Musicscape.
While I commend Aaron Dessner for his writing and performance on Folklore, his most recent film score, the difficulty I find listening to it, sans the vocals, is that it seems to be a derivative of his work on the film Big Sur. While Big Sur packed an emotional punch, Folklore feels more like something that should be playing in the background of a movie theater’s lobby.
It turns out that Taylor Swift is also on this album as a singer and lyricist.
Spoiler Alert: As you’d expect, this critique reveals the music.
Plot
Cardigan
Most music is intended to tell a story. Instead, Cardigan paints a picture of a vague feeling that Lana Del Rey might have had before she discarded her cardigan and wrote Blue Jeans with Emile Haynie and Dan Heath. It’s the difference between simply creating a musicscape and actual music storytelling. Cardigan is the musical shadow that follows around Blue Jeans.
Then there’s Swift’s lyrics and vocals. There was the potential for her to elevate Dessner’s musicscape into an actual song the way that Bob Dylan elevates his music into a story through his lyrics. Sadly, Swift simply jumps on board with Dessner and adds lyrics with a vague notion of saying something without saying anything at all.
But I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss
I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs
The smell of smoke would hang around this long
‘Cause I knew everything when I was young
I knew I’d curse you for the longest time
Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line
I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired
There can’t be an antagonist who misses a thrill when there wasn’t a thrill to begin with.
Folklore
That’s really the shame of Cardigan and by extension, Folklore. It’s a great concept on paper–an inspired project by Swift which was taken to a new level since almost everyone on Folklore had to work remotely because of COVID-19.
Sadly, it doesn’t work.
I’m confident that the Taylor Swift haters gonna hate crew will disagree with everything I just wrote. The thing is, I’m actually a fan of Swift and her potential as an artist.
But what she really needs to do, if for no-one else but herself, is to dig deep. Really deep.
Collaboration is fine, but seek out collaborators who are both off-the-radar and who have a reputation for digging deep. For not settling. But instead, find one of the few who asks the really uncomfortable questions about human nature from an individual’s perspective. Then take a year or four and write with that person until you’re crying from anger, shame, and joy.
If that happens, we’ll finally have the first Taylor Swift album from her new era that achieves what many of us suspect she’s capable of achieving as an artist.
Directing
It’s Swift’s concept and production based on a musicscape by Aaron Dessner.
Sparkly Stuff
As you’d expect, the roughness has been honed to a gleam. Nothing out of the ordinary for an artist with the resources that Swift has.
Ending
Is there hope for Swift as a growing artist? Yes. But it will only come by jettisoning her current process of co-writing with the same ferocity she discarded Scooter Braun.
Real Cole Johnston Score
2 Stars out of 5. A facsimile.
Photo by Jonathan Zerger