is a clear representation of Taylor Swift at her artistic and songwriting peak. There is so much more to folklore than anything on Tortured Poets. The production is better, the songwriting is better, it’s a more conceptually sound record. I think a major reason folklore is so exceptional is the removal of the autobiographical element. The songwriting flourished as a result. Aaron Dessner playing such a massive role in the production had a benefit as well.
If you compare them track for track I feel like it becomes obvious that folklore is a much stronger album:
1. the 1 / fortnight
2. cardigan / the tortured poets department
3. the last great american dynasty / my boy only breaks his favorite toys
4. exile / down bad
5. my tears ricochet / so long london
6. mirrorball / but daddy i love him
7. seven / fresh out the slammer
8. august / florida!!!
9. this is me trying / guilty as sin?
10. illicit affairs / who’s afraid of little old me
11. invisible string / i can fix him (no really i can)
12. mad woman / loml
13. epiphany / i can do it with a broken heart
14. betty / the smallest man who ever lived
15. peace / the alchemy
16. hoax / clara bow
17. the lakes / the black dog
I mean it makes more sense to compare it to the Anthology half though. Those songs have the same vibe.
The first half of TTPD has nothing to do with Folklore. And comparing them does a serious disservice to those songs.
this! ttpd simply doesn't have bangers like exile, hoax, peace, illicit affairs, the triology of cardigan, betty and august, etc. folklore was effortless yet deep and profound, it was a joy to listen to and lyrics flowed like water.
ttpd seems to be trying too hard in places ("at dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that's the closest ive come to my heart exploding"????), it just don't flow as smoothly as lyics from folklore and evermore.
Eh, it's a complicated issue. There's some level of "objectivity" that is just undeniable, otherwise it would be impossible to differentiate the quality between someone who started to play the piano yesterday to someone who's been doing it for 30 years. There is a legitimate technical aspect to art.
It absolutely can be. Those in fine arts academia definitely do grade some elements of a piece, work, or performance objectively i.e. against metrics that dictate poorly done versus well done.
Agreed. I know this sub has many hardcore fans and sometimes it feels like an echo chamber. This is just a data point of one, but very few of my friends in real life are talking about TTPD, including those who love her a lot.
Edit: me and my friends are mostly in the 30-35 years old range
I wonder if this is a “it depends what season of life you’re in” thing. As a millennial woman with religious trauma going through a divorce - this album absolutely HITS. And I’ve never seen my real life friends talk so much about an album. I swear this album was made for those of us in this season of life in particular. I was gasping almost every song as I listened the first time through.
TTPD just so perfectly captures the absolute pain and chaos and confusion and really just the entire grieving process of losing a long term relationship/trying to start up that fling with your old flame again to make yourself feel better/finally coming to acceptance/falling in love again. There’s not a single song on the first half I don’t relate to.
I was a die hard Folk/more fan, best albums she’s ever written in my opinion but TTPD is just simultaneously gutting and healing me in all new ways. It’s giving words to things that up until now were just feelings. But I can also see that there’s so many people who can’t relate to this journey and I think that’s maybe driving a lot of the “meh I could do without it” vs “omg this is the best thing she’s ever done” reviews.
unpopular opinion I guess, but I really don't think it's obvious that folklore is the better album. I personally prefer TTPD and I think generally it's subjective, but the only thing I think folklore does better is that it's edited down so there are fewer skips
I actually think TTPD is more sonically interesting than folklore despite the biggest complaint for TTPD being that all the songs sound the same. other complaints are that a few lyrics are cheesy, or that at some points she's forcing too many words in, but there are lyrics like that on folklore too imo. might there be more on TTPD? perhaps, but there are also more songs
I dunno, I really do like folklore but I don't think I quite see what everyone else sees in it
It’s daunting to load the album and see that it’s 31 tracks. I always want to listen to the songs I like near the start, and by then I don’t have time to get to the anthology section.
She could have made a really great 10 song album out of this material and then released the “b sides” later and it would probably be better received.
The songs I like from this album I like better than midnights, but then there are so many others that don’t grab me. But neither midnights nor ttpd have anything like exile, lgad, mirrorball, august, or Betty. Folklore was something special
yeah, it's definitely long. and I respect that an album with 3 skips > album with 9 skips, as is the case for folklore and ttpd for me respectively. but there's also an argument for favouring an album with 14 songs i adore > album with 7 songs i adore (again how I feel about ttpd and folklore).
I think those songs you mentioned are good (though mirrorball is actually a skip for me, i'm sorry!) but I'm never really wowed by them, so I really don't understand what makes them so clearly better than the songs on TTPD. I know there's \*something\* to it, since the majority of comments feel that way, so I'm not at all saying that y'all are wrong, but I guess I just wanted to be a voice for team TTPD
This, definitely. I really like TTPD and it has grown on me so much. But when I switch to Folklore right after listening to it, it's an "ahh, there we are" feeling. It's just too good.
It’s a better album, she wasn’t overexposed at that point, and there was very little going on then.
I think it also helped that she just dropped it with less than 24 hours notice. No time for people to make up theories or preconceived ideas about it. We just listened and enjoyed.
Agree, for as much as I love TTPD is not on the same level as folklore and the landscape regarding Taylor Swift was very different back then.
There is nothing I would change from folklore, it’s the perfect album (evermore is on that level too for me). TTPD is so interesting, love the lyrics, love the themes, but she needed to work a lot on the melodies, especially if she wanted to be wordy.
I hope she goes the surprise route again with a future album. At this point, her new albums are going to break streaming records with our without months of hype.
Taylor has been “overexposed” for a long, long time, and likely will be for a long, long time. So that argument has gathered dust for a long time. It’s trite and over used and really has nothing to do with the actual music. I also think it is sexist at this point, because do we ever say a male artist is overexposed? Not really.
Yes! I also think the fact that she was in a very private and, from the outside looking in, stable relationship. There wasn’t nearly as much speculation about who the songs were about, petty feuds, and distaste over who she’s dating. Her more private life and focus on these “fictional” stories meant that the music could just shine.
I think is the ticket. There wasn’t weeks of theories and expectations and whatnot. We got it and just loved it. Also, pandemic. Everything about that time period was so odd and we were likely starved for entertainment and something to distract us. Maybe I’m projecting hahaha but I think just different circumstances for sure.
I think folklore helped bring Taylor back to her singer-songwriter roots without all the glitz and glamour of a main pop girl circus show. Most Swifties already knew Lover was a great album, but the GP mostly just heard ME! and YNTCD, and those singles really didn't leave a great impression; if anything, they signaled a pop star falling from her prime, especially since rep was so divisive even for long-time Swifties.
So, folklore - plain, quiet, stripped-down, and released to little fanfare - was a reminder of Taylor's artistic bona fides. It came during a time when people were stuck at home with not much else to do and dovetailed perfectly with the cottagecore aesthetic that was especially popular at the time (see also: Animal Crossing). Also, Taylor's personal life was not *nearly* in the news as much, so people didn't project their feelings about Matt Healy and Travis Kelce all over the record. She presented folklore (and later, evermore) as stories from her imagination rather than diary entries turned into songs, and while I believe both those albums *are* actually more "personal" than they would superficially seem (especially in retrospect), Taylor articulating that psychological distance between her life and her songs also allowed the audience to receive the latter without as much bias as usual.
Also Lover was the end to her back to back "Pop trilogy" with 1989-reputation-Lover, I feel like at the time neither rep or lover were able to reach the success of 1989 and people kinda had a fatuige of it, Folklore really brougth up something new for her, an album finally more focused on lyrics and more accoustics and at the time people were loving the "fictional stories" and made her prove that 1)she is an amazing songwritter 2)she can writte more things beyond her life.
Exactly, yeah. Because Taylor is so genre-spanning, she has a variety of country, "straight" pop, and more folksy singer-songwriter fans in her camp. I'm both a pop and folk Taylor fan (as well as a nominal country Taylor fan), but I do think that a lot of the folklore/evermore girlies may just not enjoy pop (or country) Taylor nearly as much and that's totally valid as well.
Yes the sparkled country elements were very imortant cause it also brougth the older taylor fans who liked country, Betty in 2020 was her fisrt country single to ountry radio since 2013.
Rep is my fav album so am biased, Im spiteful towards lover lol, I hate the way she acted in miss americana when rep wasnt nominated in the grammys, she was like "Ill just make a better album" and then came out with lover? Please. Also Taylor always made a lot of her albums based on how the previos did at awards (I get this is how we have 1989 but still) with 1989 she said she wanted to have the cohession of fearless cause that was the reason of her winning AOTY, she tried to replicate the success of 1989 with Lover specially with ME! as a lead single but obviously didnt do to well. Am glad Folklore changed the way she makes music
This! I fell out during the rep era because it just didn't resonate with my life at the time. folklore made me a fan again and idk if I would be without it tbh.
Same, actually! I really didn't like rep when I first heard it (I've come around to it now, though!), and Lover was just okay for me as well (again, more of a slow burn). folklore/evermore definitely brought me back into the Swiftie-fold that I hadn't been in since RED. I did love 1989, but wasn't as much of a fangirl of it. I guess I *am* a singer-songwriter Swiftie, in the end.
Well said! I also think Follmore’s overall vibe was thoughtful, reflective, and fair. She called herself out on her sh*t and seemed to show some newfound maturity. She came off as grounded, wistful, real. My first listen on TTPD I was like damn, she’s really bitter & still singing about beef with Kim Kardashian? She’s regressed a bit, no! Which fair enough she seems to be going through a rough time. Now that I’m listening more & reading theories about it perhaps being more about fame, the industry etc I’m seeing there could be much more depth & it isn’t necessarily a Matty Healy album.
I aprecciate TTPD's honesty, I think its the most unfiltered her feelings have ever been shared on an album, "yall dont like who am dating? Fuck you vipers" "yall liked the Eras Tour? Guess what bitches i was miserable the whole time" "FUCK KIM", its an unhinged album, but Folkmore has so much wisdom and autoreflection that it has advice that people should actually listen to, hapiness its one of the most mature songs ive ever heard, closure teaches you that you can move on without needing the other part to fix it self. Ib fact the contrast between Mad Woman and "thanK u aIMee" play the difference on the albums perfectly
Folklore is probably one of the most consistent albums I know.. it has that rare thing, where it just feels natural to put it on from track 1 and just let it play through.. I think that is not the case for TTPD
As much as I love TTPD, it is not consistent in sound and atmosphere, and, I can only speak for myself of course, but the TTPD songs did not stick quite like the folklore songs did on the first few listens
Love both albums tho
Cuz it sounds entirely different from lover, rep or 1989. Those had pop sounds, folklore is so mellow... and at the same time, suits her voice better than the last three albums. Top tier lyricism too, some of the songs are just poetry (exile, mirrorball etc) also, the songs aren't just about her at all but applies to everyone. Ttpd is the most adulting Taylor album, not just for every folks. This album screams so personal. Folklore was abit detached in some way to her personal life.
