Taylor Swift - evermore (Review)
11th December 2020
Republic
My Rating:
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4.1
/10
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REVIEW
Taylor Swift returning with a second quarantine album just a few months after the last was unexpected for sure, but I would be lying if I called it a surprise, more and more artists focused on releasing music as soon as possible, with big names like Taylor Swift only just coming to acknowledge the importance of quantity in the new decade.
According to Swift herself, the songs on evermore were written and recorded in parallel to those on her last album folklore, but she had enough material to fill two albums and so, that's what she did! Now, the primary concern many people have with this is that evermore comes across as a collection of B-sides, of tracks that weren't good enough for the first album, a criticism that's only reinforced by Taylor herself referring to this as a "sister album"... and for as much as all that is true, these albums do have distinctly different sounds.
Firstly, yes both of these albums are pivots towards indie folk, although on evermore there is a more organic palette, and the country music influence is to be felt far more prominently, the mystical allure of folklore replaced with far more grounded themes, Taylor's long-overlooked alcoholism coming to the forefront of songs like "champagne problems", easily one of the album's greatest highlights - and yet, for as much as I appreciate all this, evermore doesn't feel like a step forward for Taylor's career like the last two albums have, instead sidestepping into territory I would argue suits Taylor better, but territory that she hasn't yet fully integrated with.
This brings up an issue many of the Internet's proudly pretentious music gatekeepers have been highlighting: the notion that Taylor Swift is "cosplaying indie", that she's wrapping herself up in genre's blanket, surrounding herself by its established members, but she's using it for herself without committing to learning how that blanket was made. And, annoyingly, they have a point. When Taylor Swift is working with The National on making songs that sound like The National, the question has to be asked - why not just listen to The National. The answer to that would surely be Taylor's writing, indeed, it was the only thing holding her last album together, and yet here on evermore I find an abundance of instances in which her writing actually fails the music.
Take the track "no body, no crime", a fascinating take on the classic country murder ballad, a song with twisted perspectives and the album's strongest chorus (with bonus points for changing each time, now THAT'S how you impress me as a writer), and yet, it all falls apart at the bridge. Taylor Swift fans please bear with me. See, Taylor is renown for her good writing, her fans taking particular pleasure in commending the bridges in her songs, the way she's able to take you into the final chorus and find the apex of that song's emotion is always a joy.
Or it was.
Things started to go wrong with "Shake It Off", the lead single of her album 1989. Taylor performs one of the cringiest, most forced rap verses a popstar has ever attempted, and it ruins the song. Similar things have happened in subsequent lead singles, with "Look What You Made Me Do" and "ME!" both featuring similar letdowns when it was time for a bridge, but this was a problem I assumed would be removed by her new folk stylings; however, on "no body, no crime", the problem is restored. The bridge reveals that the narrator had a part to play in the murder, but rather than getting as gritty as this song desperately needed to be Taylor gets featured artist HAIM to drop in a an out of place "she was with me dude", breaking the illusion of the story and become yet more stupid as Taylor tries to force the phrase "a big life insurance policy", as the final, climactic line before the chorus.
It's issues like these that create a solid wall between the album it is and the album it wants to be, Taylor's old antics managing to damage the foundations of the music enough to prevent this from succeeding, this singular issue compounded by another overlong runtime, overstuffed tracklist and an overly homogenous sound throughout. The only track that does try to stand out (closure) doing so with an ugly dive into some more forward thinking percussion... and it does not suit Taylor's style one bit. She had something good here, but once more I'm left cold to the album, wishing she'd just accept the fact that a shorter tracklist and a deeper dive into the sound could solve all her problems.
BEST TRACKS
champagne problems; gold rush; marjorie
WORST TRACKS
'tis the damn season; closure; long story short
BREAKDOWN
Ambition: 3
Atmosphere: 4
Catchiness/Enjoyability: 4
Content/Ideas: 3
Emotion/Engaging: 5
Execution: 2
Production: 5
Structure: 4
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Lyrics: 5
Vocals/Flows: 6
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Total: 41
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