SWIFT CAN'T HELP HERSELF
Singer-songwriter gives her fans a hug in the form of another album this year
Evermore
Taylor Swift
Republic Records
So here's another Taylor Swift album. Funny, right? Near the end of a catastrophic pandemic year, as our days continue to fuse into limbo-shaped weeks, there's some real cosmic comedy in spontaneously releasing twin blockbusters within the space of five months.
Too bad Swift doesn't really do humour. As a songwriter, her sincerity is congenital, and she seems to be sending us this cosy new bundle of songs — 15 of them, titled Evermore — not as a dizzying meta-comment on cultural mindshare, but as a simple gesture of generosity and goodwill. It all ends up feeling like a hug that lasts too long.
Evermore is the esthetic sequel to Folklore, an album released after a 16-hour heads-up in late July to resounding acclaim. Neato, boffo. The best thing about Folklore, however, was that it sounded surprising, too — its clean, quiet spaciousness giving Swift's modest voice the opportunity to glow warmer and brighter than the bells and whistles that had been clanging and trilling in her songs since 2012's Red.
On Evermore, the cleanest shot to the heart comes during Marjorie, an ode to Swift's late maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay. “What died didn't stay dead,” Swift sings over Kleenex-soft tufts of piano and plucked strings. “You're alive, you're alive in my head.” Any time Swift sings about family, listen closely because that's when her songwriting reaches its most undeniable state of grace. As a superstar tasked with creating relatable pop songs, she knows everyone has a bloodline to grieve.
The cruel twist here is that Swift's greatest songs will always remind you how not-as-great the others are — and while Marjorie appears deep enough in the track list to nearly wipe your mind clean of the dozen songs that came before it, there's no forgetting the lyrical wackness that befouls this album, including, “I come back stronger than a '90s trend,” and “My eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head,” and “We were like the mall before the internet.”
How are we supposed to square those lines with Swift's reputation as a songwriting giant? And let's stop referring to Swift's 2020 output as “indie.” Isn't that just a way of make-believing your tastes aren't typical?
As this pandemic continues to affect the livelihoods of countless independent musicians, Swift has sold more albums this calendar year than anyone else on Earth. It might be fun to hear her play the underdog in her songs, but don't let the flannel get pulled over your eyes: She is one of the biggest beneficiaries of a music industry system that could not care less about the well-being of “indie” musicians right now.