Why Taylor Swift's second surprise album 'Evermore' is 'Folklore's' cooler little 'sister': Review
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Taylor Swift wasn’t the only artist to put out a “quarantine album” in 2020; pop polymath Charli XCX, British retro-rockers the Struts, and even Paul McCartney, whose home recording McCartney III drops next week, all found inspiration in isolation this year. But it was the inward-looking Americana of Swift’s Folklore, released in July, that truly captured the Zeitgeist — and the acclaim, earning five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year, and landing on dozens of year-end critics’ lists.
Now, as 2020 comes to a close, Swift seems to show no signs of succumbing to COVID fatigue, surprise-dropping Evermore, Folklore’s “sister record,” because — as she explained in a passionate Instagram post announcing the album mere hours before its release — she “just couldn’t stop writing songs.”
The album, which reunites Swift with her Folklore collaborators Aaron Dessner (who produced 14 of the 15 tracks), Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and fun., and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, is more of a little sister to Folklore — lighter, looser, vibey-er, even a bit scrappier. But that is in fact Evermore’s charm.
For instance, “No Body, No Crime,” featuring Swift’s longtime squad members and fellow Album of the Year nominees HAIM, is a delicious murder ballad/revenge story-song, a la the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” or Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” with a loping beat reminiscent of Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” and a witchy chorus that oddly sounds like a country-rock update of Alice Cooper’s “Poison.” Elsewhere, there’s the spirited and sparkling folk-pop finger-picker “Willow,” while “Long Story Short” winningly pairs Max Martinesque 1989 powerpop with Kid A glitch, and the cheeky “‘Tis the Damn Season,” about going home for the holidays and hooking up with an old flame, seems like a theme song for a Hallmark Christmas rom-com, albeit an R-rated one with an unhappy ending.
Of course, Swift is still penning relatable breakup ballads, like “Happiness,” about the struggle to move on from a doomed relationship (“I can't face reinvention/I haven't met the new me yet,” she laments); that theme is revisited in “Coney Island,” an absolutely gorgeous, wintry chamber-pop duet with Dessner’s indie band, the National. “Champagne Problems” is another heartbreaker, a raw account of a college sweetheart’s rejected marriage proposal. (That song was co-written by Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, under his pseudonym William Bowery, though Swift has debunked the fan theory that it’s about their secret and/or broken engagement. Many of Evermore’s songs are works of fiction, character studies of sorts, but that hasn’t stopped intrepid Swifties from Easter egg-hunting and speculating about the possible real-life inspirations for Swift’s “imaginary/not imaginary tales” — namely that the “wrong guy” during a “bad time” in “Long Story Short” is Swift’s ex, Tom Hiddleston.)
However, Evermore’s most poignant track is about a different sort of goodbye: “Marjorie,” an ode to Swift’s beloved grandmother, who died in 2003. As Swift regretfully croons, “I should've asked you questions/I should've asked you how to be/Asked you to write it down for me/Should've kept every grocery store receipt/'Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me” — against a hazy, vintage audio bed of the actual Marjorie’s opera singing — the effect is devastating, especially in this year of unspeakable loss.
It remains to be seen if music critics will be scrambling to revise their above-mentioned best-of-2020 lists to accommodate a last-minute Evermore addition, or if Evermore will be as recognized as its big sister, Folklore, when it comes time to announce the nominations for the 2022 Grammy Awards. But regardless, it’s clear that by choosing to musically “travel further into the forest” of the “folklorian woods” this year, Swift has created another instant quarantine classic. “I have no idea what will come next. I have no idea about a lot of things these days and so I’ve clung to the one thing that keeps me connected to you all. That thing always has and always will be music,” she posted on Instagram early Friday morning. “And may it continue, evermore.”
Download/stream Evermore on Apple Music.
Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:
Fans think Taylor Swift created a fake band — fronted by her brother! — to get back at Scooter Braun
Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, Spotify.
