The songs in Folklore are mellow compared to the usual Taylor Swift fare. (Photo: Taylor Swift/YouTube)

Pop star Taylor Swift has unveiled Folklore. This is her first album this year and her eighth studio album. Swift also released music videos and lyric videos of the tracks from the album.

The songs in the album are mellow compared to the usual Swift fare. Folklore is a considerable departure from her last album Lover.

The songs and the album as a whole are pretty great if you are not a fan of what the artiste has been churning out for a while. Even if you liked those songs, I am pretty sure you will find a lot to love in what Taylor Swift has managed while confined to her place amid the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

My favourite song is “Cardigan”. In the music video of the song, Swift can be seen playing a piano in a comfortable looking room with a fireplace in one corner. The scene transforms to a jungle and Swift is still playing a piano, but now she is ensconced on a promontory amid dense trees.

Taylor Swift shared on social media accounts how the album came to be. Her inspirations are as interesting and as varied as her songs. She wrote, quite poetically, “It started with imagery. Visuals that popped into my mind and piqued my curiosity. Stars drawn around scars. A cardigan that still bears the scent of loss twenty years later. Battleships sinking into the ocean, down, down, down. The tree swing in the woods of my childhood.”

She concluded her note by saying, “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. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down.”

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