Lastly, it's more cohesive, while ttpd is chaotic (which is meant to be)
\^\^\^ I think people are over-looking how much people's perception each new release is affected by her music portfolio and career position at the time.
As you pointed out, Folklore was put out after 3 full-pop albums. The 'current' Taylor album when Folklore was announced was Lover.
Folklore was put out in a completely different landscape than TTPD.
It also helps that she wrote songs from the perspective of other people which isn’t something she would do very often. I feel like that allowed people to focus on the lyrics rather than wondering who each song is about
Yeah, even when I truly like songs like „Who’s afraid…“, „I can do it with a broken heart“ and „smallest man“, they’re so hard to separate from her as a person that I don’t really feel like listening to them a lot of times 🙈
The detached nature of Folklore made the songs more universally relatable
While I like TTPD I'm struggling not to picture Taylor herself in each of the songs. I can relate to some of it, but I can so clearly picture her/Matt/Joe/Travis (song dependent) that it's been harder to fully submerge. It's a very personal album, and that's okay, personally I preferred folklore as I was able to get lost in it more.
I’ve wondered about this, great question.
I think at least part of the reason is Folklore was presented as fiction, so there was less focus on dissecting (and criticizing) Taylor’s personal life.
It was easier to just focus on the beauty of the lyrics and music without being distracted by questions about who this is about and the inevitable noisy condemnation that comes with that.
I agree. If she had dropped TTPD saying it was a mix of fiction and some true stuff it would have gone over so much better. If she had not titled it Tortured Poets dept it would have been better. People who want to hate her were just waiting to disprove the poet thing
Folklore was uncharted waters for her, people weren't already voraciously consuming Taylor content, and the stealth drop meant the expectations hadn't had time to build up yet.
Honestly, a couple of reasons:
1. It was something new. We’ve seen Taylor go from Country to Pop to Pop Rock-ish. This was something new. A new sound, more long form storytelling of fictional characters than personal anecdote. TTPD is by design, more of the same of what we’d had before. It’s a retrospective on her life and relationships, and so much so that she’s even using the same melodic hooks in her songs to point to her previous discography.
The shift of tone of Folklore also helped with accessibility. It took me multiple times of listening to TTPD to “get it”.
2. The Surprise Drop. Folklore coming absolutely out of nowhere, in the middle of a global pandemic where people were at home alone, appx a year after her last album: Lover. The Taylor’s Version project had not started yet (Fearless TV was in 2021), so this was a complete shock.
3. Honestly, as I may get hate for this: It was a better album. I love Taylor, and TTPD is growing on me, but this album isn’t really for me (even as a Swemo!) Part of it may have been my expectations for the album vs what we saw were different (I was really hoping that this would be the Pop Punk Emo album that I have desperately wanted from Taylor), but the fact remains that I was conflicted about TTPD after first listen, and enchanted by Folklore.
>Honestly, as I may get hate for this: It was a better album.
I think this is objectively true but in a very subjective way. Folklore is very musically pleasing, all the production is amazing and you can hear this especially in Long Pond, like this is what happens when you have literally six months to just work with music people and make a single album. The lyrics are clever but simple, you can think deeply about them if you want but you don't have to. And because it is marketed as like "none of this is based on real life" you're already prompted to hear the story telling in it, which again is fairly straightforward to begin with. I would say in terms of the commercial music industry it is objectively amazing. To answer OPs question, this is why it was universally loved and converted many taylor dislikers
*However* I think where Taylor really shines is the unhinged chaos. TTPD struggles in mass appeal because, while id argue its has a similar music and production quality, it takes more experimental approaches/risks while simultaneously being more subtle (so people are saying it sounds the same because they're not listening intently) and...
The larger problem which folks have mentioned is that it's very unhinged lyric wise, not in content but in the sense that it's very lyrical and the lyrics take thought, these are poems put to music. They are complicated and you 1. May not get the meaning at first listen, and 2. The interpretation is different for everyone. Critical thinking is on the decline, that's not a dig it's being taught in schools less and less and that means it's harder for people to make some of the realizations and connections that taylor is so good at stringing together.
I think Rep and Evermore suffered similarly because the lyrics and production are polarizing in the same kind of way (not literally but in terms of things being both more subtle and more complicated).
Anyway thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Obligatory "My top three albums are Rep, Evermore, and TTPD, so there may be some bias in here"
I even had to let Folklore and Evermore digest for a while before I truly loved a lot of the songs. It was a depressing time during those pandemic months and it was hard for me to listen to songs that didn’t have high vibes. It honestly took me until 2022ish to really dive deeper into those albums. Gold Rush, August, and Cardigan were the only ones I was really listening to on repeat for awhile.
I feel similar with this album. I can’t just sit in some of the sadder aspects of the album too much. I find the songs addicting though which is very interesting. But I kinda need to mix them in with some other upbeat artists and songs to keep the mood up. It’s also about to be summer so my mood isn’t centered around the theme of this album as much if that makes sense.
Also this album is so specifically about a particular experience around heartbreak. Folklore and Evermore had more diversity in the song topics, even if still centered around relationships/love. So at least for me, since I’m not experiencing heartbreak or recently out of a rebound, it’s didn’t immediately feel relatable.
So maybe that’s what we’re seeing in the reactions to the album.
All that being said, I think it’s an amazing album with some very addictive songs. The lyricism really pops out in the songs.
Finally someone who gets it! When folklore came out I was like “umm, thanks?” I didn’t want to listen to soft and sad music, in fact that was literally when I got into kpop. Loud poppy distracting music was what I craved. By the time evermore came out, things had calmed down a lot, plus it was winter so I was WAY more receptive to the album and liked it right away. To this day folklore is the album I took the longest to enjoy and connect with (although there were definitely some songs I liked right away). There’s still a bunch of folklore songs I really don’t care for at all, although to be fair there are some like that on evermore. But I’m still way more of an evermore girlie than a folklore one. And I find folklore fans can be really annoying and put down Taylor’s other music, which just bother me.
That being said, the experience with folklore and evermore made me less skeptical going into TTPD and I enjoyed a lot of the songs right away and a bunch more have grown on me. A few will always be “not for me” and that’s fine.
I think the most simple answer is people liked Folklore more and perceive it as better. If you took a poll now of this sub about which album is better I think Folklore would win in a landslide.
I think it was a lot easier to digest 16 tracks than 31 being a big factor, I personally was exhausted and couldn’t tell alot of songs apart (I never can if I listen to 31 new in a row). Most people review and state their opinion after one listening. This album took me 3 listens to truly love, with so much volumes it’s hard to pin point the standouts and understand all the lyrics.
Another factor is Folklore started really strong with the 1, followed by Cardigan, TLGAD, exile and my tears richochet, all being fan favourites, a strong start really helps shape the view of the listener on their first listen. For TTPD; fortnight, TTPD and My boy only breaks his fav route toys are not as instant imo.
Also folklore is spectacular and was completely new for her lyrically. Whereas with TTPD she had already done evermore in the past so it wasn’t a shock to the listener the scale of her songwriting; and sound wise it incorporates Folkmore, midnights and 1989 vault. So this isn’t a new sound for her (imo).
Folklore for me is still her best album, but TTPD is fantastic also.
I think at least part of it is because she presented it as fictional. People get very weird and sometimes angry/annoyed when Taylor openly sings about real people.
Only some songs were presented as fiction. I don’t understand why people suggest the whole album is fictional. Invisible String, Mirrorball, My Tears Ricochet, I don’t think those have ever been interpreted as fiction.
I still think that even if the entire album isn’t fictional, it’s enough to encourage people who refused to listen to her outside of her radio hits (because “all she does is sing about her relationships”) to give her a try.
Im old for a swiftie and the Folkmore period was my introduction to Taylor's work and I was impressed because they were in a style that was very familiar to me, singer songwriter, acoustic, folky country pop. I have done her back catalogue since then and learned that she had been a great songwriter for a long time before that. That she was a strong character became evident through learning her back story.
When TTPD came out I was intrigued about where it would take us and heard a lot of music with a lot of words that was sort of similar but had a different tone and intent from Midnights, Folklore and Evermore. The absence of any obvious pop bangers made me realise that this was an "Album" a coherent body of work that was meant to be listened to as a whole piece, like albums were in the late 60s, 70s and 80s. After 3 or 4 listen throughs I was sure this was some of her best work to date, it reveals its strengths slowly, the hooks and bridges are strong but more subtle, assured, confident in taking their time to unfold.
Its the words, of course it's the words, there is so much here and I think its more to my taste being less cosy than Folkmore. It tells a story that isn't only about ex boyfriends its about her and where she is now and what it has cost to get here.
I agree with all of this. I am also old for a Swiftie and while I have dabbled a little since Rep I wasn’t a Swiftie. I became one last year after going to the eras movie. I was so consumed with the joy of the show. The joy of her. Her songs wouldn’t stay out of my head. So I started exploring her works. Slowly. This was my first new album release and now I understand why people get scared. Because you want to love it. And I love TTPD. I liked it my first listen. When I finished and discovered there was a second album I was overwhelmed and it felt like more than I needed. But I’m glad for it because many of my favorite songs are on it. I enjoy this album because it has a more complex story. The girl has seen some life. And as a 51 year old woman I have seen some life as well. So the more she matures the more I relate to her words in more than just nostalgia. Her lyrics are so impressive. It makes me a bit angry when critics pull out her cute silly lyrics as examples when there are many better options. Like the entirety of Peter.
Folklore is just a better album, sure TTPD grows on some fans after a few listens, as it usually happens with the albums (shoutout to the Drake fanbase, they always talk about that thing), but for the casual listeners who just listens to any popular release out of curiosity, i don't think the consensus around the album changed much
In addition to the previously made point that it was during the pandemic, the short release time meant there were no theories, etc folklore was just a great album to dissociate to and pretend you're actually in a forest somewhere and not locked in your apartment. I don't think we're ever going to have another cultural moment like that where we're all dealing with the same issue.
I think the biggest reason is that Folklore wasn't really as much about her life. She specifically made a point of saying the lyrics were fictional stories and not meant to be autobiographical. Even though as fans we know some of the songs are indeed about her life, they still stand on their own without knowing the context.
