Quality and talent comments aside, what really makes folklore click and smash like this?

 

The albums feels like a lowkey Fearless / 1989 type of commercial peak with minimal promo and effort.

 

And why hasn’t the arguably better album evermore seen a similar success and longevity despite the closely similar lyrical content and soundscape?

 

What’s the album’s X factor?

Edited October 6, 20224 yr by Taylor fanboy

The stories she's telling. People just love the hell out of that Cardigan-August-Betty love triangle. 

Now on evermore, it tells even better stories but the melodies are just so bad. Like, who want to sit and listen to Dorothea, Tolerate It, and Happines? Bad bad bad melodies despite the good lyrics. 

7 minutes ago, Juanny said:

Generally it is seen as her magnum opus by majority of her fanbase and is hr most acclaimed album, rightfully. Its X Factor is quality music. 

So its sheep mentality because metacritic said so?

 

X factor can’t be “quality”, there are several albums with “quality” that are not seeing folklore numbers ie NFR!

It was amazing writing at the perfect time — a time when we were all locked indoors and forced to reflect on ourselves and our world.

1 minute ago, WeFoundTrouble said:

It was amazing writing at the perfect time — a time when we were all locked indoors and forced to reflect on ourselves and our world.

the best pandemic album. People will always associate it with the pandemic.

It's the album anticipated by most people from Taylor Swift

stripped down, raw emotion, classy poetic lyric

very songwriter-ish, storytelling at its finest, crafted in polished production

 

after years of shifting from Country to Pop era, we want to hear her honest songwriting again

and she finally delievered it with folklore

1 minute ago, Safe&Sound said:

It's the album anticipated by most people from Taylor Swift

stripped down, raw emotion, classy poetic lyric

very songwriter-ish, storytelling at its finest, crafted in polished production

 

after years of shifting from Country to Pop era, we want to hear her honest songwriting again

and she finally delievered it with folklore

tea. add to that the novelty of the pandemic surprise drop and cultural impact and there we go.

The stories, the vibe, her mesmerizing vocals, all was well meshed and crafted at the perfect time. I don't think the album could've been as magical or amazing as it is if it was released any other year. It was released when it had to.

the timing couldn't have been more perfect, it was a moment

33 minutes ago, WeFoundTrouble said:

It was amazing writing at the perfect time — a time when we were all locked indoors and forced to reflect on ourselves and our world.

.

Perfect album, vibe, moment, storytelling, pivot, strategic pivot, execution etc.

1 hour ago, Badgalbriel said:

The stories she's telling. People just love the hell out of that Cardigan-August-Betty love triangle. 

Now on evermore, it tells even better stories but the melodies are just so bad. Like, who want to sit and listen to Dorothea, Tolerate It, and Happines? Bad bad bad melodies despite the good lyrics. 

What kind of awful taste is that?? Happiness alone is a MASTERPIECE 

1 hour ago, Taylor fanboy said:

So its sheep mentality because metacritic said so?

 

X factor can’t be “quality”, there are several albums with “quality” that are not seeing folklore numbers ie NFR!

Several "quality" albums don't have an artist behind that has the omnipresence Taylor has in the industry, it's impossible to compare. It smashed the way it did because it's highly regarded as Taylor's best and most mature album and came out at the perfect moment in times of isolation due to quarantine.

47 minutes ago, Enrique523 said:

What kind of awful taste is that?? Happiness alone is a MASTERPIECE 

I love the lyrics girl. It just lacks everything else that makes a song good.

Aaron Dessner.

 

Tolerate It has one of her most beautiful melodies btw.

It's the exact album she needed at that point in her career and it came at the exact right time. It also contains the 1-2-3 punch of mirrorball-seven-august. That's history. 

2 hours ago, Badgalbriel said:

I love the lyrics girl. It just lacks everything else that makes a song good.

Fair enough 

Talent

It’s her best album