It is not quite new music but I’m really enjoying this album, evermore, it feels like just really good song writing from newly awakened potty mouthed, indie goth (no, really!) Taylor Swift. The whole album appears to be a continuation of folklore, in a good way. The tracks are mainly narrative songs, full of scars and lessons learnt and warm beds. Many of the tracks have lengthy lyrics and this affords complexity and structure and there is clearly a lot of passion here. I’m listening on headphones whilst I’m tapping away, so I’m in and out of it but the occasional lyric just grabs you, for example, in happiness:

There’ll be happiness after me,
But there was happiness because of me,
Both of these things I believe,
There is happiness,
In our history.

Taylor Swift’s continued collaboration with guitarist Aaron Dessner from The National is interesting as it seems stripped back even more after her reboot with Lover which followed the dreadfully over produced Reputation where everything seemed to be a bit of a car crash artistically. Taylor Swift, ever prolific, reminds me of Ryan Adams as a lyricist. Always with something interesting to say and reflect on. It was noteworthy when an emotionally broken Ryan Adams recorded his own version of Taylor’s 1989, possibly her lyrical, artistic and emotional high. Folklore and evermore these last 12 months will live on a lot longer than Reputation, that’s for sure. I note that Taylor Swift has been the topped the biggest selling album of the year for a record fifth time, what an achievement.

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Track Ratings

willow 03:34 ****
champagne problems 04:04 *****
gold rush 03:05 ***** (5*)
‘tis the damn season 03:49 ****
tolerate it 04:05 ****
no body, no crime (feat. HAIM) 03:35 ****
happiness 05:15 ****
dorothea 03:45 ****
coney island (feat. The National) 04:35 ****
ivy 04:20 ***
cowboy like me 04:35 ***
long story short 03:35 ****
marjorie 04:17 ****
closure 03:00 *****
evermore (feat. Bon Iver) *****
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Album – evermore
Artist – Taylor Swift
Label – N/A
Released – 10 December 2020
Download These At Least – evermore, happiness, gold rush
Source – Qobuz, 24 bit, 88.2kHz
Player – Qobuz Desktop on Dell XPS
Amplification – Questyle CMA 400i Headphone amplifier
Output – Focal for Bentley, Radiance headphones and Oppo PM-2 headphones
Cables – Atlas Mavros USB with GRUN and Atlas Zeno headphone cable on the PM-2s
Tracks – 15
Time – 1h 00m 38s
My Rating – 4.1 not bad out of 5