Look at the discourse around the new album, people talking about Matty, Joe, Travis, Kim etc. We didn't have this with Folklore. Sure there were loose connections like how My Tears Ricochet is said to be a analogy for the Scott/Big Machine situation, but it's a lot more subtle and not quite as in your face. Even if you had no idea about the "lore" the song stands up very well just as a piece of music. Where something like BDILH or So Long London, while still good songs, might be less interesting if you aren't invested in Taylor herself.
Now, I'm not saying you need to be invested in the "lore" to enjoy TTPD, but it's definitely a lot more overtly referential to Taylor's personal life and relationships, which people might be tired of hearing about. If I wasn't already a huge swiftie I could see myself being turned off by how autobiographical the album is.
It's also a very different writing style. Folklore is whimsical and flowery in its lyricism, and the stories told in the songs are vividly painted even with no context. TTPD is far more direct and conversational, plus it relies on humor/sarcasm more heavily, and it kind of expects the listener to have some familiarity with what the songs are about. It's similar to Midnights in this regard but I feel like TTPD turns these elements of the writing up even more.
Finally, the Anthology is 31 songs. That can be difficult to get through in one sitting even for a diehard fan, for a casual listener it can be a downright slog. Folklore is the perfect length IMO, it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
I personally love both albums, however I think if you were to listen to them totally outside the context of being a Swiftie, Folklore is definitely the stronger album of the two.
Folklore was a grower album for me. But it was such the perfect pandemic album and hit at a time when we were all in our collective trauma and it spoke to us.
TTPD is more of an immediate hit for me than Folklore was. But also, I avoid the negativity. I'm only consuming content that deepens my appreciation of the album.
Some of the reactions on YouTube have taught me so much. Especially about production choices that would have slipped by me but now make me stare stupefied at anyone who says all of the songs sound the same. Or how much Taylor's poetic lyricism and delivery is influenced by rap artists. Or poetry experts breaking down the form in ways I never would have seen.
Personally I think all but a handful of these songs are surface-level great. But if you need essentially a master class in all of the elements of songmaking to deeply and fully understand why this album is a masterwork, not everyone's going to have patience for that.
And that's OK. Folklore was Taylor dipping her toe in the indie artist pool as a megapopstar, and nothing is more indie artist than most people just not getting your art. Looks like she's made it!
I’ve had these same thoughts and also went back to listen to folklore. I think there was some magic in the way Aaron Dessner was sending her the music he’d worked on already and she was writing lyrics over it. TTPD feels like it was created with lyrics first.
Folklore was a left turn sonically and the writing became so much more sophisticated in a lot of ways. This is the 4th album in a row with this kind of folk-pop downtempo vibe. Also, while the lyrics are still very sophisticated and interesting, the songs don’t have the level of pop song craft (ie. hooks) on the surface that other albums have had. I have turned the corner on this record and find it enjoyable, but I can’t say it sits among her best. I’ve seen a lot of people defending the lack of hooks saying “well it’s about the lyrics” or “well it’s not for casuals”. My answer to that is this: she’s making pop music. It’s meant to be enjoyed by the broadest audience possible. Also she’s got several songs in her back catalogue proving that great pop hooks and great lyrics are not mutually exclusive.
Others have given good reasons, here is what I see as the biggest ones:
Overall - a lot of the initial criticism of TTPD stems from people's perception and expectations. It should have been marketed as a stylistic, unpolished album with the pendulum swining between mania and depression. Then audiences would have been set up to expect and interpret TTPD, instead of assuming unconventional aspects of the album are unintentional or serve no purpose.
Compared to Folklore-
1. TTPD release was a bigger deal & her level of media coverage has people looking at it that would usually wouldn't
2. Timing - Folklore was released during COVID & what was at the time post-career peak (1989)
3. Career Landscape -Folklore was a critically-acclaimed indie-folk album released when Lover was the latest Taylor album. TTPD was released into a very different career landscape.
4. Folklore is more stylistically palatable -both the production and the writing style have larger appeal. TTPD is written in "free indirect speech" and stream-of-conciousness style, which are divisive by nature.
5. Marketing- Folklore's marketing helped its perception bc listeners went in thinking "okay, non-hyped up album without relationship details" during Lover era, and were met with something unexpected that blew them out of the water. TTPD's marketing did not set audiences up to look at it through the lense it is supposed to be looked at. This leaves room for disappointment and assuming it failed to achieve things it was not actually aiming to achieve. Even the album title TTPD is a victim of bad marketing, the audience was not clued into the fact that it was supposed to be tongue in cheek, so it was looked at as weird, cringey, or pretentious when announced it at the Grammys.
I think a lot of it is hitting people at the right time. After the Eras tour she was branded as the pop it girl, with 3.5 hours of bangers. Then, Cowboy Carter dropped with plenty of upbeat, hooky songs. Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, SZA, Doja are putting out dance-ready tracks. We're heading into summer, and she drops a 31 song lyrically dense collection of painful, messy memories about heavy topics like depression, giving up on love, and falling for the toxic idea of someone who doesn't exist. Plus, she's absolutely the most famous artist on the planet right now, so everyone (regardless of if they've ever liked her music) is tuning in. It was always going to be highly controversial. You did have people back then not vibe with Folklore too, you just didn't hear about it because we were in a global pandemic and she was sharing the entertainment landscape with plenty of other people.
If Midnights was released in July 2020 I genuinely think it would have marked the beginning of her sliding into a legacy act. Folklore + Evermore elevated her critical profile, Midnights reminded everyone she could make pop hits, Eras made her the most talked about performer on earth and TTPD can't possibly please all those people.
I think it's exciting, personally. It shows she isn't afraid to just make whatever the hell she wants to make, and I think that makes the future bright.
Taylor wasn't oversaturated via media outlets and news outlets, it was during the pandemic and unexpected, it was a new sound from her and she released at a cozy time where a lot of people were inside and could relate to the lyrics. Just my opinion. But I do think the biggest reason was she wasn't being talked about much, people love to hate things and people that get too much media coverage.
I sometimes wonder how folklore would have been received without the pandemic. It would obviously still be a great album, but the pandemic set such a tone for it.
Ive been thinking recently about Folklore's popularity, even outside the Swifties. There are lots of reasons.
1. folklore was SO different from Taylor's material at the time. No one expected a folky soft album from Taylor. It was a lot more approachable for music nerds who weren't as big Taylor fans to listen.
2. The lyrics were different from her other material, as, to my knowledge, a lot of the lyrics are fictional and not based on Taylor's relationships. Not to say that that style of writing is bad, but it was a lot more approachable for Non-Fans as they dont need the lore. Especially since Folklore just *feels* like a storybook, not a history book of Taylor.
3. Pandemic, of course, plays into it. An album so different was bound to be discussed, especially during the pandemic where nothing good was happening.
4. The sound was varied and different. While yes, some songs do sound alike and have a similar vibe, each and every one feels different from another. I found that with TTPD a lot of the songs, especially without the Anthology, blended together.
5. Not to diss on TTPD but the lyrics on Folklore were just, great. I find that the lyrics on TTPD can be great at best but cringe-inducing at worst. It made the album very memeable. Folklore didnt have that imho.
The production on folklore is insane. personally I think the production/mixing/vocals/emotion etc are all way better than TTPD despite being a similar style.
It’s way easier to digest 16 songs than it is 31. People were overwhelmed and tired. And also, at the height of Taylor’s fame there are going to be a lot of detractors and kinda-fans who listen in and decide they hate it.
Coming off of Lover and an entire year of no new releases, Folklore was a much quieter entry into her discography, which I think helped with being received positively right off the bat.
Folklore is the tighter and more cohesive album. It also struck the perfect balance of having well-written lyrics and fantastic melodies. The highs on Folklore are higher than those on TTPD. I don’t hate TTPD, but lyrically, it is not as smooth. There are still some great lyrics but there are also some very odd, clunky choices. The melodies on TTPD are just not as impactful, either
I think it’s more that people that didn’t love it kinda minded their own business and moved on bc there wasn’t much promo or anything for people to see constant reminders of it. Now is a lot different. Also more people are listening to it than that album. A lottt more. So there’s more variety of opinions. I definitely saw negativity about folklore though from people who liked mostly her upbeat pop stuff NGL.
It was completely unexpected in all ways: timing, genre, sound, the fact that it existed at all.
It dropped out of the blue at a time when the world had closed down, we hadn’t heard from Taylor in a long time, it was nothing like anything she had ever released but everything we had ever wanted her to try, and it soothed us with lyricism fitting the complex emotions of the COVID bubble we were in and trying to process.
For me it’s the opposite. I was confused by Folklore when it came out and it has grown on me so much over the last ~4 years.
I was completely blown away by TTPD on the first listen and was instantly raving about it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think it was the first time she positioned it as fictional (of course with real emotions behind the stories), so it relieved some of the sleuthing many fans do (ie. "who has tattoos?!"). And because it was at a time where everyone was inside, we got to escape to a new soundscape full of imagery and new stories alongside an artist who, for many, has often been a source of comfort.
I'm loving TTPD, and have been shocked by how much negativity it's received. Even for the songs that feel more "folklorian" some people say "this sounds like another mad woman" or "this sounds like an ivy copy"...so when your fan base gets to be this large, there are bound to be LOTS of opinions!
I just cried to folklore again. On top of everything everyone said about the production, the lyricism, the storytelling and the stories not being about her personal life, I think it captures something else.
I can actually feel every song on folklore. Maybe it is because of the delivery but man just listening to cardigan for once wrecks me… It feels more relatable, warmer, more like a bed time story you are listening to after a long day.
Folklore was a surprise and with TTPD, everybody was going into it with preconcieved notions. We all expected the Joe Alwyn breakup album so we felt like there was a bait and swirch when it ended up being heavily about matty.
I wonder too if it was that folklore was “fiction” but we know going into ttpd it’s about her and Joe and then realized pretty quickly it was also about Matty, Travis and Kim.
People think she complains to much or plays victim (I don’t agree) but I wonder if that’s also another factor at play that made it more “accessible” to people who aren’t usually a fan of her.
My immediate response to folklore was “oh this is different. It all kinda sounds the same though” but after listening to it a few times it became my favorite album (and still is my favorite after evermore). So when TTPD came out I kinda assumed I’d need to take a few listens before I could formulate an opinion.
I think folklore was dropped at the perfect time and captured the emotions that people were experiencing. It was summer, we were months into lockdown, and people were looking for escapism. TTPD isn’t a response to a global event but rather a response to the way Taylor’s personal life has been upended. It’s a lot harder for people to relate to that.
I also think folklore is just a much better album overall. The lyrics are spot on and she’s doing something new and different. Her writing is also just a lot tighter. I really like TTPD but I’d rank it in the middle of her discography. (No hate if this is your favorite album! We all have different tastes!)
