Taylor Swift - Folklore: In The Trees (Deluxe Edition)

Taylor Swift was supposed to spend the summer of 2020 touring songs from Lover, the album she put out in August 2019. Instead, like most of the world, she wound up cooped up at home. The isolation seems to have sparked her creativity, leading her to write and record an entirely new record in collaboration with producers Jack Antonoff and The National's Aaron Dessner. Folklore is a big left turn in style and subject matter; it also earned Swift some of the best reviews of her career.

The 16 songs on Folklore are recognizably her work, bearing telltale melodic phrases and a reliance on finely honed narratives that turn on exquisitely rendered lyrical details. Still, the vibe of the album is notably different. Sweetness has ripened into bittersweet beauty, regret has mellowed into a wistful sigh, the melodies don't clamour for attention but seep their way into the subconscious. It’s especially apparent on folklore, where the production is more minimal than she typically goes for. Her words rise above the sparse pianos, moody guitars, and sweeping orchestration, as quotable as ever.

Folklore asserts something that has been true from the start of Taylor Swift’s career: Her biggest strength is her storytelling, her well-honed songwriting craft meeting the vivid whimsy of her imagination; the music these stories are set to is subject to change, so long as it can be rooted in these traditions. You can tell that this is what drives Swift by the way she molds her songs: cramming specific details into curious cadences, bending the lines to her will.

Highlights include "Cardigan", "August" and "Exile".

Limited 'in the trees' BEIGE double vinyl edition produced by Republic Records in 2020. Includes the bonus track "The Lakes". Gatefold sleeve. 

TRACKLISTING:
1. The 1
2. Cardigan
3. The Last Great American Dynasty
4. Exile (feat. Bon Iver)
5. My Tears Ricochet
6. Mirrorball
7. Seven 
8. August
9. This Is Me Trying
10. Illicit Affairs
11. Invisible String
12. Mad Woman
13. Epiphany
14. Betty
15. Peace
16. Hoax
17. The Lakes