CREATIVE RESEARCH
Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album, folklore, was released on July 24, 2020. It was a surprise release, as she announced it and revealed the album would drop that day at midnight. The album has been extremely successful. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts. Just recently, folklore won Album of the Year at the Grammys. She wrote these songs during quarantine, along with the help of some other musicians. Her collaborators include Aaron Dessner, who was a co-writer and producer, Bon Iver, who was a co-writer and featured on the song “exile”, William Bowery, who was a co-writer, and Jack Antonoff, who was a co-writer and producer. The album consists of sixteen songs, as well as a bonus track.
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The album cover was shot by a photographer named Beth Garrabrant. She currently lives in Austin, Texas, but she grew up in Connecticut and Illinois. This is an important part of her story as much of her work focuses on her upbringing and girlhood. She showcases teenagers and the environments that they grow up in. She also honors her childhood by portraying towns, like the one she grew up in, in many of her photographs. After university, she moved to New York City to work as a photographer. Some of her past clients include Teen Vogue, Netflix, Disney, Nike, and Elle.
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Even though she has worked with musicians in the past, this was the first time she shot an album cover. Going into the photoshoot, Taylor Swift had a distinct idea of what she wanted the album to look like. It was her idea to have the photo be in black-and-white and to have it be shot on film. Beth Garrabrant mainly shoots on film and that is what the album cover was shot on. Some of Garrabrant’s other work includes photos for Netflix’s series I Am Not Okay With This. The show explores the lives of teenagers, which lines up with many of the themes that Garrabrant’s work showcases. In addition, Garrabrant also shot the album cover for Taylor Swift’s ninth studio album, evermore. This album was released in December as a sister album to folklore, meant to be a continuation of this new world Swift unlocked. The album cover still featured a landscape of nature, but it was in color instead of black-and-white to represent the change and maturing between the two albums.
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The album cover provides a beautiful visual representation of the songs of folklore. The photo portrays a mystical and fairytale-like world. The location of the photograph and the fact that it is in black-and-white helps to create this folktale theme. The woods are often associated with storytelling and allude to the idea that she is exploring a new world. In addition, she appears quite small in the photograph, showcasing the magic of the world she is surrounded by. The photograph feels inviting, urging fans to come explore the woods along with her. The name of the album, folklore, also adds to the idea that this is a collection of stories. That is what this entire album is about, telling stories. These songs are different from those of her previous albums. Previously, she wrote exclusively about her own life and experiences. However, folklore features stories and characters that are almost entirely made up. When she announced the release of the album, she posted a letter to her fans to explain the meaning and reasoning behind these songs. She wrote that, “I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t”.
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The most prominent story that is present throughout the album is one of a teenage love triangle. She has created three characters that sing to each other, Betty, James, and Inez. The story Taylor Swift tells is about how Betty and James were in a relationship, but he was not fully committed to her. Instead, he connected with Inez, but ended up trying to win Betty back. The song “cardigan”, which had a music video released the same day as the album, is sung from Betty’s perspective. She is singing to James about how he has hurt her and made her feel tossed aside. The track “august” is Inez singing to James about how she is also hurt by him. He strung her along but ultimately was not committed to her as he still had feelings for Betty. James sings to Betty in the song “betty” as he apologizes and expresses that he wants her back. This aspect of storytelling that is present throughout the album is perfectly represented by the cover art. She is telling her own fairytales, which the album cover suggests. This love triangle is meant to be her version of a folktale passed on through these songs. Listening to this music is an escape into the new world that Taylor Swift has created, which is visualised in the album cover.
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This album also has significance in the time of the pandemic. The album cover portrays Taylor Swift standing alone in the middle of nowhere. Everyone has been forced to stay home and many are longing to escape to a place where they can simply be free without any worry of sick people being around. The woods is a representation of the freedom that this album can provide. Even while we are all stuck at home, listening to folklore allows us to escape to the world that Taylor Swift has created and forget about all of the worries present in our universe right now. In her letter, she also noted that the pandemic was a large part of the reason this album was written. “In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory.” This album was not only an escape for her as a songwriter, but also for her fans as listeners. The stories she tells allowed her fans to momentarily forget about the horrible events we are living through while trying to understand the different intricacies and details of the folktales present in the album.
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I truly do connect with this album. I have been listening to Taylor Swift since I was young, and I am very excited for the direction that her music is going in. The album feels like an old record that can be played time and time again. The music is timeless, and the album cover perfectly portrays that. I believe that Taylor Swift’s greatest strength is her songwriting. This album particularly showcases her talent as a songwriter. Not every musician is able to write authentic music that is based on made up characters and stories. With each song I listen to, I feel as though I am getting a lesson in songwriting. I have also really enjoyed being able to escape to the fictional universe she has created. It has been a pleasure to read about all of the theories in the stories being told, connecting songs together. Overall, I think folklore is one of Taylor Swift’s best albums and I look forward to all of the new music she releases in the future.
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Works Cited
“Folklore (Taylor Swift Album).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore_(Taylor_Swift_album).
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Garrabrant, Beth. Beth Garrabrant, www.bethgarrabrant.com/about.
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Morin, Natalie. “Who Is Betty? An Official Taylor Swift Folklore Investigation.” Refinery29, 27 July 2020, www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/07/9934276/who-is-betty-taylor-swift-folklore-about-meaning.
Passerbuys. “Meet Beth Garrabrant.” Passerbuys, Passerbuys, 1 June 2019, www.passerbuys.com/profiles/beth-garrabrant.
Whitfield, Zoe. “Meet the Photographer behind Taylor Swift's Folklore Artwork.” i-D, Vice, 24 Sept. 2020, i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/z3ed8e/beth-garrabrant-photographer-behind-taylor-swift-folklore-artwork.
YouTube Links:
“betty”: https://youtu.be/6TAPqXkZW_I
“cardigan”: https://youtu.be/zLSUp53y-HQ
“august”: https://youtu.be/nn_0zPAfyo8