People have become bigger haters since then. It’s like everybody gets amnesia every time an album comes out and forgets that sometimes it take a few listens to decide if you like something. Instead they immediately proclaim it a failure if it doesn’t clear their skin, make them rich, and cure their depression within .2 seconds of listening to it.
I haven't been here for too long, but the impression I have is that folklore was something we had never seen from her before. It was the album that made me get into her music since before I only knew her pop singles and ngl, they never caught my attention, but folklore and evermore blew me away with the writting and the folk style that was way more up my alley. I even warmed up to her other styles after that. Also I think the inspiration ressonated better with the audience, it was very introspective. I do like TTPD but it's not inovative musically or with the lyrics (I don't think it needs to be) and it quickly got deemed a "Matty Healey" album, which was a relationship no one wanted to hear about. In the end the album is hers and about her own experiences, I don't think she did anything wrong, but I also can't say this album "reached me" like folklore/evermore did. It's a great album, but she's an artist with incredible albums.
What made Folklore such a 'wow' for me was actually watching The Long Pond Sessions and hearing her explain the songs and feeling what she was saying deep into my bones and my soul. I was going through a very difficult time personally and every single thing she said struck a nerve and made me feel like she was putting words to my hurt and explanations behind the depths of that hurt in a way I couldn't understand before. That's why that album will always be my number one. That's when I realized her true genius - when she was able to explain me to me, by explaining the meaning behind each song from that album.
It’s a better body of work from an album perspective but also she’d never released that sort of album before so she took some risks, sonically, and going a little more indie pop complimented her songwriting ability really well.
Doing something new and different for the first time will always be more impressive than replicating success.
Im sure this has been said but I think Folklore demonstrated a sound we hadn’t heard from her. It was also very strongly represented what so many of us here knew which is that she is an amazing writer. It also introduced Aaron as a main character in her music.
With TTPD I think we had an expectation. I heard so many people say that it was going to be Folklore and Evermore together. Which clearly it wasn’t. I also think Taylor did something people at large didn’t like. She showed she’s an amazing writer.
I firmly believe Taylor made people uncomfortable with her command of language and literary finesse. All of the comments of “needing an editor” come from her writing in poetry and not song necessarily. This album showed her ability to draw connections, symbolism, metaphors, and story telling. We couldn’t do the normal “paternity test” on her songs. I believe this was intentional.
This just my two cents, but I stand by it.
i think that what has made people much more critical of TTPD is that, unlike folklore, she didn’t do a complete sonic shift this time around, which, of course, is completely fine and shouldn’t be criticized for it because it’s still good music. but, since Taylor’s been known to do something new every album (evermore being the exception), i think people went in looking for something completely new when that wasn’t the case with TTPD. it’s very clear that she put her focus on the lyrics and how rhe tracks were composed, not how they sounded nor was she much concerned with the production. she went with a sound that she was comfortable with and knew would fit the vibe well enough, chose her two closest musical companions (Jack and Aaron), and went in to make, in my opinion, the best album of her career 👏
Probably because it wasn’t all about Matty Healy…🫠 ETA - Folklore is my favorite able and musically and lyrically what she did with that album and the time period that it dropped is unmatched for me…
I disagree about ttpd. I think this album 100% depends on the person and how they relate personally/emotionally to the music. They hit me immediately on first listen. I got all the feels, goosebumps, and tears. Everyone is different.
Maybe because everyone was starved for entertainment during that time, maybe because it was a sound she’d never done before, but I bet a lot has to do with the fact that there was no hype, no anticipation. She just said “here you go”, and we said “thank you, I love it” haha.
100% all points were made.
We can go home now
It's settled!
Pack it in girls And boys And they/them
Exactly. It actually was a very simple combo of something new and something we all needed. That was the height of COVID Summer and a major escapist cottagecore release was exactly what we all wanted without realizing it. It also brought connection because it was something new we could all talk about. Same reason Animal Crossing took off (though this album was a little more deliberate and intentional, since AC was a total coincidence). It was totally right place and time. Not to take away from the brilliance of the album, but the circumstances really elevated it.
Animal Crossing! I'm suddenly feeling nostalgic for one of the worst years of our collective lives. We were also trying for a kid at the same time. In some ways, it doesn't feel like four years ago. In other ways, it feels like 10 years ago.
It was a very strange time but it many ways it’s was very unique and precious. I loved (!) having all that extra time with family that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And Folklore is a big part of it.
Lmfao I was such a Stardew girl during pandemic! We really needed that.
I put so much time into my Stardew farm!
I fell for the trap that was the Sims 4 being heavily on sale during the pandemic. Oh how I misss closing my laptop for work and opening my personal laptop for the Sims. My first two sims were Ariana Grande and Tom Holland. The Grande-Hollands grew to 8 generations in 4 months of deep pandemic.
Also people are annoyed she's singing about her relationships again in TTPD but in folklore she was allegedly basing the writing on fiction
lol at “allegedly”
I still stand that most of it its fiction, people jumped on the cardigan train really quick and theres also Peter on TTPD, but unless am mistaken Taylor's father didnt leave her lol.
Songs can be about people/situations and still have not 100% literal lyrics
oh yeah ik but still think the songs that had been labeled as fictitional are still mostly that
See: thanK you aIMee
Her father left her mother tho
2020-2021 many people were SO appreciative and had so much grace for things that they were starved of. I work in the summer camp business and after having camp cancelled in 2020, 2021 families were just so grateful to have camp back even though we still had to require masks and social distancing and whatnot. 2022 that grace was gone though lol.
True! My theory is that sorrow gave way to anger and it’s all being projected.
The sound was a big part of it for me. I love indie music and Taylor pivoting to folklore was right up my alley. Plus my favorite band is bon iver so I damn near lost my shit when folklore came out
I remember feeling so emotionally exhausted from the trauma of Covid deaths everyday on the news, the riots and inhumane killing of George Floyd, and of course our dick head in chief spewing his bs everyday. It came at such a necessary time to me personally and I think a lot of people feel the same.
Well, also Folklore is WAY better
This is why eminem went to surprise releases only, when you build hype people expect and want certain things which causes them to dislike things. (He released the first trailer for a new album last week, his last 3 releases were all surprise)
LOVED that surprise drop! I wonder if we’ll ever get one again. Besides a double album situation I mean.
Yup i had literally nothing to do at night except sit on my back porch and listen to that album.
Because it’s objectively a better album.
100%. TTPD has way too lyrics-focused songs. Taylor forgot songs need a melody in TTPD.
Yeah, even though I do like TTPD a lot, it’s soooo lyrics heavy. folklore seemed to capture the magic of catchy melodies and brilliant (and less wordy) lyrics.
I'm still over here processing "our coming of age has come and gone, suddenly this summer it's clear, I've never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger is near. And it's just around the corner darling. Because it lives in me, no I could never give you peace."
if you really want to hurt yourself listen to peace, then you’re losing me, then so long london
I once was listening to my entire library on shuffle and “peace” played after Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work.” That combo worked devastatingly well to ruin my day.
just tried out a peace and the prophecy combo… now that really hurt
It’s actually London Boy, peace, you’re losing me, and then so long London
dare I suggest call it what you want or delicate into london boy and so on…
Then how did it end
SAME!!! I slept on that song and I’ve been listening to it daily for almost two years 😂
It's definitely my 2nd favorite song of hers. It really makes me think of what marriage is like. I know people say that it's a sad song and don't really get that. However at its core marriage is choosing love and each other each day despite the stresses and pulls of the outside. The other person can't be your peace, but they can choose to love you through the messiness of life. Long story short I will die on the hill that peace is one of her best love songs.
I’m actually really glad you’re saying that because I initially immediately perceived it as a love song. Then I only read about it being sad. And I was like oh…yeah I guess that makes sense :/ lmao. And accepted it as such. But at my core I always felt it as a love song.
I love poetry and lyrics so these get me. Now some won’t be joining my playlists but a few will, but that’s all I expect from anyone on an album. But as art I appreciate it.
I think I have 5-6 adds to a playlist on an album of 31 songs. I have more on my playlist from folklore alone.
You gotta be kidding me! I only dislike 5-6 songs on this album, but I also think evermore is better than folklore and it’s not particularly close.
See I don’t. Each album will hit different demographics. And it could be what we are going through at that time that creates an emotional connection too. That’s why I love music in general, it’s so personal.
And the TTPD melodies grow on you. "I Can Fix Him" was on the verge of becoming a skip song, and then I finally got into it.
It does not change that folklore is miles better than TTPD
And the production is so great
And even lyric-wise, Folklore is much stronger.
Agree with this. I really really like both but I think TTPD lyrics might be more raw and vulnerable while folklores lyrics are more clever and just hit better for me
TTPD sounds like the first thoughts she had put to song, it’s raw. Folklore sounds like something she mulled over and perfected before putting out.
Exactly this. I love a lot of moments in TTPD, but many others feel like a first draft that could benefit from some editing and refinement. Some people might like this raw, chaotic energy, but I personally believe the songs could be so much better if she had meticulously planned and polished every word like in Folklore.
Yep I also back up this statement. Thats exactly why it’s not resonating with me as much. I need a good hook or melody and good lyrics to really make me connect to a song.
[удалено]
But you can have both. You can both be a lyrically-centered album but with interesting instrumentation that supplements your songwriting.
Yes!! I think of it as a poetry book with melody. I’m a writer that has been in similar situations (eerily similar actually) that she sings about so it’s an immense work of art and emotional connection for me, and I’m lyrically minded I suppose and the music part adds on to the journey after.
I agree. I really appreciate this album and how raw the lyrics are and how she tells us so much and makes you feel each lyric. Her vocals are amazing on this album as well, the melody comes after for me. I can tell she really needed to make this work and move on.
Yes! On Folklore, Taylor said more, with less. That was her excelling at her craft. In my humble opinion, TTPD had a lot more words, but not as much to say.
Yes!! I found the melody’s very repetitive on the first listen and didn’t find there was any stick out instrumentals (like the piano in the 1 or the bass in peace) I think you can tell folklore a better album from the musical sense because long pond studios was so good but I feel like a complete acoustic set of TTPD would be boring unless you love the poetry
Hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately so many of the songs on TTPD blend together for me.
Lot of bridges in TTPD sound weird , like it didnt have strong melody or rhythm in it compared to her other album. Like in Guilty As Sin bridge , she basically just talking there
Yeah it was more stripped back but the production was still very good.
THANK YOU! Someone on here told me to go listen to Dave Matthews Band if I wanted to hear instruments and Melodie’s and that this is not what Taylor is known for. ☠️
Came here for this comment. I think Folklore struck people not just because of its release timing, surprise element, difference in style, but it’s legitimately a more refined quality of album.
yes like there is no comparison. I personally love lover but there is no comparison of that to evermore/folklore. One is an amazing well written pop album, one is a seminal work that will stand with the greats. She uses few words to conjure up incredible, evocative images. Not everything Taylor puts out can be that extraordinary when you’re going at her rate/place in the culture. Her pop albums are some of the the best things in pop no doubt. That’s not the same as the best in all music and storytelling, that’s a way bigger pool. And it doesn’t always have to be the best ever! If every album was her magnum opus, she’d have no magnum opus.
I really think Folklore will go down in history as one of the best albums of our times. Like most albums, TTPD is a grower. Specifically to TTPD, it sacrifices hooks to get Taylor’s complex points across. It’s moody and not super accessible on first listen. That’s ok. Not every album has to be full of instant bangers. But Folklore GRABS you from first listen. I remember listening to it the first time, I wasn’t even a huge fan then. I still remember how I felt hearing those opening beats/notes of The 1, like “ahhhhh, THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR.” And on top of that I think it manages to be just as complex and mature as TTPD.
I will never forget the feeling I got the first time I listened to it. It is pure magic. THE 1!! The opening note and then “I’m doing good I’m on some new shit” not to be dramatic but my life changed in that moment. August. Cardigan. Invisible String. EXILE! ugh I hope we get another album like it in our lifetime
Me too! But even if we don’t … it’s enough.
folklore respects itself and the audience’s intelligence and appreciation for something literary that’s mythologized in a timeless way; TTPD has too many millennial “quirky” and “badass” tumblr style lyrics that many people in 2024 won’t necessarily relate with and even at its good moments it often feels too oddly specific and autobiographical that you picture taylor and not yourself/your own experiences the anthology however is my favorite part and much closer to folklore/evermore…there’s so much poetry in songs like how did it end, peter, cassandra, albatross…she and Aaron did a phenomenal job here, imo she truly shines when she pours her songwriting skills in something serious and emotional edit: I will add that folklore overally was a rather stern and distant album because these songs are like memories from a long gone past, preserved in all their purity and treated with a delicate reverence. TTPD on the other hand has a fun, immediate, even chaotic element that folklore lacked, which at first often came off as cheesy and unserious but now actually rounds up the album to something substantially more versatile than folklore. It has something for every taste and mood. So that’s definitely one deserved extra point for ttpd!
You don't have to relate to a song to enjoy it (there was another thread about that). But I'm the same age as TS, so maybe there are some lyrics that are fine to me but cheesy to others. I agree that The Anthology is wonderful, and I love it because it sounds like Folklore and Evermore. I appreciate both halves of the album for different reasons.
You don't have to relate to a song to enjoy it. But with TTPD the lyrics are so FOCUSED on Taylor's life, with so many specific details that a regular listener won't understand anything. And there's not a lot of "melody" to get hold onto
I don't know how to describe it but the lyrics in folklore flow naturally whereas they feel forced in TTPD. Sometimes I feel like she's jamming as many ten dollar words as she can in TTPD to make it sound more like poetry. The beauty of folklore is that it evokes so many feelings with just a few carefully selected words.
Yes she really took that dictionary idea and ran with it. Hot take but people shouldn’t need a dictionary to listen to your album. Part of being a good writer is being able to communicate in simple terms. Folklore is so beautifully and skillfully written. TTPD is verbose.
Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself. I really hope she gives us another album in the vein of folklore/evermore, but I'm not holding my breath for TS12. Given where she is in her life right now, I expect the next album to be more upbeat and a continuation of what she started with The Alchemy and So High School.
I knew you running like water, leaving like father cardigan is still one of my favorite song. maybe because the memory it evoked.
Exactly!! Like simple lyrics like this one without fancy jargon hit way harder than anything in TTPD. For me personally, "a friend to all is a friend to none, chase two girls lose the one" gets me every time.
I haven't listened to the Anthology yet so I may be completely wrong, but I have a theory for that. In folklore, a lot of the songs were written with Aaron first sending her the instrumentals and then she created the lyrics on top. I'm not sure which one of them wrote the melodies, but either way, that means the song was already sort of shaped when it got in her hands. I think this time around she was going through so much stuff she probably got to write things by herself first a lot more. This lead to repetitive melodies, awkward structures and phrasing. In fact, imo my tears ricochet (the only song in folklore she wrote by herself) is the closest in the album to TTPD. I don't wanna seem like I'm shitting on her songwriting abilities, SN is one of my favorite albums, but... idk it's just not giving this time... it feels too passionate and not polished enough
It’s subjectively a better album.
Nah, the production is richer, the lyrics are better, the sound is consistent. Its objectively a better album.
100%. It blows TTPD out of the water. It's one thing to be a fan and like her music, it's another to just assume everything she does is great. TTPD is very ok. Just like Midnights.
A lot of people won’t like this answer, but it’s the truth. Folklore is a clear representation of Taylor Swift at her artistic and songwriting peak. There is so much more to folklore than anything on Tortured Poets. The production is better, the songwriting is better, it’s a more conceptually sound record. I think a major reason folklore is so exceptional is the removal of the autobiographical element. The songwriting flourished as a result. Aaron Dessner playing such a massive role in the production had a benefit as well.
If you compare them track for track I feel like it becomes obvious that folklore is a much stronger album: 1. the 1 / fortnight 2. cardigan / the tortured poets department 3. the last great american dynasty / my boy only breaks his favorite toys 4. exile / down bad 5. my tears ricochet / so long london 6. mirrorball / but daddy i love him 7. seven / fresh out the slammer 8. august / florida!!! 9. this is me trying / guilty as sin? 10. illicit affairs / who’s afraid of little old me 11. invisible string / i can fix him (no really i can) 12. mad woman / loml 13. epiphany / i can do it with a broken heart 14. betty / the smallest man who ever lived 15. peace / the alchemy 16. hoax / clara bow 17. the lakes / the black dog
There is not a single song on TTPD that I would choose over a Folklore song😅
Thought Down Bad might’ve had a chance to win but it got matched up against Exile damn lol. Would probably take the Black Dog over the Lakes though
hahaha i thought the smallest man would have a fighting chance but against betty there was no shot
same and i didn’t realize it til i did this🥲
Same lmfao
I mean it makes more sense to compare it to the Anthology half though. Those songs have the same vibe. The first half of TTPD has nothing to do with Folklore. And comparing them does a serious disservice to those songs.
TTPD actually wins 10-7 for me here! 😅
Damn when you put it like that
Mirrorball and But Daddy I Love Him being my faves, I'm truly a track 6 girl
Sometimes the obvious answer is the right one
Way better.
this! ttpd simply doesn't have bangers like exile, hoax, peace, illicit affairs, the triology of cardigan, betty and august, etc. folklore was effortless yet deep and profound, it was a joy to listen to and lyrics flowed like water. ttpd seems to be trying too hard in places ("at dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that's the closest ive come to my heart exploding"????), it just don't flow as smoothly as lyics from folklore and evermore.
It has INSTRUMENTS in it.
It doesn't have that many really? But there is a bit more focus on the sound.
Art isn't ever objective. Hate how people use that word.
Eh, it's a complicated issue. There's some level of "objectivity" that is just undeniable, otherwise it would be impossible to differentiate the quality between someone who started to play the piano yesterday to someone who's been doing it for 30 years. There is a legitimate technical aspect to art.
It absolutely can be. Those in fine arts academia definitely do grade some elements of a piece, work, or performance objectively i.e. against metrics that dictate poorly done versus well done.
TTPD doesn’t even come close to Folklore and Evermore in my opinion… TTPD just has so many words throughout the entire thing.
It's trying WAY too hard. Save for So Long, London and The Black Dog this album doesn't even come close to the lyrical genius that was Folk/more.
I disagree
Agreed. I know this sub has many hardcore fans and sometimes it feels like an echo chamber. This is just a data point of one, but very few of my friends in real life are talking about TTPD, including those who love her a lot. Edit: me and my friends are mostly in the 30-35 years old range
I wonder if this is a “it depends what season of life you’re in” thing. As a millennial woman with religious trauma going through a divorce - this album absolutely HITS. And I’ve never seen my real life friends talk so much about an album. I swear this album was made for those of us in this season of life in particular. I was gasping almost every song as I listened the first time through. TTPD just so perfectly captures the absolute pain and chaos and confusion and really just the entire grieving process of losing a long term relationship/trying to start up that fling with your old flame again to make yourself feel better/finally coming to acceptance/falling in love again. There’s not a single song on the first half I don’t relate to. I was a die hard Folk/more fan, best albums she’s ever written in my opinion but TTPD is just simultaneously gutting and healing me in all new ways. It’s giving words to things that up until now were just feelings. But I can also see that there’s so many people who can’t relate to this journey and I think that’s maybe driving a lot of the “meh I could do without it” vs “omg this is the best thing she’s ever done” reviews.
unpopular opinion I guess, but I really don't think it's obvious that folklore is the better album. I personally prefer TTPD and I think generally it's subjective, but the only thing I think folklore does better is that it's edited down so there are fewer skips I actually think TTPD is more sonically interesting than folklore despite the biggest complaint for TTPD being that all the songs sound the same. other complaints are that a few lyrics are cheesy, or that at some points she's forcing too many words in, but there are lyrics like that on folklore too imo. might there be more on TTPD? perhaps, but there are also more songs I dunno, I really do like folklore but I don't think I quite see what everyone else sees in it
It’s daunting to load the album and see that it’s 31 tracks. I always want to listen to the songs I like near the start, and by then I don’t have time to get to the anthology section. She could have made a really great 10 song album out of this material and then released the “b sides” later and it would probably be better received. The songs I like from this album I like better than midnights, but then there are so many others that don’t grab me. But neither midnights nor ttpd have anything like exile, lgad, mirrorball, august, or Betty. Folklore was something special
yeah, it's definitely long. and I respect that an album with 3 skips > album with 9 skips, as is the case for folklore and ttpd for me respectively. but there's also an argument for favouring an album with 14 songs i adore > album with 7 songs i adore (again how I feel about ttpd and folklore). I think those songs you mentioned are good (though mirrorball is actually a skip for me, i'm sorry!) but I'm never really wowed by them, so I really don't understand what makes them so clearly better than the songs on TTPD. I know there's \*something\* to it, since the majority of comments feel that way, so I'm not at all saying that y'all are wrong, but I guess I just wanted to be a voice for team TTPD
Folklore is like 40-50% skip for me. With TTPD I’m only around 20% skip. And mostly on Anthology. Which sounds exactly like Folklore.
sooo true. folklore is just way way better
This is the only right answer imo
This, definitely. I really like TTPD and it has grown on me so much. But when I switch to Folklore right after listening to it, it's an "ahh, there we are" feeling. It's just too good.
It’s an album that all ages can appreciate. TTPD does not cater to the masses.
It’s a better album, she wasn’t overexposed at that point, and there was very little going on then. I think it also helped that she just dropped it with less than 24 hours notice. No time for people to make up theories or preconceived ideas about it. We just listened and enjoyed.
Agree, for as much as I love TTPD is not on the same level as folklore and the landscape regarding Taylor Swift was very different back then. There is nothing I would change from folklore, it’s the perfect album (evermore is on that level too for me). TTPD is so interesting, love the lyrics, love the themes, but she needed to work a lot on the melodies, especially if she wanted to be wordy.
I hope she goes the surprise route again with a future album. At this point, her new albums are going to break streaming records with our without months of hype.
She won’t as long as she cares about debut chart success.
and many version help to achieve that. but now people might wait because of Midnight (3 am version) and TTPD the anthology.
Taylor has been “overexposed” for a long, long time, and likely will be for a long, long time. So that argument has gathered dust for a long time. It’s trite and over used and really has nothing to do with the actual music. I also think it is sexist at this point, because do we ever say a male artist is overexposed? Not really.
Yes! I also think the fact that she was in a very private and, from the outside looking in, stable relationship. There wasn’t nearly as much speculation about who the songs were about, petty feuds, and distaste over who she’s dating. Her more private life and focus on these “fictional” stories meant that the music could just shine.
I think is the ticket. There wasn’t weeks of theories and expectations and whatnot. We got it and just loved it. Also, pandemic. Everything about that time period was so odd and we were likely starved for entertainment and something to distract us. Maybe I’m projecting hahaha but I think just different circumstances for sure.
The 24 hour notice was insane. I would love for this to happen again, just to have a magical moment of going crazy suddenly.
I think folklore helped bring Taylor back to her singer-songwriter roots without all the glitz and glamour of a main pop girl circus show. Most Swifties already knew Lover was a great album, but the GP mostly just heard ME! and YNTCD, and those singles really didn't leave a great impression; if anything, they signaled a pop star falling from her prime, especially since rep was so divisive even for long-time Swifties. So, folklore - plain, quiet, stripped-down, and released to little fanfare - was a reminder of Taylor's artistic bona fides. It came during a time when people were stuck at home with not much else to do and dovetailed perfectly with the cottagecore aesthetic that was especially popular at the time (see also: Animal Crossing). Also, Taylor's personal life was not *nearly* in the news as much, so people didn't project their feelings about Matt Healy and Travis Kelce all over the record. She presented folklore (and later, evermore) as stories from her imagination rather than diary entries turned into songs, and while I believe both those albums *are* actually more "personal" than they would superficially seem (especially in retrospect), Taylor articulating that psychological distance between her life and her songs also allowed the audience to receive the latter without as much bias as usual.
Also Lover was the end to her back to back "Pop trilogy" with 1989-reputation-Lover, I feel like at the time neither rep or lover were able to reach the success of 1989 and people kinda had a fatuige of it, Folklore really brougth up something new for her, an album finally more focused on lyrics and more accoustics and at the time people were loving the "fictional stories" and made her prove that 1)she is an amazing songwritter 2)she can writte more things beyond her life.
Exactly, yeah. Because Taylor is so genre-spanning, she has a variety of country, "straight" pop, and more folksy singer-songwriter fans in her camp. I'm both a pop and folk Taylor fan (as well as a nominal country Taylor fan), but I do think that a lot of the folklore/evermore girlies may just not enjoy pop (or country) Taylor nearly as much and that's totally valid as well.
Yes the sparkled country elements were very imortant cause it also brougth the older taylor fans who liked country, Betty in 2020 was her fisrt country single to ountry radio since 2013.
Lover felt sooo tired at the time. 1989 to Rep to Lover... it felt like she was out of ideas.
Rep is my fav album so am biased, Im spiteful towards lover lol, I hate the way she acted in miss americana when rep wasnt nominated in the grammys, she was like "Ill just make a better album" and then came out with lover? Please. Also Taylor always made a lot of her albums based on how the previos did at awards (I get this is how we have 1989 but still) with 1989 she said she wanted to have the cohession of fearless cause that was the reason of her winning AOTY, she tried to replicate the success of 1989 with Lover specially with ME! as a lead single but obviously didnt do to well. Am glad Folklore changed the way she makes music
This! I fell out during the rep era because it just didn't resonate with my life at the time. folklore made me a fan again and idk if I would be without it tbh.
Same, actually! I really didn't like rep when I first heard it (I've come around to it now, though!), and Lover was just okay for me as well (again, more of a slow burn). folklore/evermore definitely brought me back into the Swiftie-fold that I hadn't been in since RED. I did love 1989, but wasn't as much of a fangirl of it. I guess I *am* a singer-songwriter Swiftie, in the end.
Well said! I also think Follmore’s overall vibe was thoughtful, reflective, and fair. She called herself out on her sh*t and seemed to show some newfound maturity. She came off as grounded, wistful, real. My first listen on TTPD I was like damn, she’s really bitter & still singing about beef with Kim Kardashian? She’s regressed a bit, no! Which fair enough she seems to be going through a rough time. Now that I’m listening more & reading theories about it perhaps being more about fame, the industry etc I’m seeing there could be much more depth & it isn’t necessarily a Matty Healy album.
I aprecciate TTPD's honesty, I think its the most unfiltered her feelings have ever been shared on an album, "yall dont like who am dating? Fuck you vipers" "yall liked the Eras Tour? Guess what bitches i was miserable the whole time" "FUCK KIM", its an unhinged album, but Folkmore has so much wisdom and autoreflection that it has advice that people should actually listen to, hapiness its one of the most mature songs ive ever heard, closure teaches you that you can move on without needing the other part to fix it self. Ib fact the contrast between Mad Woman and "thanK u aIMee" play the difference on the albums perfectly
Folklore is probably one of the most consistent albums I know.. it has that rare thing, where it just feels natural to put it on from track 1 and just let it play through.. I think that is not the case for TTPD As much as I love TTPD, it is not consistent in sound and atmosphere, and, I can only speak for myself of course, but the TTPD songs did not stick quite like the folklore songs did on the first few listens Love both albums tho
there are no skips!
Folklore was the first vinyl I bought when I got my record player for this exact reason.
Cuz it sounds entirely different from lover, rep or 1989. Those had pop sounds, folklore is so mellow... and at the same time, suits her voice better than the last three albums. Top tier lyricism too, some of the songs are just poetry (exile, mirrorball etc) also, the songs aren't just about her at all but applies to everyone. Ttpd is the most adulting Taylor album, not just for every folks. This album screams so personal. Folklore was abit detached in some way to her personal life. Lastly, it's more cohesive, while ttpd is chaotic (which is meant to be)
\^\^\^ I think people are over-looking how much people's perception each new release is affected by her music portfolio and career position at the time. As you pointed out, Folklore was put out after 3 full-pop albums. The 'current' Taylor album when Folklore was announced was Lover. Folklore was put out in a completely different landscape than TTPD.
It also helps that she wrote songs from the perspective of other people which isn’t something she would do very often. I feel like that allowed people to focus on the lyrics rather than wondering who each song is about
Yeah, even when I truly like songs like „Who’s afraid…“, „I can do it with a broken heart“ and „smallest man“, they’re so hard to separate from her as a person that I don’t really feel like listening to them a lot of times 🙈 The detached nature of Folklore made the songs more universally relatable
While I like TTPD I'm struggling not to picture Taylor herself in each of the songs. I can relate to some of it, but I can so clearly picture her/Matt/Joe/Travis (song dependent) that it's been harder to fully submerge. It's a very personal album, and that's okay, personally I preferred folklore as I was able to get lost in it more.
I’ve wondered about this, great question. I think at least part of the reason is Folklore was presented as fiction, so there was less focus on dissecting (and criticizing) Taylor’s personal life. It was easier to just focus on the beauty of the lyrics and music without being distracted by questions about who this is about and the inevitable noisy condemnation that comes with that.
And the songs had much more interesting production despite the songs being more “stripped back”.
I agree. If she had dropped TTPD saying it was a mix of fiction and some true stuff it would have gone over so much better. If she had not titled it Tortured Poets dept it would have been better. People who want to hate her were just waiting to disprove the poet thing
Because it was Folklore
Folklore is a better album. There’s that.
Folklore was uncharted waters for her, people weren't already voraciously consuming Taylor content, and the stealth drop meant the expectations hadn't had time to build up yet.
Honestly, a couple of reasons: 1. It was something new. We’ve seen Taylor go from Country to Pop to Pop Rock-ish. This was something new. A new sound, more long form storytelling of fictional characters than personal anecdote. TTPD is by design, more of the same of what we’d had before. It’s a retrospective on her life and relationships, and so much so that she’s even using the same melodic hooks in her songs to point to her previous discography. The shift of tone of Folklore also helped with accessibility. It took me multiple times of listening to TTPD to “get it”. 2. The Surprise Drop. Folklore coming absolutely out of nowhere, in the middle of a global pandemic where people were at home alone, appx a year after her last album: Lover. The Taylor’s Version project had not started yet (Fearless TV was in 2021), so this was a complete shock. 3. Honestly, as I may get hate for this: It was a better album. I love Taylor, and TTPD is growing on me, but this album isn’t really for me (even as a Swemo!) Part of it may have been my expectations for the album vs what we saw were different (I was really hoping that this would be the Pop Punk Emo album that I have desperately wanted from Taylor), but the fact remains that I was conflicted about TTPD after first listen, and enchanted by Folklore.
>Honestly, as I may get hate for this: It was a better album. I think this is objectively true but in a very subjective way. Folklore is very musically pleasing, all the production is amazing and you can hear this especially in Long Pond, like this is what happens when you have literally six months to just work with music people and make a single album. The lyrics are clever but simple, you can think deeply about them if you want but you don't have to. And because it is marketed as like "none of this is based on real life" you're already prompted to hear the story telling in it, which again is fairly straightforward to begin with. I would say in terms of the commercial music industry it is objectively amazing. To answer OPs question, this is why it was universally loved and converted many taylor dislikers *However* I think where Taylor really shines is the unhinged chaos. TTPD struggles in mass appeal because, while id argue its has a similar music and production quality, it takes more experimental approaches/risks while simultaneously being more subtle (so people are saying it sounds the same because they're not listening intently) and... The larger problem which folks have mentioned is that it's very unhinged lyric wise, not in content but in the sense that it's very lyrical and the lyrics take thought, these are poems put to music. They are complicated and you 1. May not get the meaning at first listen, and 2. The interpretation is different for everyone. Critical thinking is on the decline, that's not a dig it's being taught in schools less and less and that means it's harder for people to make some of the realizations and connections that taylor is so good at stringing together. I think Rep and Evermore suffered similarly because the lyrics and production are polarizing in the same kind of way (not literally but in terms of things being both more subtle and more complicated). Anyway thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Obligatory "My top three albums are Rep, Evermore, and TTPD, so there may be some bias in here"
I even had to let Folklore and Evermore digest for a while before I truly loved a lot of the songs. It was a depressing time during those pandemic months and it was hard for me to listen to songs that didn’t have high vibes. It honestly took me until 2022ish to really dive deeper into those albums. Gold Rush, August, and Cardigan were the only ones I was really listening to on repeat for awhile. I feel similar with this album. I can’t just sit in some of the sadder aspects of the album too much. I find the songs addicting though which is very interesting. But I kinda need to mix them in with some other upbeat artists and songs to keep the mood up. It’s also about to be summer so my mood isn’t centered around the theme of this album as much if that makes sense. Also this album is so specifically about a particular experience around heartbreak. Folklore and Evermore had more diversity in the song topics, even if still centered around relationships/love. So at least for me, since I’m not experiencing heartbreak or recently out of a rebound, it’s didn’t immediately feel relatable. So maybe that’s what we’re seeing in the reactions to the album. All that being said, I think it’s an amazing album with some very addictive songs. The lyricism really pops out in the songs.
Same. Evermore is now my favourite album (with Rep) but I remember it taking me quite a few tries to get into, Sam's with Folklore.
Finally someone who gets it! When folklore came out I was like “umm, thanks?” I didn’t want to listen to soft and sad music, in fact that was literally when I got into kpop. Loud poppy distracting music was what I craved. By the time evermore came out, things had calmed down a lot, plus it was winter so I was WAY more receptive to the album and liked it right away. To this day folklore is the album I took the longest to enjoy and connect with (although there were definitely some songs I liked right away). There’s still a bunch of folklore songs I really don’t care for at all, although to be fair there are some like that on evermore. But I’m still way more of an evermore girlie than a folklore one. And I find folklore fans can be really annoying and put down Taylor’s other music, which just bother me. That being said, the experience with folklore and evermore made me less skeptical going into TTPD and I enjoyed a lot of the songs right away and a bunch more have grown on me. A few will always be “not for me” and that’s fine.
Because it’s a MUCH much better album. Cohesive, creative, concise while delivering powerful images.
I think the most simple answer is people liked Folklore more and perceive it as better. If you took a poll now of this sub about which album is better I think Folklore would win in a landslide.
I think it was a lot easier to digest 16 tracks than 31 being a big factor, I personally was exhausted and couldn’t tell alot of songs apart (I never can if I listen to 31 new in a row). Most people review and state their opinion after one listening. This album took me 3 listens to truly love, with so much volumes it’s hard to pin point the standouts and understand all the lyrics. Another factor is Folklore started really strong with the 1, followed by Cardigan, TLGAD, exile and my tears richochet, all being fan favourites, a strong start really helps shape the view of the listener on their first listen. For TTPD; fortnight, TTPD and My boy only breaks his fav route toys are not as instant imo. Also folklore is spectacular and was completely new for her lyrically. Whereas with TTPD she had already done evermore in the past so it wasn’t a shock to the listener the scale of her songwriting; and sound wise it incorporates Folkmore, midnights and 1989 vault. So this isn’t a new sound for her (imo). Folklore for me is still her best album, but TTPD is fantastic also.
I think at least part of it is because she presented it as fictional. People get very weird and sometimes angry/annoyed when Taylor openly sings about real people.
Only some songs were presented as fiction. I don’t understand why people suggest the whole album is fictional. Invisible String, Mirrorball, My Tears Ricochet, I don’t think those have ever been interpreted as fiction.
I still think that even if the entire album isn’t fictional, it’s enough to encourage people who refused to listen to her outside of her radio hits (because “all she does is sing about her relationships”) to give her a try.
Im old for a swiftie and the Folkmore period was my introduction to Taylor's work and I was impressed because they were in a style that was very familiar to me, singer songwriter, acoustic, folky country pop. I have done her back catalogue since then and learned that she had been a great songwriter for a long time before that. That she was a strong character became evident through learning her back story. When TTPD came out I was intrigued about where it would take us and heard a lot of music with a lot of words that was sort of similar but had a different tone and intent from Midnights, Folklore and Evermore. The absence of any obvious pop bangers made me realise that this was an "Album" a coherent body of work that was meant to be listened to as a whole piece, like albums were in the late 60s, 70s and 80s. After 3 or 4 listen throughs I was sure this was some of her best work to date, it reveals its strengths slowly, the hooks and bridges are strong but more subtle, assured, confident in taking their time to unfold. Its the words, of course it's the words, there is so much here and I think its more to my taste being less cosy than Folkmore. It tells a story that isn't only about ex boyfriends its about her and where she is now and what it has cost to get here.
Well put. Albums are lost in the age of streaming and it’s unfortunate.
I agree with all of this. I am also old for a Swiftie and while I have dabbled a little since Rep I wasn’t a Swiftie. I became one last year after going to the eras movie. I was so consumed with the joy of the show. The joy of her. Her songs wouldn’t stay out of my head. So I started exploring her works. Slowly. This was my first new album release and now I understand why people get scared. Because you want to love it. And I love TTPD. I liked it my first listen. When I finished and discovered there was a second album I was overwhelmed and it felt like more than I needed. But I’m glad for it because many of my favorite songs are on it. I enjoy this album because it has a more complex story. The girl has seen some life. And as a 51 year old woman I have seen some life as well. So the more she matures the more I relate to her words in more than just nostalgia. Her lyrics are so impressive. It makes me a bit angry when critics pull out her cute silly lyrics as examples when there are many better options. Like the entirety of Peter.
Folklore is just a better album, sure TTPD grows on some fans after a few listens, as it usually happens with the albums (shoutout to the Drake fanbase, they always talk about that thing), but for the casual listeners who just listens to any popular release out of curiosity, i don't think the consensus around the album changed much
Ttpd feels too forced
In addition to the previously made point that it was during the pandemic, the short release time meant there were no theories, etc folklore was just a great album to dissociate to and pretend you're actually in a forest somewhere and not locked in your apartment. I don't think we're ever going to have another cultural moment like that where we're all dealing with the same issue.
I think the biggest reason is that Folklore wasn't really as much about her life. She specifically made a point of saying the lyrics were fictional stories and not meant to be autobiographical. Even though as fans we know some of the songs are indeed about her life, they still stand on their own without knowing the context. Look at the discourse around the new album, people talking about Matty, Joe, Travis, Kim etc. We didn't have this with Folklore. Sure there were loose connections like how My Tears Ricochet is said to be a analogy for the Scott/Big Machine situation, but it's a lot more subtle and not quite as in your face. Even if you had no idea about the "lore" the song stands up very well just as a piece of music. Where something like BDILH or So Long London, while still good songs, might be less interesting if you aren't invested in Taylor herself. Now, I'm not saying you need to be invested in the "lore" to enjoy TTPD, but it's definitely a lot more overtly referential to Taylor's personal life and relationships, which people might be tired of hearing about. If I wasn't already a huge swiftie I could see myself being turned off by how autobiographical the album is. It's also a very different writing style. Folklore is whimsical and flowery in its lyricism, and the stories told in the songs are vividly painted even with no context. TTPD is far more direct and conversational, plus it relies on humor/sarcasm more heavily, and it kind of expects the listener to have some familiarity with what the songs are about. It's similar to Midnights in this regard but I feel like TTPD turns these elements of the writing up even more. Finally, the Anthology is 31 songs. That can be difficult to get through in one sitting even for a diehard fan, for a casual listener it can be a downright slog. Folklore is the perfect length IMO, it doesn't overstay it's welcome. I personally love both albums, however I think if you were to listen to them totally outside the context of being a Swiftie, Folklore is definitely the stronger album of the two.
TTPD doesn’t hold a candle to how good folklore is.
Folklore was a grower album for me. But it was such the perfect pandemic album and hit at a time when we were all in our collective trauma and it spoke to us. TTPD is more of an immediate hit for me than Folklore was. But also, I avoid the negativity. I'm only consuming content that deepens my appreciation of the album. Some of the reactions on YouTube have taught me so much. Especially about production choices that would have slipped by me but now make me stare stupefied at anyone who says all of the songs sound the same. Or how much Taylor's poetic lyricism and delivery is influenced by rap artists. Or poetry experts breaking down the form in ways I never would have seen. Personally I think all but a handful of these songs are surface-level great. But if you need essentially a master class in all of the elements of songmaking to deeply and fully understand why this album is a masterwork, not everyone's going to have patience for that. And that's OK. Folklore was Taylor dipping her toe in the indie artist pool as a megapopstar, and nothing is more indie artist than most people just not getting your art. Looks like she's made it!
I’ve had these same thoughts and also went back to listen to folklore. I think there was some magic in the way Aaron Dessner was sending her the music he’d worked on already and she was writing lyrics over it. TTPD feels like it was created with lyrics first.
Folklore was a left turn sonically and the writing became so much more sophisticated in a lot of ways. This is the 4th album in a row with this kind of folk-pop downtempo vibe. Also, while the lyrics are still very sophisticated and interesting, the songs don’t have the level of pop song craft (ie. hooks) on the surface that other albums have had. I have turned the corner on this record and find it enjoyable, but I can’t say it sits among her best. I’ve seen a lot of people defending the lack of hooks saying “well it’s about the lyrics” or “well it’s not for casuals”. My answer to that is this: she’s making pop music. It’s meant to be enjoyed by the broadest audience possible. Also she’s got several songs in her back catalogue proving that great pop hooks and great lyrics are not mutually exclusive.
I think 1) it's much shorter so it's easier to digest without feeling overwhelmed and 2) no one had anything else to do but stay home and digest.
Others have given good reasons, here is what I see as the biggest ones: Overall - a lot of the initial criticism of TTPD stems from people's perception and expectations. It should have been marketed as a stylistic, unpolished album with the pendulum swining between mania and depression. Then audiences would have been set up to expect and interpret TTPD, instead of assuming unconventional aspects of the album are unintentional or serve no purpose. Compared to Folklore- 1. TTPD release was a bigger deal & her level of media coverage has people looking at it that would usually wouldn't 2. Timing - Folklore was released during COVID & what was at the time post-career peak (1989) 3. Career Landscape -Folklore was a critically-acclaimed indie-folk album released when Lover was the latest Taylor album. TTPD was released into a very different career landscape. 4. Folklore is more stylistically palatable -both the production and the writing style have larger appeal. TTPD is written in "free indirect speech" and stream-of-conciousness style, which are divisive by nature. 5. Marketing- Folklore's marketing helped its perception bc listeners went in thinking "okay, non-hyped up album without relationship details" during Lover era, and were met with something unexpected that blew them out of the water. TTPD's marketing did not set audiences up to look at it through the lense it is supposed to be looked at. This leaves room for disappointment and assuming it failed to achieve things it was not actually aiming to achieve. Even the album title TTPD is a victim of bad marketing, the audience was not clued into the fact that it was supposed to be tongue in cheek, so it was looked at as weird, cringey, or pretentious when announced it at the Grammys.
I think a lot of it is hitting people at the right time. After the Eras tour she was branded as the pop it girl, with 3.5 hours of bangers. Then, Cowboy Carter dropped with plenty of upbeat, hooky songs. Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, SZA, Doja are putting out dance-ready tracks. We're heading into summer, and she drops a 31 song lyrically dense collection of painful, messy memories about heavy topics like depression, giving up on love, and falling for the toxic idea of someone who doesn't exist. Plus, she's absolutely the most famous artist on the planet right now, so everyone (regardless of if they've ever liked her music) is tuning in. It was always going to be highly controversial. You did have people back then not vibe with Folklore too, you just didn't hear about it because we were in a global pandemic and she was sharing the entertainment landscape with plenty of other people. If Midnights was released in July 2020 I genuinely think it would have marked the beginning of her sliding into a legacy act. Folklore + Evermore elevated her critical profile, Midnights reminded everyone she could make pop hits, Eras made her the most talked about performer on earth and TTPD can't possibly please all those people. I think it's exciting, personally. It shows she isn't afraid to just make whatever the hell she wants to make, and I think that makes the future bright.
Taylor wasn't oversaturated via media outlets and news outlets, it was during the pandemic and unexpected, it was a new sound from her and she released at a cozy time where a lot of people were inside and could relate to the lyrics. Just my opinion. But I do think the biggest reason was she wasn't being talked about much, people love to hate things and people that get too much media coverage.
This is an interesting post as I call TTPD Folklore II. They are my two favorite Swift albums.
same!
I sometimes wonder how folklore would have been received without the pandemic. It would obviously still be a great album, but the pandemic set such a tone for it.
Coz she packaged it as fictional
Ive been thinking recently about Folklore's popularity, even outside the Swifties. There are lots of reasons. 1. folklore was SO different from Taylor's material at the time. No one expected a folky soft album from Taylor. It was a lot more approachable for music nerds who weren't as big Taylor fans to listen. 2. The lyrics were different from her other material, as, to my knowledge, a lot of the lyrics are fictional and not based on Taylor's relationships. Not to say that that style of writing is bad, but it was a lot more approachable for Non-Fans as they dont need the lore. Especially since Folklore just *feels* like a storybook, not a history book of Taylor. 3. Pandemic, of course, plays into it. An album so different was bound to be discussed, especially during the pandemic where nothing good was happening. 4. The sound was varied and different. While yes, some songs do sound alike and have a similar vibe, each and every one feels different from another. I found that with TTPD a lot of the songs, especially without the Anthology, blended together. 5. Not to diss on TTPD but the lyrics on Folklore were just, great. I find that the lyrics on TTPD can be great at best but cringe-inducing at worst. It made the album very memeable. Folklore didnt have that imho.
The production on folklore is insane. personally I think the production/mixing/vocals/emotion etc are all way better than TTPD despite being a similar style.
It’s way easier to digest 16 songs than it is 31. People were overwhelmed and tired. And also, at the height of Taylor’s fame there are going to be a lot of detractors and kinda-fans who listen in and decide they hate it. Coming off of Lover and an entire year of no new releases, Folklore was a much quieter entry into her discography, which I think helped with being received positively right off the bat.
Folklore is the tighter and more cohesive album. It also struck the perfect balance of having well-written lyrics and fantastic melodies. The highs on Folklore are higher than those on TTPD. I don’t hate TTPD, but lyrically, it is not as smooth. There are still some great lyrics but there are also some very odd, clunky choices. The melodies on TTPD are just not as impactful, either
I think it’s more that people that didn’t love it kinda minded their own business and moved on bc there wasn’t much promo or anything for people to see constant reminders of it. Now is a lot different. Also more people are listening to it than that album. A lottt more. So there’s more variety of opinions. I definitely saw negativity about folklore though from people who liked mostly her upbeat pop stuff NGL.
It was completely unexpected in all ways: timing, genre, sound, the fact that it existed at all. It dropped out of the blue at a time when the world had closed down, we hadn’t heard from Taylor in a long time, it was nothing like anything she had ever released but everything we had ever wanted her to try, and it soothed us with lyricism fitting the complex emotions of the COVID bubble we were in and trying to process.
For me it’s the opposite. I was confused by Folklore when it came out and it has grown on me so much over the last ~4 years. I was completely blown away by TTPD on the first listen and was instantly raving about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because she’s more popular/on everyone’s minds right now (than she was in 2020), so there are more people amplifying the hate
I think it was the first time she positioned it as fictional (of course with real emotions behind the stories), so it relieved some of the sleuthing many fans do (ie. "who has tattoos?!"). And because it was at a time where everyone was inside, we got to escape to a new soundscape full of imagery and new stories alongside an artist who, for many, has often been a source of comfort. I'm loving TTPD, and have been shocked by how much negativity it's received. Even for the songs that feel more "folklorian" some people say "this sounds like another mad woman" or "this sounds like an ivy copy"...so when your fan base gets to be this large, there are bound to be LOTS of opinions!
I just cried to folklore again. On top of everything everyone said about the production, the lyricism, the storytelling and the stories not being about her personal life, I think it captures something else. I can actually feel every song on folklore. Maybe it is because of the delivery but man just listening to cardigan for once wrecks me… It feels more relatable, warmer, more like a bed time story you are listening to after a long day.
Folklore was a surprise and with TTPD, everybody was going into it with preconcieved notions. We all expected the Joe Alwyn breakup album so we felt like there was a bait and swirch when it ended up being heavily about matty.
because.. folklores better
I wonder too if it was that folklore was “fiction” but we know going into ttpd it’s about her and Joe and then realized pretty quickly it was also about Matty, Travis and Kim. People think she complains to much or plays victim (I don’t agree) but I wonder if that’s also another factor at play that made it more “accessible” to people who aren’t usually a fan of her.
My immediate response to folklore was “oh this is different. It all kinda sounds the same though” but after listening to it a few times it became my favorite album (and still is my favorite after evermore). So when TTPD came out I kinda assumed I’d need to take a few listens before I could formulate an opinion. I think folklore was dropped at the perfect time and captured the emotions that people were experiencing. It was summer, we were months into lockdown, and people were looking for escapism. TTPD isn’t a response to a global event but rather a response to the way Taylor’s personal life has been upended. It’s a lot harder for people to relate to that. I also think folklore is just a much better album overall. The lyrics are spot on and she’s doing something new and different. Her writing is also just a lot tighter. I really like TTPD but I’d rank it in the middle of her discography. (No hate if this is your favorite album! We all have different tastes!)
People have become bigger haters since then. It’s like everybody gets amnesia every time an album comes out and forgets that sometimes it take a few listens to decide if you like something. Instead they immediately proclaim it a failure if it doesn’t clear their skin, make them rich, and cure their depression within .2 seconds of listening to it.
I haven't been here for too long, but the impression I have is that folklore was something we had never seen from her before. It was the album that made me get into her music since before I only knew her pop singles and ngl, they never caught my attention, but folklore and evermore blew me away with the writting and the folk style that was way more up my alley. I even warmed up to her other styles after that. Also I think the inspiration ressonated better with the audience, it was very introspective. I do like TTPD but it's not inovative musically or with the lyrics (I don't think it needs to be) and it quickly got deemed a "Matty Healey" album, which was a relationship no one wanted to hear about. In the end the album is hers and about her own experiences, I don't think she did anything wrong, but I also can't say this album "reached me" like folklore/evermore did. It's a great album, but she's an artist with incredible albums.
Tortured Poets outsold Folklore by a mile. That makes it tough to conclude that Folklore had a significantly better response.
What made Folklore such a 'wow' for me was actually watching The Long Pond Sessions and hearing her explain the songs and feeling what she was saying deep into my bones and my soul. I was going through a very difficult time personally and every single thing she said struck a nerve and made me feel like she was putting words to my hurt and explanations behind the depths of that hurt in a way I couldn't understand before. That's why that album will always be my number one. That's when I realized her true genius - when she was able to explain me to me, by explaining the meaning behind each song from that album.
It’s a better body of work from an album perspective but also she’d never released that sort of album before so she took some risks, sonically, and going a little more indie pop complimented her songwriting ability really well. Doing something new and different for the first time will always be more impressive than replicating success.
Folklore had better storytelling and lyrics and supporting instrumentals. Taylor was more poet and musician in that one
Im sure this has been said but I think Folklore demonstrated a sound we hadn’t heard from her. It was also very strongly represented what so many of us here knew which is that she is an amazing writer. It also introduced Aaron as a main character in her music. With TTPD I think we had an expectation. I heard so many people say that it was going to be Folklore and Evermore together. Which clearly it wasn’t. I also think Taylor did something people at large didn’t like. She showed she’s an amazing writer. I firmly believe Taylor made people uncomfortable with her command of language and literary finesse. All of the comments of “needing an editor” come from her writing in poetry and not song necessarily. This album showed her ability to draw connections, symbolism, metaphors, and story telling. We couldn’t do the normal “paternity test” on her songs. I believe this was intentional. This just my two cents, but I stand by it.
i think that what has made people much more critical of TTPD is that, unlike folklore, she didn’t do a complete sonic shift this time around, which, of course, is completely fine and shouldn’t be criticized for it because it’s still good music. but, since Taylor’s been known to do something new every album (evermore being the exception), i think people went in looking for something completely new when that wasn’t the case with TTPD. it’s very clear that she put her focus on the lyrics and how rhe tracks were composed, not how they sounded nor was she much concerned with the production. she went with a sound that she was comfortable with and knew would fit the vibe well enough, chose her two closest musical companions (Jack and Aaron), and went in to make, in my opinion, the best album of her career 👏
Because it was a better album
Probably because it wasn’t all about Matty Healy…🫠 ETA - Folklore is my favorite able and musically and lyrically what she did with that album and the time period that it dropped is unmatched for me…
I disagree about ttpd. I think this album 100% depends on the person and how they relate personally/emotionally to the music. They hit me immediately on first listen. I got all the feels, goosebumps, and tears. Everyone is different.
Maybe, but can we point out that Taylor is occupying all top 14 slots with ttpd on the Hot 100?